John Eisenhart was a greedy, selfish, studio executive in the year 2099, until a run-in with the Knights of the Banner turned him into the next century’s Hulk. While researching the Knights, a group that deified the 20th Century’s Hulk, John tricked a young member, Gawain, into revealing their illegal gamma ray experiments. Because the Knights refused to sell him their story, John turned them into the authorities, and watched them fight to their deaths for their beliefs. Realizing his mistake, John leapt into the fight, and was accidentally bombarded by gamma rays, turning him into the Hulk.
Seeing his mistakes for the first time, John returned to Lotusland, his old studio, and resigned. But then a cybernetic tyrant named Draco attacked the studio and Gawain was killed despite John’s promise of protection. Enraged, John turned into the Hulk and fought back against Draco, eventually being helped by the studio’s artist, Angel Zamora, and together the old employees took over the company to rededicate it to positive change and meaning.
At the same time, a being called the Cybershaman appeared, leading a group called the Human Tribe and plotting to take over L.A. in the name of nature and chaos over corporate control. While some at Lotusland wanted to join them, John didn’t. And when the Cybershaman’s tribe chased Quirk Simulacrum, a subversive musician and friend to the Hulk, into the path of the Hulk, they offered for him to join them and lead the rebellion. The Hulk refused, not wanting a new tyrant, and with the help of his enemy, Draco, he found the man behind the Cybershaman and stopped him just as he had taken control over the security systems of L.A., ending his plans and possibly killing him.
Nikolai Apolonio, a scientist at Lotusland, later found the Knights of the Banners plans for gamma technology in Lotusland’s computers and discovered a way to use gamma radiation’s power to enhance inherent personality traits. After turning himself into Doctor Apollo, a being with the power to radiate people with gamma and exaggerate their personalities, he affected the staff of Lotusland, bringing out their worst sides. When his natural tendency for rage and destructive need for freedom got out of control along with his size and strength, The Hulk transformed back and used his personality as John to manipulate Apolonio into reversing his experiment, using the Doctor’s desire for knowledge against him.
When Doctor Doom became President of the United States he sent a series of Environmental Maintenance Platforms to L.A. in order to subdue the problem city. The Hulk immediately attacked one, destroying it, and inadvertently giving Draco the power to control them. So that when Draco used them to poison the citizens of L.A. and blame Doom, the Hulk brought Apolonio with him onto one in order to stop it. Instead, the device rocketed into space, taking both of them with it, while at the same time Draco made his move on Lotusland. Once the Hulk and Apolonio managed to regain control of it, they returned to Lotusland to face Draco, but found that Zamora had promised the Gamma Ray’s mind-warping technology to Doom in order to save them. Using his then-separate personality as John, the Hulk took over control of Lotusland, along with the power-hungry Keisha Schultz-Valdez, in order to work with Doom.
But Quirk came back and tricked John into transforming into the Hulk in front of Keisha. With the Hulk’s rebellious personality reestablished, he stole the Gamma technology and escaped with Quirk. They came across John’s sister Marian, who was indebted to a group known as the Locusts, which the Hulk had been forced to restrain from rioting previously, and she revealed that her former group was planning to set off a bomb which would create earthquakes big enough to destroy California.
Rushing to stop them, the Hulk came face to face with the Anti-Hulk, a being created by Draco, the Golden One, and Lotusland’s former studio psychologist, Dr. Phil. This Anti-Hulk didn’t have the reasoning power of the Hulk, and refused to listen to the real Hulk’s pleas to fight away from the bomb, so that the resulting destruction from their battle set off the weapon, which tore apart all of California and killed off most of the populace. The Hulk was then left alone in the ruins to face a radically changed landscape.
