Leader

The Leader is a mysterious man with mysterious motives.

Biography

Origin

In 1964, Samuel Sterns was working as an "ordinary laborer" in the sub-cellar of a chemical research plant when a nearby gamma-ray cylinder exploded, bombarding him with radioactivity for nearly a minute. Incredibly, he survived, and when he recovered he found himself to be utterly voracious for books and knowledge. Some time after his recovery, he experienced the full results of the radiation, when his skin turned green and his head grew to a large, nearly cylindrical shape. He became obsessed with acquiring power, and began referring to himself as the Leader. He amassed a large spy ring, but remained frequently unsatisfied with his spies' incompetence relative to himself.

Conflicts with the Hulk

In 1965, Leader sent a spy to a missile base in New Mexico to acquire a top-secret device. This device was a large, human-shaped robotic vehicle that could be controlled from within and which was virtually indestructible to exterior damage. The machine was invented by Bruce Banner, who was also secretly the monstrous Hulk. The spy successfully took the machine, but stayed behind in an attempt to destroy the base. He failed, and the Hulk knocked him (and the suit) into a bottomless pit inside a cave. Leader sent another spy, the Chameleon, to investigate. Chameleon made no headway on that mission, and instead attempted to steal another valuable piece of weaponry. He tried to get away with a small gamma bomb, but the Hulk again interfered and forced Chameleon to regroup. Chameleon recovered the next day and notified Leader of a train shipment of an unspecified nuclear device invented by Banner. Leader had created a powerful robot known as a humanoid, which he could control remotely, and he sent it to attack the train via helicopter (also remotely controlled). The humanoid uncoupled the car containing the device from the rest of the train, preventing the standard military guard from reaching it in time. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Hulk was again present to interfere. For the first time, Leader saw the Hulk for himself, and correctly deduced by his green skin that he had been similarly affected by gamma radiation. Hulk jumped off of the train car with the humanoid, crushing it beneath him and severing the Leader's connection to it. Hulk went on to safely recover the device, foiling Leader's plan entirely. Leader was annoyed by Hulk's repeated victories, and his anger was exasperated by the fact that they had both been transformed by gamma rays. He was determined to prove the superiority of his irradiated brains over Hulk's irradiated brawn.

The next day, Leader received word from the Chameleon that General Ross, commander of Banner's military base, planned to test the nuclear device on the deserted Astra Island. This time, Leader sent a small group of humanoids, intending to both learn the device's secrets and potentially capture and study the Hulk. When the humanoids arrived, the Hulk was already present, while Major Glenn Talbot lowered the large device in the center of the island into an underground containment area. The device was a nuclear absorbatron, a machine that would theoretically absorb the force and radiation of a nuclear blast, providing perfect protection from the world's most powerful weapon. The humanoids attacked the Hulk, but the fight was interrupted by intervening soldiers. They threw grenades into the fray, doing nothing to harm the combatants, but exploding a cliff beneath them and causing them to fall into the sea. The Hulk quickly escaped through the sea, and Leader was left without any way to find him. He soon received word from the Chameleon that Banner had been seen in Soviet territory, and so he contacted a Soviet contact. The contact was a high-ranking Soviet official who apparently believed that the Leader was loyal to them, but was in fact being played for the Leader's benefit. The contact boasted about where they were keeping Banner prisoner—a weapons center near the European coast—and Leader knew that he would find the Hulk there as well, given the apparent connection between the two. For the time being, Leader set his sights on the absorbatron once more: he made a huge army of humanoids microscopically small in order to place them on Astra Island and return them to full size at an opportune moment, instantly overpowering any military presence there. Leader spread the humanoids, as fine as powder, across the island, and later Talbot and Banner arrived there to try another test. Leader activated the humanoids before they could do so, and they quickly overwhelmed the two. Banner transformed into the Hulk (out of the Leader's view), but the humanoids used their newly equipped gassing functionality to knock him out and prepare him for easy capture. Leader took the Hulk and the absorbatron into his hidden mesa base in the southwest, and left the Hulk in a sealed gas chamber to lay unconscious while he went to find the equipment to adequately study him. When Leader returned, Hulk had transformed back into Bruce Banner (who was unaffected by the gas), and was now hiding in a corner of the chamber. Unable to see him, Leader pumped double the gas into the room, which strangely caused Banner to become the Hulk again. Hulk stormed out of the room and through the base, destroying the absorbatron and forcing Leader to escape in his rocket sled.

Leader regrouped in another of his hideouts in Rome, where he radioed his communist contacts. They were upset that he could not deliver the absorbatron to them, but he instead offered them "the greatest offensive weapon ever created" in exchange for a billion dollars. They were naturally skeptical, and insisted that he use the weapon to destroy the New Mexico missile base first. Leader agreed. The weapon was in fact a colossal humanoid. Leader sent the humanoid to the base, where it was quickly assaulted by virtually every defensive measure the base could muster. The Hulk soon joined in the fray, and the combined forces staggered the humanoid, but could not stop it completely. General Ross fired the gigantic "Sunday Punch" nuclear missile, looking to take down the humanoid and the Hulk in one shot. Hulk (and his friend Rick Jones) managed to escape the blast with an enormous jump, but the humanoid was fully caught in it. The huge robot was finally downed, and the "clean" nature of the bomb meant that soldiers could investigate it without fear of radiation. However, Leader simply triggered a self-burning mechanism in the humanoid, destroying it and preventing the military from studying his technology. Frustrated once more that Hulk had helped foil his plans, Leader decided to take a different route. As the military cornered Hulk in one of his secret hideouts, Leader sent a projected message to him and offered to teleport Hulk to safety in exchange for forming an alliance.

The proud Hulk resisted for as long as he could stand, but as his lab was destroyed around him by artillery and missiles, he accepted Leader's offer. In moments, Leader teleported Hulk to his hideout in Rome. He explained the gamma connection that the two men shared and explained that he was interested in ruling the world with his superior intellect, and offered Hulk to become "the leader of his warrior guard." When Hulk refused, Leader again knocked him out with powerful sleep gas. Unbeknownst to Leader, Hulk's alterego Bruce Banner had recently suffered a fatal gunshot to the head, and it was only by staying in his Hulk form that he was able to survive. When he awoke, while Leader was away, Hulk realized that he was dangerously close to transforming back into Banner. In a panic, he stormed through the area searching for a way to reverse the process: some sort of gamma radiation to keep him in his Hulk form, but to no avail. He found a group of hostile humanoids that attacked him, and in his weakened state he could not fight them and hold off his transformation simultaneously. He passed out, moments before Leader found him.

As Leader approached Hulk's fallen form, his own gamma radiation "rubbed off" on Hulk, providing him with a modicum of strength to prevent his transformation. Leader's humanoids led an unconscious Hulk to an operating table, where Leader examined him and found the bullet in his head. He used an extremely sophisticated gamma-ray laser machine to dissolve the bullet to harmless dust without harming Hulk's brain tissue. Hulk incredibly awoke less than an hour later, and Leader explained what he had done—making it very clear that he had saved his life. Later, the Leader put Hulk through a series of scientific tests, finding that he was every bit as physically impressive as expected—and possibly more, thanks to his latest gamma exposure. With that done, Leader explained what he wished for Hulk to do. He explained that he had noticed a mysterious "blue area" on the Moon, and through examination conducted via a satellite he'd sent into space, he'd found that a humanoid being had built a home and was living there. Leader built more and more sophisticated observational tools and tracked the being to its home planet, T-37X, where lived an incredibly advanced civilization at the edge of the known universe. This being was in fact Uatu, a Watcher who had had a number of encounters with the Fantastic Four in recent years. The covetous Leader wished to seize the unthinkably advanced treasures from the Watchers' home planet with the Hulk's help. Leader transported Hulk to the planet in question using a special teleportation device that operated using the "speed of thought" to send Hulk there near-instantaneously. Uatu was there when Hulk arrived, apparently expecting him. Leader was able to communicate with Hulk using unspecified technology, and told him that he was seeking a small golden orb: the "ultimate machine." One obstacle lay in his way: a Hulk-sized, human-shaped red beast, and the reason why Leader couldn't come get the machine himself.

Hulk and the creature fought intensely while Uatu observed, as was his wont. However, as the two began to fight near Uatu's various scientific equipment, he teleported them elsewhere with a wave of his hand. The two continued to fight tooth and nail until Hulk hurled the creature far into the sky. Uatu appeared at that moment and teleported the creature away. He explained that he had seen enough, and was convinced that Hulk was the victor. He encouraged Hulk to get along with the reason he was here: he would offer no resistance. Hulk grabbed the machine, and Leader returned him to Earth and exalted in his success. Leader claimed that it contained all the knowledge in the universe, and that with it he would become the supreme being in existence. He pulled the orb over his head and began to absorb the infinite knowledge. But this sudden and vast input proved too much for the Leader, who suddenly collapsed dead on the floor.