The battle takes place smack in the middle of the Wold War Hulk showdown in Manhattan.
Hulk is in the middle of giving his, "I have been holding back all the time. Don't push me any farther. I mean it. I'm getting mad. Look at me, I really am. I never really got mad before, but boy oh boy, I'm gonna get mad now. As a matter of fact, everybody is calling me the Woldbreaker now. So, you know I am totally serious now man." speech to Earth's heroes, when Zom and Validus are dropped in the middle.
Not Zom filtered through Dr. Strange or anybody else.
Not some watered down version of Validus, this is the "Classic Validus".
shhh... we all know he's a jobber... Also isn't he supposed to get into a fight with Pym at some point in the near future?? If he loses I will personally march down to Marvel HQ and proceed to beat the editors/powers that be in the company/Disney with a frozen halibut.
I have no excuses. Straczynski should have been forced to at least try to fix it the way that they are somewhat trying to do post spider island. i.e. making spidey part of some cosmic crapshoot to at least pose some explanation of why everything didn't go to hell in a handbasket over that Mephisto nonsense. I mean really since when has Mephisto been able to pull crap like that without at least someone noticing.