Dangerous Soda

Brazil, Rio de Janeiro

Rocinha Favela was one of the largest slums in South America, home to hundreds of thousands of people. It was known as the City of God.

The place was lawless, with gang shootouts and frequent crimes. Every day, police officers were killed by criminals.

The entire favela was made up of thousands of houses of all sizes. From a distance, it looked spectacular, but inside, its many alleys and side streets formed a vast maze.

A white man wearing a hat walked down the street. He wore a white shirt and carried a backpack, glancing around as he walked with an air of caution, as if afraid someone might spot him.

Bruce Banner, a physics genius wanted by the United States military. His other identity was the terrifying Hulk.

After escaping the United States, Bruce had been on the run all over the world. He'd outsmarted the Hulkbuster Team time and again, and had finally made it here.

A criminal's paradise, Rio de Janeiro, where the heat and passion ran high. Though the place was dangerous and chaotic, its complex surroundings made it an ideal hiding place for him.

It had been 158 days since his last transformation. During that time, he'd worked every day to learn how to control his emotions.

He'd bought himself a pulse monitor to keep track of his heart rate. Lately, he'd taken up yoga. It helped him find calm and feel at peace.

On top of that, he had to work at a factory. Of course he had to work. Otherwise, how could he afford to sleep on the street?

He worked at a bottling plant. The place was filthy and chaotic, and a foul stench hung in the air.

Bruce rubbed his nose. There was no helping it; the conditions here were actually pretty good. The filth helped conceal his whereabouts. After all, the military would never think to look for him working in a place like this.

Bruce was a scientist, after all, with a talent for physics. If he hadn't been contaminated by Gamma Radiation, he'd have had a good life in the United States. He'd have married Betty by now and been living happily...

Why? Because his father-in-law was a four-star general in the United States Army.

But life was unpredictable. Who could have guessed he'd turn into a monster like that, be hunted by the military, and end up on the run, hiding in the middle of nowhere?

"Come over here! I need your help with something!" the factory owner called in Portuguese.

Bruce hurried over and saw that a conveyor belt switch had broken. Bruce was a physics genius, after all. He could tell at a glance that the switch had shorted out.

No, he only realized it after putting on his glasses.

He fixed the switch in no time. The factory owner gave him an approving look. "You're a clever man. You shouldn't be working as a temp. You've been here five months already. How about I make you a permanent employee?"

It wasn't that the owner didn't want to make him permanent. Bruce himself didn't want the job. He knew that General Ross and the others could find him at any moment, forcing him to run again. A permanent position would be pointless and only make things more complicated.

Just as Bruce was about to answer, he accidentally cut his hand. Blood welled up, and a drop fell toward a pile of empty bottles on the conveyor belt below.

A layer of heat haze hung over the bottles, making it impossible to see where the drop landed. Bruce's face changed at once.

"Shut it off! Turn off the conveyor!"

Bruce ran forward, panicked. At the owner's command, a worker quickly switched off the conveyor belt. Bruce searched all around. He knew he couldn't let his blood be exposed.

His blood was dangerous. It carried the terrifying power of Gamma Rays, enough to drive a person insane.

And he knew that if his blood was exposed, so would his whereabouts!

Just as Bruce was at a loss, he spotted the drop on the surface of the conveyor belt.

He finally breathed a sigh of relief. He quickly wiped the blood away with a cloth, then cleaned the blood off his finger and pulled out some glue to seal the wound.

It was a crude, simple fix, but it worked well. The bleeding stopped at once.

"All done! It's fine now!" Bruce called to the factory owner, waving his hand.

The factory owner looked baffled. The man was smart, but his behavior was so strange. Was he actually crazy?

He'd only lost a drop of blood. Was there any need to make such a fuss? He acted as if his blood were poison.

Bruce went back to work, and the owner walked away. Neither of them noticed the streak of red on the mouth of an empty bottle nearby.

In fact, two drops had fallen from the cut on Bruce's finger. They'd merged together, then separated in midair. One landed on the conveyor belt, while the other fell into the empty bottle.

That bottle was about to be filled with soda, sealed, packed, and shipped to the distant United States.

Bruce never would have guessed that this tiny mistake would expose his identity once again!

A week later, something strange happened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A retired old man bought a case of Guarana Soda, a drink from Brazil in South America that was very popular in the United States. The old man was one of its loyal fans.

As usual, he felt thirsty and opened a bottle of Guarana Soda. But after one sip, he sensed something was off. Why did it taste like alcohol? A burning, fiery sensation swept through his whole body.

The old man had no idea that the soda he'd drunk contained Bruce Banner's blood—Hulk's blood. It carried the power of Gamma Rays, which would mutate his body and throw his mind into chaos.

Before long, headlines reported that an eighty-year-old man had smashed a car with his bare hands and swung a telephone pole around like a club.

Local police rushed over to subdue the old man, who had gone berserk. But after gaining the power of Hulk's blood, he was unbelievably strong. No officer could take him on.

In the end, the police had no choice but to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun and take him to the hospital for treatment.

"Let me go!" The old man was strapped down from head to toe. His eyes glowed green, as though a terrifying beast lay dormant within him. "I want to get out! Let me go!"

He strained with all his might, but the restraints were far sturdier than he'd imagined.

Just then, the hospital room door opened, and a doctor and a nurse walked in.

"How's the patient?" the doctor asked.

"Looks like food poisoning, but he's doing much better now," the nurse replied.

The doctor frowned. "Are you joking? What kind of food poisoning could do this?"

"He kept rambling earlier," the nurse continued. "He kept shouting, 'I'm Stan Lee! I'm the Father of Marvel! Let me go, or I'll write you out of existence!'"

"Father of Marvel?" The doctor shook his head helplessly. "Looks like it wasn't food poisoning. He's gone crazy!"

A tribute to the old man~