The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect is a 1992-1993 Marvel Comics limited series, written by Peter David and illustrated by George Pérez, with colors by Tom Smith.
The series spins out of David’s run on the ongoing The Incredible Hulk series and takes the titular Hulk into a post-apocalyptic Bad Future. Nuclear war has killed almost all of Earth’s superhumans and the survivors need a hero from the past to confront the unstoppable tyrant who now rules over them.
They've brought the Hulk forward in time to help them. But the future tyrant he’s facing is also the Hulk - an intelligent, evil Hulk who’s been changed and strengthened by the radiation he’s absorbed from a dying world. He calls himself the Maestro. And he’s determined not to let his foolish and idealistic past self tear down his empire.
Hulk is the strongest one there is. But what happens when there are two of him?
The Maestro concept proved popular and has since reappeared in other Marvel comics, including an alternate version in the Secret Wars (2015) tie-in series Future Imperfect, a major role as an antagonist in Contest of Champions (2015) and three limited series that act as prequels to the original The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect series (Maestro, Maestro: War & Pax and Maestro: World War M).
The first issue was released December 22 1992.
Not to be confused with the trope Future Imperfect, nor the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation from which both take their names.
This series contains examples of:
- Ashes to Crashes: The Maestro’s final battle with the Hulk is in Rick Jones’s memorabilia room, including several urns of ashes. At one point Maestro gets distracted by a face full of his/Hulk’s dead wife Betty’s ashes.
- Bad Future: Nuclear war has devastated the world, almost all of the superheroes are dead and a ruthless, evil Hulk is ruling the survivors. Definitely not a good future.
- Chekhov's Gun: A few of them are hidden among the many, many continuity nods in Rick’s memorabilia room.
- Captain America’s shield is used by both Rick and Hulk in the final battle. It’s also used to send Rick’s ashes on their way after his death.
- Wolverine’s skeleton causes Rick’s death, as he’s impaled on the claws after the shield blocks Maestro’s blow.
- Defiant to the End: A captured Pizfiz almost goads the Maestro into killing him before he can be fully interrogated. Even after that, he resists the mind/slide process to the point that his mind breaks before all of his memories can be extracted.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted hard. Once the Hulk is captured and paralysed from the neck down, the Maestro orders some of his female slaves to 'attend' to him, knowing how it’ll affect him. And the Hulk is very clearly traumatised by this.
- Fallen Hero: The Maestro is a future version of the Hulk, having gone power-mad.
- Foreshadowing: As a time travel story, it’s pretty blunt about some of this.
- The Maestro has a gun built by Forge, specifically designed to kill the Hulk. This was later introduced in a crossover with X-Factor, also written by Peter David.
- The Maestro mentions the Wild Man, a character Hulk hasn’t yet encountered. He turns up later in Peter David’s run on The Incredible Hulk.
- Fighting Your Future Self: The crux of the story is the Hulk being brought to the future to take down his future self, the Maestro, who's become a tyrant.
- Full-Conversion Cyborg: Floater pilots and dog o' war riders are bonded to their machines, with only head and shoulders visible. It’s unclear how much of the rest of their body remains.
- Future Me Scares Me: The Maestro is very clearly this to the present-day Hulk. And he knows it and uses it.
- Future Slang: Plenty of it. "Flark" as an expletive, "scan" for see, "slide" for delivering information.
- Godzilla Threshold: The resistance bringing the Hulk to fight the Maestro is treated as this by various members of the group, many of them concerned about the implications of asking the Hulk to fight his future self in case the Maestro manages to corrupt his younger self.
- Groin Attack: As the Maestro mocks Hulk with the idea that he can predict his past self's moves, Hulk punches his enemy between the legs, pointing out that, as an inventor, he can be inventive when he needs to be.
- Hope Bringer: The La Résistance from a Bad Future uses a time machine to summon Hulk and ask him to defeat Big Bad Maestro, his evil future self.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: After elderly rebel Pizfiz is shot in the leg, he tells the others to run, to leave him behind, and to remember him. They do.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Dakord is killed this way in the first few pages (complete with Laser Sight crosshairs on her forehead), midway through warning the other rebels that they’re attracting too much attention.
- Mirrored Confrontation Shot: Played with by the two original covers. The first issue shows the Hulk leaping forward, left fist high. The second mirrors it to show the Maestro, right fist high. The background cityscape is mirrored as well.
- Off with His Head!: Once Pizfiz’s mind has broken, a furious Maestro decapitates him with a punch.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Even though Thor is long dead, only someone who is worthy may lift Mjolnir as the Maestro finds out.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Maestro has one of his slave girls force herself on a crippled Hulk.
- Spiteful Spit: A captured Pizfiz, trying to stay Defiant to the End, does this to Maestro himself. And almost goads the Maestro into killing him on the spot.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: During the final showdown between the Hulk (in his "Professor" incarnation) and the Maestro, the Maestro insists that he knows every move that the Hulk can make. The Hulk simply says "Sing soprano, motor mouth!" and punches Maestro in the groin.
- Weaponized Teleportation: With added time travel. The Maestro is tricked into walking across Doctor Doom’s time platform, sending him to ground zero for the original Gamma Bomb blast that created the Hulk.
- Xanatos Gambit: How Hulk and the rebels plan for their showdown with the Maestro. Plans A (Hulk beats the Maestro in a straight fight) and B (Hulk feigns weakness to take the Maestro by surprise) fail, but the Maestro falls prey to Plan C - a badly injured Hulk lures him onto Doom’s time machine and sends him back in time to ground zero of a nuclear blast.
