WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Immortal Hulk #27 from Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Belardino Brabo, Marc Deering, Sean Parsons, Paul Mounts and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
The Immortal Hulk hasn't really been able to cook up a formidable antagonist for Bruce Banner and his Devil Hulk as they continue plotting to eradicate most of humanity. Shadow Base tried to take him down but fell, with Banner himself taking over the compound as part of his mission.
The Roxxon Corporation, however, has stepped up to the plate, sharpening its claws with a government-funded project that would allow them to create their own Hulks as military weapons. A major cog in this machine has been Roxxon's sinister media arm, which we discover has been the source of all fake news in the Marvel Universe. Well, after Roxxon trains its eyes on Banner, he retaliates by unleashing the Devil Hulk on the corporation, and as a result, all the media propaganda is shut down.
Roxxon's CEO, Dario Agger, aka the Minotaur, spends most of the issue boasting about how he's taken over social media. He has servers in an Oregon base that store near-infinite amounts of personal data culled from unwitting individual's internet activity and social media profiles. This allows him to weaponize the data, crafting the narrative of the Marvel-616. It's why he's not in jail after being an obvious tyrant in the recently concluded War of the Realms; He's spun the story to ensure his freedom is maintained.
This reflects real-world concerns about data leaks from Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook platform, not to mention scandals involving entities like Cambridge Analytica and Russian data mining to control foreign elections. Except Roxxon is way more foolproof. It protects its assets without being implicated. No one knows what the corporation's really up to; Roxxon simply makes the public believe anything and everything it wants them to.
Everything from environmental studies on climate change to politics to the public view on certain heroes and villains are all being manipulated by Roxxon -- a business Agger deems "profitable and powerful" because information is valuable when it comes to the ignorant and uninformed.
Knowledge is power, after all, and this is Agger's strength: Tricking the masses into spreading news that twists right and wrong, allowing him to shift the moral compass of the world Banner's trying to cleanse. It's why the Devil Hulk wants this war on Roxxon. He took its jabs at him personally, recognizing the Minotaur doesn't want him to correct the course of a broken world because there's more money for him to make.
But as powerful a tool as Roxxon's data base is, Banner has figured out a way to teleport in and attack. Using his new partner, Charlene McGowan at Shadow Base, a translocator drops him in and he beats down the guard Hulks that Roxxon call the B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R. unit. It's a mere formality as we know no one's stronger than the Hulk.
And so, this Roxxon West facility falls with the servers and algorithms processing this data going down for good. There's no backup or contingency. So, while fake media was a tool for Roxxon, Banner's tool is the Devil Hulk, and social media platforms such as Roxxface (the Marvel U's version of Facebook) and Yamblr (a Tumblr parody) all come crashing down.
This leaves the Minotaur incensed because his ability to mine the web is no more -- and McGowan's made sure Roxxon can't get its operation back up and running. In the aftermath, the Devil Hulk surprisingly steps out into the sunrise, something he couldn't do before. He's satisfied over how McGowan helped him and ready to complete the assault on Roxxon and other elite companies he thinks needs to be taken off the map.
The Immortal Hulk #28 goes on sale Dec. 11.