| abstract | - Maestro is an alternate-future version of the popular Marvel hero known as the Hulk, however he is a brutal tyrant who is stronger, more experienced and much more ruthless than his current self - he was the chief antagonist of the Future Imperfect storyarc and was strong enough to snap the neck of the Hulk - temporarily paralysing the hero. Maestro ruled over a barren world torn asunder by nuclear war, his powers amplified due to the now plentiful radiation in the atmosphere and his mind all but shattered by the many cruel events of his life - he took command of this broken world and united it under his iron-grip, ruling over the few human survivors as a dictator whose word was law and who had a liking of ruling in a fashion similiar to the ancient warlords. When modern-day Hulk was transported to this dark future he found himself quickly at war with the Maestro and found himself battling not only a monstrous enemy but also a being that represented how far Hulk's hatred could run, the embodiment of what could happen if Hulk ever truly gave in to his inner-rage and hostility. Maestro and Hulk battled fiercely until Hulk was forced to defeat Maestro via transporting him back in time to ground-zero of the site where the gamma-bomb that bestowed Banner with Hulk's power was detonated - this act seemingly wiped Maestro out on the atomic scale. Later, Bruce Banner's mind became trapped in what was possibly Hell, where he was forced to confront his past enemies, including Maestro, who explained to him that death didn't mean the same for them as it did for other beings, and that sooner or later, they always came back. He also revealed that the Hulk's uncanny ability to always find his way back to the site of the gamma bomb test where he was spawned was because of the Maestro's spirit drawing him back, so that the skeletal remains of the Maestro could slowly siphon off enough gamma radiation over the years to restore his body. After that encounter, the Maestro finally returned to life, but in a greatly weakened and emaciated state, with his flesh hanging off his bones. He stumbled deliriously away into the desert, but collapsed. A group of Asgardian trolls came across him and carried him off to their hidden cave, where they used his soul to empower the Destroyer armour. The Maestro's spirit in the Destroyer sought out the Hulk and again engaged his younger self in combat; however, as the Hulk and the Maestro shared the same DNA, the Hulk's spirit was able to enter the Destroyer and slam the its visor shut just as it discharged its disintegration beam. The resulting shockwave caused a massive rockslide, which unknown to the Hulk, buried Maestro. For years afterward, the Maestro was neither seen, nor heard from. This changed when Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099, who had been trapped in the present day, returned to what he thought was his native timeline, only to find it a nuclear-ravaged ruin. He soon encountered the Maestro, although whether this was the original or simply an alternate reality counterpart is uncertain. After a brief skirmish, in which Maestro toyed with O'Hara, the tyrant battered O'Hara into submission and then took him back to this new reality's Dystopia as a prisoner, where he placed him in a cell with his old ally Strange 2099, that era's Sorceress Supreme. Strange healed O'Hara's severe injuries from his battle with Maestro and together they broke free from captivity and made their way to the Maestro's trophy room - a veritable museum of relics and artifacts from the Heroic Age. One such relic was Doctor Doom's time platform, which O'Hara set to repairing in order to escape this new timeline. The Maestro, arriving unseen by using the Hood's cloak of invisibility, seemingly killed Strange and again engaged O'Hara. This time, the future Spider-Man managed to hold off the Maestro, even downing the green brute using the remnants of Iron Man's Hulkbuster armour, before escaping back to our present. However, once O'Hara had fled, it was revealed that Strange was still alive, and that she - more accurately, the demon possessing her body - was working with Maestro. It seemed that although Maestro retained Banner's intellect, his scientific skills had eroded, possibly because of his madness and years of self-indulgence, so he had manipulated events so that O'Hara could repair the time platform instead. Maestro then travelled to the present day and leaped away to whereabouts unknown.
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