Original Sin #3.2/Hulk vs. Iron Man #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue features a lot of techno mumbo-jumbo, but, in the end, it essentially contains two major developments:  first, Tony realizes that he did, in fact, create the Hulk by sabotaging the gamma bomb, and, second, Bruce uses Extremis to upgrade himself into a more self-controlled Hulk.

The first development is pretty well explained, even if it isn't all that believable how Tony gets there.  Tony buys the motel where he and Bruce had their fateful argument and uses droids to catalogue the room, creating a sequence of events to jar his memory.  I think that it's pretty unlikely that triangulating the location of a Scotch bottle thrown ten years earlier could accomplish such a feat; this sort of hand-waving is why I generally don't read "Iron Man" comics in the first place.  But, whatever, I get the fact that it's part and parcel of an Iron Man story.

The Hulk development is odder.  Bruce uses his access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files to confirm that Thunderbolt Ross hired Tony to make the gamma bomb more lethal, and this revelation drives him to upgrade himself.  First, I'm not really sure why it's all the worse that Ross hired Tony to make the bomb more lethal.  The main problem is that Tony sabotaged the bomb, not that he was working on the bomb at Ross' behest in the first place.  Second, you have to ask why Bruce was waiting to upgrade himself.  Wouldn't he already have wanted a more controllable Hulk, even if he wasn't inspired to create one to kick Tony Stark's ass?  Why did he wait?  Also, I'm not sure why he didn't want Arno to know what he was doing.  Wouldn't Arno be OK with Bruce making the Hulk more controllable?

I have a sinking suspicion that we're not going to get answers to the Hulk questions, particularly once this mini-series within a mini-series dissolves into a Hulk/Iron Man slugfest.  It's a shame, too, because this sort of illogical jumping from one event to another one -- despite little actual connection between the two events -- is exactly the sort of lazy storytelling that can drag down a story.

** (two of five stars)