“Looks like the talks are over.”
Banner started deliberately thinking about things that pissed him off.
Hulk came out right on cue, ready to smash.
Tony had Jarvis running every scan he could on Galactus for weaknesses.
Hank and Janet snapped their masks on, Pym Particles ready to size them up or down in a heartbeat.
Thor spun Mjolnir, blue lightning crackling in his eyes.
Susan’s hands glowed with an invisible force field.
Flames already licked across Johnny’s body.
Ben glanced at Reed.
Reed gave a small nod.
“We all wanted to avoid a fight.”
Steve tightened his grip on the shield.
“But if it comes down to it, we will protect our home with everything we’ve got.”
Galactus didn’t even blink.
His gaze drifted over the whole mismatched group, lingering on Hulk and Thor for maybe two seconds.
Mildly interesting.
Nothing more.
“I am not particularly hungry yet.”
Just when it looked like there might still be room to talk, Galactus’s mouth curled into a cold smile.
“But I never turn down dessert after a meal.”
“Thor!
Hulk!
Keep Galactus busy!”
“Hank, back them up!”
“Tony, you and me on the Surfer!”
“Janet, distract him!”
Steve barked the orders and flung his shield at the Silver Surfer’s board.
The Surfer tilted casually.
The shield bounced off the inner wall and snapped back into Steve’s hand.
Tony’s repulsors and micro-missiles locked on.
The Surfer barely shifted his board.
The missiles sank into the surface, then ricocheted straight back at Tony.
Steve rolled forward, shield up, and took the full volley himself.
Janet shrank in a blink, zipped behind the Surfer’s neck, and dumped electrical pulses into him.
Nothing.
Or maybe just enough to make him glance her way.
“Uh… I thought that was just your skin color?”
The Silver Surfer stared down at her.
Janet gave an awkward little smile.
She’d been curious what made that silver body special.
Now she had a better idea.
The Surfer frowned.
A short energy blast sent her tumbling, but she took almost no damage.
He still wasn’t attacking.
Only defending.
Even he couldn’t quite explain why.
While Steve, Tony, and Janet kept the Surfer occupied, Hulk roared, leapt dozens of meters, and charged Galactus.
Galactus simply raised one hand and flicked a finger.
Hulk shot backward like a cannonball, smashed through the ship’s inner wall, and nearly flew out into open space.
Reed lunged, stretched, and caught him.
The momentum still dragged Reed toward the hole.
He snagged the bulkhead with his free hand and held on, body stretched to an absurd length, keeping both of them from tumbling into the void.
Susan tried to pin Galactus with a force field.
The energy washed over him like it had never existed.
She looked back at Reed and Hulk still dangling from the breach and switched priorities, using the field to haul them safely inside.
Steve finally let out a breath.
He’d been half a second from calling Thor off Galactus to save them.
That would have left him and Tony holding the Surfer alone.
Beside him Tony shivered.
“Cap, that was weird.
Felt like someone just put a target on my back.”
“Probably your imagination… Tony, look out!”
The Silver Surfer had run out of patience.
He lifted one hand and sent a sweeping energy wave at Tony.
Ben the Thing charged in, tackled Tony mid-air, and took the blast across his rocky back.
“Thanks!”
“Don’t mention it.
Let’s put this guy down!”
Ben barreled forward with Steve and Tony.
Janet kept buzzing around the Surfer, looking for any opening she could find.
While they traded blows with the herald…
Rumble!
Thunder exploded through the entire ship.
Thor, wrapped in lightning, swung Mjolnir straight at Galactus.
Unfortunately Galactus simply formed a purple barrier of pure cosmic energy and stopped every bolt of Thor’s lightning cold.
Pym expanded into a thirty-meter giant and slammed a fist into the shield.
The impact bounced straight back and launched him across the chamber.
Right then Galactus dropped the barrier.
“Flame on!”
Johnny’s body erupted into white-hot fire.
Jets of flame under his feet shot him forward as he poured twin columns of fire straight at Galactus’s eyes.
The cosmic giant took it full on the face and didn’t even flinch.
“Son of a bitch!
Even a turtle shell should be cooked by now!”
Johnny immediately started dropping F-bombs with a face that looked exactly like Captain America’s.
Thor kept glancing over at him.
“No choice, big guy.
I’m calling my brother.”
“I still think I can take him.”
Thor hurled Mjolnir with everything he had.
Galactus tapped it with one finger and sent the hammer spinning away.
Maybe the giant was only playing with them.
Thor still saw the result clearly: after that casual flick, a deep crack ran straight across the face of Mjolnir.
“No!!!”
Thor dove after it and clutched the hammer to his chest like it was dying.
The divine power still flowed, so the hammer wasn’t completely dead, but Thor looked devastated.
“Uh… it can probably still be fixed, right?”
Johnny scratched the back of his neck, eyes darting anywhere except at the thousand-year-old god currently crying like a baby.
He drifted over awkwardly.
Thor shot upright, grabbed Johnny by both shoulders, and shook him.
“Where is your brother?!
Second brother!
Beat him for me!
Brother!!!”
Johnny’s head rattled.
He raised one hand.
“Just reminding you, that’s my second brother.”
“I don’t care whose he is!
I want revenge for Mjolnir!”
A crack would have been bad enough.
To Thor the hammer was basically his wife.
Someone had just hit his wife.
He called down the biggest lightning strike he had ever thrown in his life and dumped it on Galactus.
To a Galactus who wasn’t starving, it felt like a mild itch.
When Thor swung the hammer again, Galactus simply pinched it between two fingers.
No matter how hard Thor pulled, the weapon didn’t move an inch.
Galactus’s smile turned strange.
Thor felt ice in his gut.
“What are you doing?
Let go of Mjolnir right now!”
The smile only widened.
Galactus squeezed.
The legendary hammer shattered into pieces.
Without Mjolnir, the still-unawakened Thor’s divine body collapsed back to ordinary Asgardian strength.
Right now a strong taser could drop him.
He fell.
Hulk, just returning, caught him and set him on the floor.
Thor sat there completely broken.
He shouldn’t have rushed it.
The crack could have been fixed.
Now the hammer was gone forever.
“Hulk hates you!”
Hulk glared at Galactus and dumped Thor on the deck.
Galactus didn’t even shrug.
“Is that so?
I’m not especially fond of you either.”
“Roar!!!”
Hulk launched nearly a hundred meters straight up, aiming a full-power punch at that smug giant face.
Galactus flicked him away like a fly for the second time.
Susan, just back inside, pressed a hand to her forehead and had to send Reed out again to retrieve the green wrecking ball.
Johnny flipped Galactus the middle finger with both hands.
“You’re gonna regret this!
My brother is invincible!”
“Your brother is invincible?”
Galactus’s gaze drifted downward.
Then…
“Heh.”