Mess

While traveling a mile outside of the Miami-Dade area, Nichole Martin was on the freeway with her son, Johnny, when a news bulletin was broadcast over the radio signaling a code red alert. The Hulk was battling the creature known as the Abomination. Concerned for relatives that lived in the area, Nichole noticed – a bit too late – that a garbage truck was plummeting toward her car. Unable to dodge the massive vehicle, the truck landed directly on top of her automobile pinning both Nichole and her son inside. The car burst into flames, and even though she struggled and prayed for the strength to save her son, Johnny Martin was burned alive right in front of her. While recovering in the hospital, Nichole was visited by General Ryker posing as a psychiatrist. He was told that she was unresponsive, and her injuries were massive, but he offered her a chance to get back at the person she held responsible for the traumatic losses she sustained – the Hulk. It was at that moment Nichole Martin’s plans for revenge were born. She agreed to have cloned parts of the Abomination grafted onto the injured sections of her body giving her powers to enact her vengeance.

She joined Ryker’s Gamma Corps under the codename Mess, and along with others, Grey, Mister Gideon, Griffin and Prodigy, was determined to destroy the Hulk for destroying her life. Shortly after a mission to kill Ryker’s former gamma mutated experiment, Flux, Mess and the others would have their chance to rid the world of the Hulk during his assault on the city of New York. A well planned attack by the Gamma Corps led to the snapping of Hulk’s neck, but not before she had her arm broken by the monster. Unfortunately for the Mess, the Hulk healed and turned the bones in her arm to powder just after they healed from the first break. Defenseless, Mess lay on the ground under the Hulk as he was about to pulverize her, but she screamed at him to end her miserable life because he took her son from her. The Hulk stood frozen for a moment and then walked away. When she asked where he was going, Banner apologized for the loss of her boy. The sincere apology caused her to cry and as the others followed Hulk to their base of operations, Mess stayed behind to recuperate. After Ryker’s downfall, and the Gamma Corps defeat, Mess was shown news footage that revealed the Abomination was the one who threw the garbage truck on the fateful day that changed her life forever. Mess was disgusted because her unwarranted anger towards the Hulk, fueled by General Ryker’s lies, led her volunteer to have the individual responsible for killing her son become a permanent part of her for the rest of her life.

Mess and the others became fugitives and went into hiding, but never abandoned their new found purpose. A false alarm by Prodigy, thinking he found one of their new targets, Iron Man, but found Iron Patriot instead, led to a brief scuffle with the head of H.A.M.M.E.R.. In the end, Mess accepted Osborn's offer to become a bounty hunter and arrest traitorous super-humans.