In every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without actively retconnng away the previous story. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

This one is a tricky edition of this column, as really, what is going on here might actually just be a case of writers not communicating on what they were supposed to be conveying in their respective stories. For instance, during Civil War, depending on the comic book that you were reading, your views of how messed up Iron Man and Mister Fantastic were would be wildly different. So the issue here might simply be that there was not a clear guide of what was supposed to happen in these Fantastic Four issues. So, rather than these issues being "abandoned," per se, they might have just been ignored. It's a small distinction, but it's notable enough that I figured I should point it out.

In addition, there is at least an argument to be made that the events of these Fantastic Four issues weren't inherently abandoned by the Illuminati story that follows, but boy, if not, then something got SERIOUSLY lost in translation.

Okay, that is already way too much preamble, so let us take a look at the storyline that took place in Fantastic Four #533-535 (by J. Michael Straczynski, Mike McKone and Andy Lanning).

The story kicks off with the Hulk being enlisted by SHIELD to clear out a cache of Hydra weapons hidden in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The Hulk investigates and discovers a small Gamma Bomb. It goes off, killing a bunch of SHIELD agents but having a strange effect on the Hulk...

It transformed the Hulk into a bigger version of himself and it also made him lose touch with reality and become very "Hulk Smash" like...

In the next issue, we see the Hulk go through his life in visions that are clouding his thoughts. He finds his way to Las Vegas, but note that his arrival there is played for laughs...

He goes into a hospital and doesn't seem to do any damage. Once outside, the Human Torch tells everyone to clear out...

It really seems like a standard superhero vs. superhero fight, right? Pedestrians just running out of the way of debris and stuff like that.

In the next issue, Ben tries to reason with the Hulk, to no avail...

But still, the fight is being handled for comedy, with the Vegas residents turning the fight into something that they can bet on...

Eventually, Johnny's Nova Flame allows the Hulk to burn through the excess radiation that has clouded his mind. He apologizes...

Ben and the Hulk then hang out and talk with each other. It sure doesn't seem like the Hulk has killed a bunch of people here, right?

The end of the issue, though, shows hints of what is to come when Johnny jokes about sending the Hulk into outer space and Reed does not laugh.

So, that's what happened in Las Vegas....or IS it?

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='What%20REALLY%20Happened!']

In New Avengers: Illuminati #1 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev), we now learn that the Hulk killed 26 people and a dog in his Las Vegas rampage, and that is the impetus behind the Illuminati deciding to launch him into outer space (which I just wrote about the other day)...

Isn't that an interesting how the two stories really don't seem to relate that well with each other? The Fantastic Four story sure doesn't seem like 26 people, including CHILDREN, were killed during the Hulk's rampage, right? It's fascinating to watch the stories interrelate in this way, as the Illuminati story, in effect, "abandons" the more traditional superhero story from the Fantastic Four story and makes it into a more modern "if superheroes were real, it would lead to so much death" approach that we saw a lot of in the Civil War era.

If anyone else has a suggestion for a future Abandoned Love, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!