The Ultimates 13: How I Learned to Love the Hulk

"Ain't every day we save the world."
— Nick Fury

The Ultimates 13: How I Learned to Love the Hulk
Comic
Release Date	April 2004
Writer	Mark Millar
Artist	Bryan Hitch

The Ultimates 13: How I Learned to Love the Hulk is the thirteenth and final issue of The Ultimates.

Summary

Bruce Banner falls to the ground below as Nick Fury and Steve Rogers watch on. When he makes impact, he bursts out transformed into the Hulk. Kleiser moves to attack Rogers, and Rogers tell Fury to flee when Banner pounces on Rogers in anger. Rogers tells him that Kleiser says he has been with Betty Ross when Banner was imprisoned, and Banner attacks Kleiser violently. Natalia Romanova and Janet van Dyne fend off Chitauri soldiers, but cannot figure out how to turn off the solar system-destroying bomb until Romanova suggests they call Anthony Stark. The Air Force arrives so Stark can leave Thor to deal with the bomb. Banner pulverizes Kleiser and rips his head off, and begins to eat him. Rogers tells Banner that the triangular Chitauri ships are insulting him, and Banner jumps up to fight them. Stark drags the bomb out, and radios Thor to help him dispose of it. Romanova starts thanking him for the sacrifice he is going to make by detonating it in space, but Stark tells her that Thor is going to teleport it into another dimension. Romanova is horrified, as she believes Thor is not a Norse God, but he hits the bomb with Mjolnir, and vanishes. Thor re-appears and said he dropped it in the barren world of Nastrond, and a dimensional aftershock is all Earth feels. Banner destroys the last Chitauri ships, and Clint Barton shoots him with an arrow to return to him to normal. Pietro and Wanda Lensherr celebrate suaving the planet, and Pietro assures Romanova that he was there, just moving too fast to be seen. Betty Ross talks to Banner in his cell, Banner glum about the 20,000 people that died on Micronesia and eating Kleiser. Fury and Rogers discuss that 18% of Americans think the thing was staged, and explains that Banner's wastes are being collected to make sure Kleiser is not a threat, remarking that Rogers feels closure from World War II. As van Dyne gets her hair cut, Henry Pym calls her and wants to start the divorce settlement, but van Dyne hangs up on him. At a gala in the White House, van Dyne and Rogers dance and kiss, Fury bemusedly watching. Fury heads into the empty Oval Office and tells his guards to get a champagne.

Characters

• Bruce Banner
• Nick Fury
• Steve Rogers
• Kleiser
• Janet van Dyne
• Natalia Romanova
• Clint Barton
• Anthony Stark
• Thor
• Pietro Lensherr
• Wanda Lensherr
• Betty Ross
• Henry Pym

Previous Issue	Current Issue	Next Issue
The Ultimates 12: Persons of Mass Destruction	The Ultimates 13: How I Learned to Love the Hulk	Ultimate X-Men 21: Hellfire and Brimstone Part 1