WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s Immortal Hulk #4, on sale now.


Marvel Comics has long been teasing the death of Walter Langkowski, the human persona attached to the Alpha Flight superhero Sasquatch, in Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s Immortal Hulk #4. The hero’s demise was all but assured in a solicitation back in May, which led many to believe that the story would spell the end for not just Walter, but also Sasquatch.

Last week, we theorized that, given Immortal Hulk’s current trajectory towards becoming a full-blown Victorian horror story, the issue might spell death for Walter while leaving Sasquatch unscathed. Now, Immortal Hulk #4 has been released and we’re doing a private little victory dance because the space diplomat is dead, but the beast is on the loose.

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The story starts back in Immortal Hulk #3, in which the Jade Giant shut down a rampaging Hotshot, former member of the classic Hulk villain team Riot Squad. Over the course of covering the events, journalist Jacqueline McGee gets a call from Walter, who wants to help her track down Bruce Banner. In Immortal Hulk #4, the two finally meet up.

In any other comic, this would be grounds to expect an epic showdown between Hulk and Sasquatch. The issue’s cover even teased as much, but that’s not what we get. Instead, we get a very human story about fear, ambiguity and random violence.

Things start to go south the moment Walter and Jacqueline enter Minnesota, the location of Hulk’s latest vigilante beatdown -- it’s a meth dealer this time around. While the two are in transit, Walter regales Jacqueline with stories of Bruce’s college days, casting the former Avenger in a rather unflattering light.

Walter’s boasts are put to the test when he tries to break up a bar fight while gathering intel on the Hulk’s movements. Things go extremely poorly for the superhero and ex-football player -- he gets stabbed in the back (literally) and sent to the emergency room. The doctors do everything to save his life, but it’s no good. Walter Langkowski, respected superhero and Canada’s answer to the Hulk, dies on the operating table.

But Sasquatch does not.

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The issue is full of little interesting tidbits about Walter and some of the subtle decisions he makes. One of those decisions stretches back to the end of Immortal Hulk #3, when Walter admits that he wants to find Bruce because “there’s something I want him to look at” and that he needs Bruce’s “particular expertise.”

This may factor into one of Immortal Hulk #4’s biggest mysteries, which is why Walter didn’t turn into Sasquatch when he was stabbed. Historically, the main method of recourse for gamma-afflicted people when put in harm’s way is to, for the lack of a better term, hulk out. Walter’s decision not to do so (or his inability) is yet another indication that things are not all well in the world of those changed by gamma radiation.

Walter reassures Jacqueline that Tanaraq, the Great Beast that originally slipped from its own dimension to bond with him during his gamma experiment, is dead, but the final panel would appear to indicate that that, too, was a boast on Walter’s part. Immortal Hulk has yet to reveal the Great Beast’s intentions, but if history is any indication, and it so often is, then chances are that Tanaraq’s plan is not a benevolent one.

This is complicated by another key point of interest in Immortal Hulk #4, which is Bruce Banner’s admission that both he and Walter are more alike than most realize. In fact, both Walter and Bruce’s gamma signatures are an exact match, which likely means that the Canadian hero is afflicted in much the same was as Bruce. It’s reasonable to assume that, much like the Hulk, Sasquatch is cursed with immortality.

Perhaps this is good news for Sasquatch, but it’s terrible news for Bruce, Jacqueline and pretty much anyone in the path of the malevolent force now in control of the former superhero. So far, Hulk has been smashing the lesser irradiated villains from the Jade Giant’s history, and a few new ones to boot. He has yet to come up against anything that could really hold a candle to his strength, and certainly not another immortal foe.

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Ardent Immortal Hulk readers likely came to Issue #4 expecting a match between Sasquatch and Hulk. They didn’t get that, but that doesn’t mean it’s not coming. Immortal Hulk #5 may very well deliver on that promise (or set it up), and the result will be a fascinating one that could change everything we know about the Immortal Hulk. After all, it has just been revealed that anything that can be done to Sasquatch can, in theory, be done to the Immortal Hulk.

So, it’s very possible the Hulk will have to deduce how to destroy himself in the proceeding issue, and that’s been the question on everyone’s lips for some time now -- how do you kill the Immortal Hulk?