The series is part of the wider Marvel 2099 line, a range of superhero comics connected to the shared Marvel Universe but set more than a century in the future. By the year 2099, the "heroic age" is long-gone and only half remembered. Global megacorporations now rule a bleak world touched by cyberpunk. But new heroes are emerging to challenge the status quo - and many of them use familiar names, acting as successors to those long-gone heroes.
Spider-Man 2099 is one of the two regular stories, with standalone tales that are largely independent of events in his own book.
Hulk 2099 makes his debut in the first issue, with an arc running through to #6 - at which point the Hulk 2099 solo series launched and the character left the anthology.
Stories by character
- Spider-Man 2099: #1-3, #8-10
- Hulk 2099: #1-6
- Doom 2099: #6-8
- Metalscream: #4, #7
- R Gang:
- Galahad:
- The Dump:
- Machina Jones: #10
- Steel Rain: #9
2099 Unlimited contains examples of the following tropes
Spider-Man 2099
- Adaptive Ability: Mutagen is an Evilutionary Biologist who's experimented on himself, gaining superpowers that provide adaptive defences. When Spider-Man first punches him, he responds by growing spikes. Later attacks trigger armor, and his power even reacts fast enough to stop him being electrocuted (although it's a close call). The changes seem to fade within a couple of minutes once the threat is gone.
- Death of a Child: Gerald Bernardson's daughter dies before the start of the anthology's first Spider-Man 2099 story and the grief sends her father spiralling into villainy as the Evilutionary Biologist Mutagen.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Mutagen's daughter died from a rare inherited condition. His grief fuelled into an obsession with genetic defects. First he fixed his own genetics, then he granted himself Adaptive Abilities via genetic meddling - and then he started murdering anyone who might pass genetic defects on to future generations.
- Outliving One's Offspring: The death of Gerald Bernardson's daughter, due to a rare inherited condition, destroyed his marriage and send him spiralling into an obsession with genetic purity, becoming the Evilutionary Biologist known as Mutagen.
- Professor Guinea Pig: After his daughter's death, scientist Gerald Bernardson realised that the genetic defect that killed her was inherited from his own genes. Grief and obsession drove him to experiment on himself to correct his genes - and to grant himself Adaptive Ability superpowers, becoming the supervillain Mutagen, a murderous Evilutionary Biologist.
Hulk 2099
- Anachronic Order: The first story starts In Medias Res, with the Hulk returning to civilisation, then cuts back and forth between the present and Eisenhart's encounter with the Knights of the Banner.
- Call-Back:
- Continuity Nod:
- Deadly Euphemism: Sweet Dreams Security Services provides security, but they're also a corporate hit squad. When someone arranges Sweet Dreams for a target, it's a death sentence.
- In Medias Res: The first story starts with the Hulk's return from the Mojave desert and a clash with the corporate kill squad Sweet Dreams. It's not until later in the story that we discover who he is, or how John Eisenhart became the Hulk.
- Killed Mid-Sentence:
- Legacy Character: Eisenhart is a successor to Bruce Banner, the original Hulk. As well as the name, he's got similar powers - a green alter-ego charged by gamma radiation who gets stronger as he gets angrier.
- Shout-Out:
Examples from other stories or covering multiple stories
- Anthology Comic: The series contains two to four stories in each issue, with a different creative team for each story. Some featured characters from the other 2099 comics, others debuted new heroes.
