Marvel: The Enlightened One#124+125: Hawk's First Nirvana, Mephisto's True Form

Peter remained silent.

Thor, on the other hand, was starting to feel awkward.

He had come here to stop Malekith, only to find that both the Dark Elf and Hawk—the man who had saved his girlfriend and now carried the Aether—were gone.

If he were here alone, it would be one thing.

But he was stuck with a stranger who seemed completely uninterested in conversation.

Thor wanted to leave.

But...

This was the focal point of the Convergence. He didn't know where Malekith and Hawk had gone, but if they had left from here, there was a good chance they would return here.

With that thought, an idea struck him. A broad grin spread across his face. "So, do you know Tony Stark? We fought together in New York."

Mr. Stark?

Peter's gaze shifted upward. "He's a billionaire."

Thor frowned.

"And...?"

"I'm just a kid from Queens. I know who he is, but he doesn't know me."

"..."

Thor drew in a sharp breath at the bluntness of the reply. Then his eyes lit up again. "What about the Hulk? You know the Hulk, right?"

The big green guy Hawk killed twice?

A strange expression formed under Peter’s mask. He just nodded.

"I know him."

"Excellent!"

Thor beamed, snatched from the jaws of a social deep-freeze. He was just about to tell Peter that he and the Hulk were also good friends when three black Chevy SUVs pulled up behind them.

Natasha and Clint stepped out of the lead vehicle. They saw Thor and New York's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man standing amidst the ancient stones, exchanged a look, and walked over.

"Thor."

"Natasha!"

Thor turned, his face lighting up at the sight of his friends. He then turned back to the still-silent Peter. "See? Not only am I friends with the Hulk, but these are my friends, too. When your friend Hawk gets back, we should all get together."

Friends with the Hulk?

Get together with Hawk?

Peter’s expression became even stranger.

Natasha, hearing Thor's cheerful suggestion, shot him a strange look. She lowered her voice. "Uh, Thor... the Hulk is dead."

Thor's smile froze.

He stared at her. "What? Dead? How?"

Natasha glanced at Peter—publicly, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, privately, Hawk’s good friend, then turned back to Thor.

"The Hulk's battle with the Abomination was the cause of Hawk's sister's death. Late last year, after you left, Hawk found the Hulk and killed him."

Thor's jaw dropped and instinctively looked at Peter.

Peter just met his gaze and, after a moment, gave a slow, deliberate nod.

"..."

"So Bruce is dead?"

"Uh..."

Clint stepped in to bring him up to speed. "Not at first. Betty Ross tried to get revenge for her father by kidnapping Hawk's girlfriend. That plan went south, and Hawk killed her, too. Then Bruce Banner went after Hawk for revenge... and he died."

Clint paused, then, seeing the utterly lost look on Thor's face, added, "So, yeah. The Hulk and Bruce are both dead."

He and Natasha had just gotten back from Africa, so they knew all about Hawk's battle with the Demon Hulk on the savanna. They'd been in London for a debrief when S.H.I.E.L.D had notified them of Thor's appearance at Stonehenge.

Thor listened to Clint's debriefing, his mind reeling.

He had only been gone for a year. But it felt like a lifetime.

The Hulk is dead?

Just like that??

He shook his head, trying to process it all. He looked at Natasha. "So, who is this Hawk? What is he, the bastard son of some god?"

He had fought alongside the Hulk. He knew his power...

No mortal on Earth could have defeated him.

It had to be a demigod. After all, his father had told him stories of the old days, when the gods of the cosmos would often visit Earth for a "beautiful encounter" with mortal women.

He had done the same thing, hadn't he?

Natasha opened her mouth, about to explain that Hawk was, as far as they knew, just a man, when a violent, chaotic wave of energy erupted from the center of Stonehenge.

The next second, with a deafening roar, Hawk materialized in a flash of fire and magma from Muspelheim. He shot out of the portal like a meteor, slammed into the ground, and carved a kilometer-long trench of fire into the pristine grass.

At the end of the trench, he lay in a smoking heap, his Saint Armor cracked, shattered, and glowing with embers.

As for Malekith?

He had appeared with him, and he hadn't fared much better. The right side of his face was now as hideously scarred as the left.

But compared to Hawk, he was still standing.

"Child."

"Give me the Aether."

The last vestiges of Malekith's gentlemanly facade were gone, burned away in the fires of Muspelheim. The energy of the Convergence was reaching its peak. If he didn't use the Aether to plunge the Nine Realms into darkness now, he would have to wait another thousand years.

Hawk struggled to his feet, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead. He looked at the scarred, hate-filled face of the Dark Elf.

His answer was the same as before.

"You'll have to kill me first."

“Fine. I will accommodate you!”

Malekith's ruined face twisted into a sneer. He raised his right hand, and the Aether pulsed within it like a dark, beating heart.

Nearby, Thor snapped out of his shock.

“MALEKITH!”

He gripped Mjølnir and with a roar, he leaped into the air, bringing the hammer down in a devastating arc, aiming to perform an impromptu craniotomy on the Dark Elf.

But just as he was about to strike, Hawk threw a punch.

Not at Malekith, but at Thor.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

"..." Malekith froze.

"..." Peter froze.

"..." Natasha and Clint froze.

And Thor, who had been sent tumbling to the ground, the afterimages of a dozen fists still shimmering on his armor, stared at Hawk in disbelief. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??"

Hawk's face twisted into cold rage. He locked eyes with Malekith, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

"He's mine..."

"You want a shot? Get in line!"

He had fought this long. He wasn't about to let someone else steal his kill.

With that, he shot a final dismissive glance at Thor, then stomped his foot, shattering the ground, and charged at Malekith once more.

"Let's finish this!"

"Heh, you rush to your own death."

Malekith sneered, his eyes blazing with a cold, murderous light. He met Hawk’s charge with a fist wreathed in the dark, swirling energy of the Aether. The instant their fists collided, Malekith rewrote the very laws of physics, turning the air around Hawk as dense as diamond.

In that instant of slowed time, Malekith's Aether-infused fist slammed into the chestplate of Hawk's Saint Armor.

CRACK!

A sharp and clear sound—like shattering glass—echoed across the battlefield.

Ptui!

Hawk's face went flush, and he coughed up a spray of blood.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

He was thrown backward, the upper half of his Saint Armor disintegrating, its golden fragments falling to the ground like dead fireflies.

Malekith had used the Aether to change his armor's property from 'Indestructible' to 'brittle as glass.'

A True Gold Cloth would have been immune—

—Forged in the heart of a sun, its golden sheen embodied the very light of a star. Even if Malekith had drained himself completely, he still could not have affected it.

But Hawk's armor??

It might have looked golden, but its essence was still Bronze.

And so... It shattered.

Hawk landed on his feet, his body a canvas of raw, bleeding wounds. The pain was immense—a chorus of agony screaming through his mind.

Thump.

Thump.

He could feel his own heart slowing, each beat a struggle.

It reminded him of the bottom of Culver Lake, of the moment the Hulk had nearly beaten him into his first rebirth...

But that had been a near-miss.

This was the real thing.

Deep within his Cosmo, the spectral image of the Phoenix appeared, its wings spread wide, wreathed in a silent, eternal flame.

The rebirth sequence had been initiated.

But...

Where’s the enlightenment that’s supposed to come on the edge of life and death?

I’m about to die. Where is the Sixth Sense?

He felt no fear of death.

Perhaps because he knew, deep down, that this wasn't truly the end.

With his last ounce of strength, he looked up at Malekith, his vision blurred by blood, and sighed.

Peter, watching from a distance, felt his heart skip a beat.

The next second, as Malekith and the others watched, Hawk's eyes closed.

And then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next—

Something changed...

<><><><><><><><>

SKREEE!

The cry of a phoenix rang out, clear and resonant.

The moment Hawk’s eyes closed, a being of pure light and fire—a magnificent, incandescent phoenix—materialized behind him.

The next second, the great phantom erupted in a blaze of glorious fire, the flames pouring into Hawk’s now-still form.

BOOOOOOM!!

The brilliant fire formed a pair of burning wings at his sides.

The phantom phoenix, like a gentle mother, folded its wings and slowly enveloped Hawk in a protective embrace, as if careful not to disturb his slumber.

...

“...” Malekith's face had stayed stone-cold even after being horribly disfigured, but now his expression cracked completely—twisted into shocked disbelief.

Thor was equally thunderstruck.

“This is...”

“Thor.” Natasha had moved to his side, her own expression a mixture of awe and confusion as she stared at Hawk, now seemingly one with the spectral phoenix, cradled in its wings, all signs of life having vanished. “What is this?”

Thor’s mind raced, connecting the impossible dots. “Nirvana...”

“Nirvana? He’s not a demigod.”

It was only in this moment that Thor finally understood.

Demigod? Bullshit. This is a God!

...

The entire exchange, from Malekith’s shock to Thor and Natasha’s conversation, happened in a single instant.

Just like it did for Hawk.

One second, he remembered closing his eyes. The next, he opened them, and found that he had not been reborn.

Instead...

He was in a bar.

The slow, mournful strum of a Texas country song drifted through the air. The walls were adorned with decor that screamed dusty, backroad Americana.

What the hell?

Just then, the clink of glasses came from a nearby table.

Hawk turned.

A man sat where no man had been a moment before.

He wore an impeccably tailored dark suit. His long, dark hair, slightly disheveled, framed a pair of narrow, almond-shaped eyes that glinted with an unsettling dark-gold light. A playful smile curved his pale lips as he raised a glass to Hawk.

Hawk’s brow furrowed. He walked over and sat down across from the stranger.

The man smiled and pushed a freshly poured glass of amber liquid toward him.

“Kentucky’s finest. Thunder Distillery Bourbon.”

“Have a taste.”

“...” Hawk glanced at the glass, then met the smiling man’s gaze. The next second, he picked up the glass and drained it in a single motion.

He set the empty glass back on the table with a soft click and looked at the man.

“Hello, Mephisto.”

The man—no, the being disguised as a decadent, nineties-era Texas heartthrob threw back his head and laughed.

But the laughter died as quickly as it had begun.

Mephisto’s smile vanished. He fixed his gaze on Hawk, and his true form seeped through the illusion. The fine fabric of his suit writhed and split—not tearing, but peeling back like living flesh to reveal what lay beneath: not blood and bone, but a roiling, viscous slurry of asphalt and magma.

His handsome human face melted away, giving rise to a snarling demonic visage. His skin turned the color of scorched crimson, rough and granular.

Two smoldering pits yawned where a nose should have been, and his dark-gold eyes blazed into hellfire.

When he spoke, his voice was a low, guttural rumble that seemed to echo from the very depths of the abyss.

“Welcome to Hell.”

The Lord of the Hell Dimension—Mephisto—had made his entrance.

Hawk’s expression remained unchanged. He simply watched.

Mephisto, seeing his performance had failed to elicit a reaction, let out another deep, rumbling laugh. “You don't seem very scared. You do realize you haven't been reborn, right? You're in Hell.”

Hawk ignored him. “Can I see my sister?”

He didn’t know how he had gotten here.

But one thing was certain: the process of his rebirth had already begun.

So... since he was here, he might as well make the most of it. He wanted to see Anya.

Mephisto’s demonic face shifted as he heard the request.

The next second, he was human again. He laughed, and with a flick of his wrist, the bottle of bourbon floated from the bar into his hand. He refilled their glasses and slid one back to Hawk.

Hawk picked up his glass, clinked it against Mephisto’s, and drank.

“I want to see my sister.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mephisto’s refusal was immediate. He offered an explanation. “Your sister is in Hell. You are not.”

Hawk frowned.

“Then where am I?”

“On the edge of life and death.”

Mephisto refilled Hawk’s glass again. “You know, now I understand why you were so bold as to threaten me. That talk of turning my head into a... was it a wine jug?”

Hawk raised an eyebrow, lifting his own glass to meet Mephisto’s. “The original quote wasn’t ‘wine jug.’”

Mephisto downed his drink and turned the empty glass over on the table.

Hawk let out a short, humorless laugh and downed his drink. Yet he had not given up. He could feel his time here slipping away, the pull of the living world growing stronger.

“You’re the Lord of Hell. My sister is in your realm. You have the power to bring her back to life, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then...”

“No.”

“What?”

Hawk frowned again. “Aren't you worried I'll actually hunt you down in Hell?”

Mephisto just laughed. He leaned back against the sofa, crossing his legs casually. "I'll give you this—you might actually have what it takes to kick down my doors someday. But that is in the future, isn't it? Not today.”

Hawk didn’t argue. It was the truth. He met the demon’s gaze and gave his answer.

“Bring my sister back, and I'll grant you any three favors. You can refuse—that's fine. But when I'm strong enough to march into Hell, Mephisto, I'll remember this conversation. And if my sister's been treated well, I might let you live.”

He didn’t have the strength now, so he could negotiate.

But when he did have the strength, what was there to negotiate?

Mephisto refused.

“I’m sorry.”

“Alright.”

Hawk’s face showed no trace of disappointment. He simply nodded.

If you won’t do this the easy way...

Then we’ll do it the hard way.

Just then, Mephisto chuckled. “I have no reason to make an enemy of a future god. After all, I hope to one day gain dominion over the souls of your subjects.”

The authority over death is not singular.

Where there is death, there is life. Mephisto’s power was not just over the end, but the beginning. The more souls that fell under his purview, the greater his power grew.

And the kingdom of a great god was always one of vibrant, teeming life.

It was a future investment.

Mephisto had no intention of souring that investment over a single soul.

As for the Demon Hulk? That was just business. Hawk had talked trash, and he had sent a little trash back. The matter was closed.

Hawk frowned, listening. He was about to press the matter of his sister again when he felt it—a sudden, powerful jolt to his soul.

He looked down to see a golden flame licking at the tips of his shoes. “This is...”

“Your time is up.”

Mephisto smiled, raising his fourth glass of bourbon in a toast.

Hawk picked up his own.

The sound of their glasses clinking was clear.

At that moment, the golden flame had completely engulfed him. Hawk pushed his suspicions aside and looked at Mephisto. “Take care of my sister.”

Mephisto only smiled, lifting his empty glass as Hawk’s form grew translucent within the flames.

“Goodbye, Hawk.”

“Goodbye, Mephisto.”

Hawk vanished in a shower of golden and star-like embers.

The next second, he was somewhere else.

“Where the hell am I now?”

...