| The Thing | |
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Artwork for the cover of The Thing vol. 3, 1 (Jan, 2006).Art by Andrea Di Vito. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov 1961) |
| Created by | Stan Lee Jack Kirby |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Benjamin Jacob Grimm |
| Species | Human Mutate |
| Team affiliations | Future Foundation Fantastic Four UCWF West Coast Avengers Thunderiders Yancy Street Gang Avengers New Avengers The Worthy |
| Notable aliases | Blackbeard the Pirate Angrir: Breaker of Souls |
| Abilities |
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The Thing (Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm) is a fictional character, a founding member of the superhero team known as the Fantastic Four in the Marvel Comics universe. He was created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961). His trademark orange rocky appearance, sense of humor, blue eyes, and his famous battle cry, "It's clobberin' time!" makes him one of comics' most recognizable and popular characters. The Thing's speech patterns are loosely based on those of Jimmy Durante.[1]
Michael Chiklis portrayed The Thing in the 2005 film Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
In 2011 IGN ranked the Thing 18th in the Top 100 comic books heroes.
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In addition to appearing in the Fantastic Four, the Thing has been the star of Marvel Two-in-One, Strange Tales (with his fellow Fantastic Four member the Human Torch), and two incarnations of his own eponymous series, as well as numerous miniseries and one-shots. The Thing was named Empire's tenth (of fifty) greatest comic book characters.[2]
The Thing joined his Fantastic Four partner and frequent rival the Human Torch in #124 (1964) of Strange Tales, which then featured solo adventures of the Human Torch and backup Doctor Strange stories. The change was intended to liven the comic through the always humorous chemistry between the Torch and the Thing. They were replaced with the "modern-day" version of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., who was then already appearing in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos in #135 (1965).
After a 1973 try-out in two issues of Marvel Feature, the Thing starred in the long-running series Marvel Two-in-One. In each issue, Ben Grimm would team with another character from the Marvel Universe, often an obscure or colorful character. The series helped to introduce characters from Marvel's lineup, by way of teaming up with the more recognizable Thing. In 1992, Marvel reprinted four Two-in-One stories (#50, 51, 77 and 80) as a miniseries under the title The Adventures of the Thing. The series was cancelled after one hundred issues to make way for a solo series.
The cancellation of Marvel Two-in-One led to the Thing's first completely solo series, which ran for thirty-six issues. It was originally written by John Byrne and later, Mike Carlin. The series also featured art by Ron Wilson and later by Paul Neary. It was notable for elaborating on Ben Grimm's poor childhood on Yancy Street in its early issue, as well as chronicling the Thing's later foray into the world of professional wrestling. It also featured a major storyline offshoot from Marvel's Secret Wars event, in which the Thing elects to remain on the Beyonder's Battleworld after discovering that the planet enables him to return to human form at will. A full third of the series' stories take place on Battleworld.
In 2002, Marvel released The Thing: Freakshow, a four-issue miniseries starring the Thing, in which he takes time away from the Fantastic Four to ride the rails across America, inadvertently stumbling on a deformed gypsy boy he once ridiculed as a teenager – now the super-strong main attraction of a troupe of traveling circus freaks – and a town full of Kree and Skrull warriors fighting over a Watcher infant. The series was written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Scott Kolins.
In 2003, Marvel released another four-issue miniseries, The Thing: Night Falls on Yancy Street. The story was of a less action-oriented and more character-driven and analytical type than is usual for the Thing. Some reviewers considered the story a nostalgic homage to Silver Age comics, while others found its noir-ish atmosphere "depressing".[3][4] It was written by Evan Dorkin and illustrated by Dean Haspiel.
After the success of the Fantastic Four feature film and events in the Fantastic Four that resulted in Grimm becoming a millionaire, the Thing was once again given his own series in 2005, The Thing, written by Dan Slott and penciled by Andrea Di Vito and, later, Kieron Dwyer. It was canceled with #8 in 2006. The Thing was a member of New Avengers, when that team debuted in their self-titled series in 2010.[5]
Born on Yancy Street in New York City's Lower East Side, to a Jewish[6] family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm had an early life that was one of poverty and hardship, shaping young Grimm into a tough, streetwise scrapper. His older brother Daniel, whom Ben idolized, was killed in a street gang fight when Ben was eight years old. This portion of his own life is modeled on that of Jack Kirby, who grew up on tough Delancey Street, whose brother died when he was young, whose father was named Benjamin, and who was named Jacob at birth. Following the death of his parents, Ben was raised by his Uncle Jake (who had married a much younger wife, Petunia, who would become a frequent reference used by the character until her death).[7] He comes to lead the Yancy Street gang at one point.[8]
Excelling in football as a high school student, Ben received a full scholarship to Empire State University, where he first meets his eventual life-long friend in a teenaged genius named Reed Richards, as well as future enemy Victor von Doom.[9] Despite them being from radically different backgrounds, science student Richards described his dream to Grimm to one day build a space rocket to explore the regions of space around Mars, and Grimm jokingly agrees to fly that rocket when the day comes.
After finishing college, having earned multiple advanced degrees in engineering,[10] Grimm joins the United States Marine Corps, where he is trained as a test pilot (his exploits as a military aviator are chronicled to a limited extent in issue #7 of the Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders comic, in a story entitled "Objective: Ben Grimm!"). While in the Air Force, Nick Fury orders him to serve as pilot during a top secret surveillance mission into Vladivostok in the Soviet Union, along with Logan (the future X-Man Wolverine) and Carol Danvers (the future Avenger Ms. Marvel).[11] Following this, he becomes an astronaut for NASA.
The details of his life story have been modified over the years to keep the character current. In the earlier stories, up until the one published in the nineteen-seventies, Grimm had served in the air force during World War II and the space flight in which he was transformed into the Thing was an attempt to reach the Moon, occurring at a time before any manned space ship had escaped Earth's orbit.[12] The Captain Savage story mentioned above was set during the Second World War.
In keeping with an early taboo in the comic superhero world against revealing a character's religion, the fact that Grimm was Jewish was not explicitly revealed until four decades after his creation, in the story, "Remembrance of Things Past" (in Fantastic Four, vol. 3, #56, August 2002).[6] In this story, Grimm returns to his old neighborhood to find Mr. Sheckerberg, a pawn shop owner he had known as a child. Flashbacks during this story reveal Grimm's Jewish heritage, and he even recites the Shema, the Jewish prayer often recited over the dead and dying, over the dying Sheckerberg, who eventually recovers.[6] In a later story, Grimm even agrees to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, since it has been 13 years (the age a Jewish boy celebrates his Bar Mitzvah) since he began his "second life" as the Thing. To celebrate the ceremony, Grimm organizes a poker tournament for every available superhero in the Marvel Universe.[13]
The story of the Thing was unusual for another religious reason, as well: the fact that the Thing was actually brought back to life in one story not by science, magic, or alien power or technology, but by the hand of God.[6]
Some years later, Reed Richards, now a successful scientist, once again makes contact with Grimm. Richards has built his spaceship, and reminds Grimm of his promise to fly the ship. After the government denies him permission to fly the spaceship himself, Richards plots a clandestine flight piloted by Grimm and accompanied by his future wife Susan Storm, who had helped provide funding for the rocket, and her brother Johnny Storm, who helped the group gain access to the launch system. Although reluctant to fly the rocket, Ben is persuaded to do so by Sue, for whom he has a soft spot. During this unauthorized ride into the upper atmosphere of Earth and the Van Allen Belts, they are pelted by a cosmic ray storm and exposed to radiation against which the ship's shields are no protection. Upon crashing down to Earth, each of the four learn that they have developed fantastic superhuman abilities. Grimm's skin is transformed into a thick, lumpy orange hide, which gradually evolves into his now-familiar craggy covering of large rocky plates. Richards proposes the quartet band together to use their new abilities for the betterment of humanity, and Grimm, in a moment of self-pity, adopts the super-heroic sobriquet, The Thing. The team clashes with the Mole Man in their first appearance.[14]
Trapped in his monstrous form, Grimm is an unhappy yet reliable member of the team. He trusts in his friend Reed Richards to one day develop a cure for his condition. However, when he encounters blind sculptress Alicia Masters,[15] Grimm develops an unconscious resistance to being transformed back to his human form. Subconsciously fearing that Masters prefers him to remain in the monstrous form of the Thing, Grimm's body rejects various attempts by Richards to restore his human form, lest he lose Masters' love. Grimm has remained a stalwart member of the Fantastic Four for years. The Thing first fought the Hulk early in his career,[16] with many such further clashes over the years. Not long after that, he is first reverted to his human form, but is then restored to his Thing form to battle Doctor Doom.[17]
After the events of the first Secret Wars, Grimm leaves the team when he opts to remain on an alien planet where he can control his transformation to and from his rocky super-powered form.[18] Upon returning to Earth, he learns that Alicia had become romantically involved with his teammate Johnny Storm during his absence [19] (it is eventually revealed that this Alicia was actually the Skrull impostor Lyja). An angry Grimm wallows in self-pity for a time, later on joining the West Coast Avengers, and hanging out at the West Coast mansion. Eventually, he returns to his surrogate family as leader of the Fantastic Four when Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman leave the team to raise their son Franklin.[20] Ben invites Crystal and Ms. Marvel II (Sharon Ventura) to fill their slots. Soon after Sharon and Ben are irradiated with cosmic rays, Sharon becomes a lumpy Thing much like Ben was in his first few appearances while Ben mutates into a new rocky form.[21]
After being further mutated into the more monstrous rocky form, Ben was briefly changed back to his human form, and returned leadership of the Fantastic Four to Reed Richards.[22] Grimm once more returned to his traditional orange rocky form, out of love for Ms. Marvel.[23] He remains a steadfast member of the Fantastic Four.
Despite his unquestioned loyalty to the Fantastic Four, Grimm has been temporarily replaced on the team twice. First, after Grimm temporarily lost his powers and reverted to human form,[24] Reed Richards hired Luke Cage (then using the code name "Power Man") to take his place.[25] Years later, after Grimm chose to remain on Battleworld in the aftermath of the "Secret Wars", he asked the She-Hulk to fill in for him.[26]
In a Fantastic Four comic published in 2005, Ben learns he is entitled to a large sum of money, his share of the Fantastic Four fortune, which Reed Richards had never touched, as he had the shares of the other teammates (who were family members) in order to pay off various debts of the group.
The Thing uses his newfound wealth to build a community center in his old neighborhood on Yancy Street, the "Grimm Youth Center." Thinking the center is named after the Thing himself, the Yancy Street Gang plans to graffiti the building exterior, but discovers the building was actually named after Daniel Grimm, Ben's deceased older brother and former leader of the gang. The relationship between the Yancy Streeters and the Thing is then effectively reconciled, or at least changed to a more good-natured, playful rivalry (as exemplified by the comic ending, with Yancy Streeters spray-painting the sleeping Thing).
Some personality traits of the cantankerously lovable, occasionally cigar-smoking, Jewish native of the Lower East Side are popularly recognized as having been inspired by those of co-creator Jack Kirby, who in interviews has said he intended Grimm to be an alter ego of himself.[27]
Initially in the superhero Civil War Ben is a reluctant member at Iron Man's side, until he witnesses a battle on Yancy Street in which Captain America's forces try to rescue captured allies held by Iron Man's forces. Old Fantastic Four foes the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master try to escalate the battle, using a mind-controlled Yancy Streeter to deliver a bomb. The young man dies and the Thing verbally blasts both sides for not caring about the civilians caught in the conflict. He announces that while he thinks the registration is wrong, he is also not going to fight the government and is thus leaving the country for France. While in France he meets Les Héros de Paris (The Heroes of Paris).[28][29]
Ben returns to New York as both sides of the SHRA battle in the city. Oblivious to whichever side gets in his way, Ben makes it his job to protect civilians from harm.[30]
In Fantastic Four #543 (March 2007), Ben celebrates the Fantastic Four's 11th anniversary along with the Human Torch, and late-comers Reed and Sue. The aftermath of the Civil War is still being felt in this issue, as Ben and Johnny (and even Franklin) consider the future of the team and Reed and Sue's marriage. When Reed and Sue arrive near issue's end, they announce they are taking a break from the team and have found two replacement members: Black Panther, and Storm of the X-Men. The title of the story in this issue is a quote from Ben, "Come on, Suzie, don't leave us hangin'."[31]
Ben Grimm served as one of the pallbearers at the memorial service for Captain America, along with Tony Stark, Ms. Marvel, Rick Jones, T'Challa and Sam Wilson.[32]
Ben has been identified as Number 53 of the 142 registered superheroes who appear on the cover of the comic book Avengers: The Initiative #1.[33]
Ben once again tries to take on the Hulk within the events of World War Hulk in order to buy Reed Richards the time he needs to complete his plans for the Hulk. Ben gives his best shots, but the Hulk takes his punches without slowing down. The Hulk proceeds to knock out Ben by punching both sides of his head simultaneously.[34] He is later seen captive in Madison Square Garden, which the Hulk has turned into a gladiatorial arena, with an obedience disk fitted on him.[35]
Released from his imprisonment, Ben, Spider-Man, and Luke Cage attack the Warbound, with Ben fighting Korg. Their battle is brought to an abrupt end when Hiroim repairs the damage to Manhattan Island, drawing the energy to do so from Ben and Korg.[36]
In the Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four miniseries, the Skrull Lyja, posing as Sue, sends the Baxter Building, with Ben, Johnny, Franklin, and Valeria inside, into the Negative Zone. Not long after their arrival, Ben has to protect Franklin and Valeria from an impending onslaught of giant insects.[37] With the aid of the Tinkerer, who Ben broke out of the Negative Zone Prison, they, with the exception of Lyja who stayed behind,[38] were able to return to the regular Marvel Universe just after the invasion was over.[39]
Following the Siege of Asgard, Luke Cage asks Ben to serve on his Avengers team. Although Ben states that his loyalty will always be to the Fantastic Four, Cage confirms that he is not asking Ben to resign from his original team, merely suggesting that Ben split his time between the two teams, as Wolverine divides his time between the X-Men and the Avengers.[40]
During the return of the God of Fear, Ben lifts one of the seven fallen hammers of the god and becomes Angrir: Breaker of Souls.[41] He then destroys Yancy Street while the Future Foundation tries to stop him, but he defeats them. The Red Hulk attempts to stop Angrir, who proceeds to destroy Avengers Tower.[42] Angrir defeats Red Hulk, sending him flying out of New York while he destroyed the Avengers Tower.[43] Later, the Serpent summons Angrir and the Hulk possessed Worthy to fight Thor.[44] During the battle, Thor mortally wounds the possessed Angrir by sending Mjolnir flying through him. Franklin and Valeria come to his aid and, upon seeing them, Ben takes control of himself, saying that because of all the atrocities he committed as Angrir, he deserves to die. Franklin then uses his powers to restore Ben to his normal appearance, free from the Serpent's possession.[45]
Grimm's relationship with his teammates has been a close but occasionally edgy one given his temper. He and the Torch (aka Johnny Storm) are always arguing and have often clashed, causing no end of mayhem in the Fantastic Four headquarters. When Johnny started a relationship of his own with Alicia Masters and they became engaged, Grimm was upset. However, he had to concede that, unlike himself and his stone-covered body, Johnny could "be a man".[46] He even agreed to act as best man at their wedding.[47]
The relationship between Alicia and Johnny was vehemently disliked by many fans, and was later retconned and explained that the Alicia that Johnny fell in love with was actually Lyja, a member of the shape-changing Skrull race. The real Alicia, who was kept in suspended animation, was soon rescued by the Fantastic Four and reunited with the Thing.
Ben began dating a teacher named Debbie Green.[48] Their relationship went so well that, after only six weeks, Ben asked Debbie to marry him, which she accepted.[49] He later left her at the altar when he realizes the dangers of the wives of superheroes.[50]
Grimm calls Reed Richards "Stretch", as appropriate to the fact that he is naturally tall and can literally stretch his body. However, Grimm also holds Reed responsible for his condition since he had dismissed the potential danger of the cosmic rays that gave them their powers, although Grimm had taken them very seriously.[51] At times of real frustration towards Reed, Grimm refers to him simply as "Richards".[52][53]
Grimm is the godfather of Reed and Sue's son Franklin, who affectionately calls him "Uncle Ben".
As a result of a mutagenic effect due to exposure to cosmic radiation, the Thing possesses high levels of superhuman strength, stamina, and resistance to physical injury. His strength has continued to increase over the years due to a combination of further mutation and special exercise equipment designed for him by Reed Richards.
He is capable of surviving impacts of great strength and force without sustaining injury, as his body is covered with an orange, flexible, rock-like hide. He is also able to withstand gunfire from high caliber weapons as well as armor piercing rounds. It is possible to breach his exterior, however, and he does bleed as a result. The Thing's highly advanced musculature generates fewer fatigue toxins during physical activity, granting him superhuman levels of stamina.
Aside from his physical attributes, the Thing's senses can withstand greater levels of sensory stimulation than an ordinary human, with the exception of his sense of touch. His lungs possess greater efficiency and volume than those of an ordinary human. As a result, the Thing is capable of holding his breath for much greater periods of time.
Despite his brutish, even monstrous form, the Thing suffers no change in his personality nor his level of intelligence. Despite his greatly increased size, the Thing's agility and reflexes remain at the same level they had been prior to his transformation.
The Thing is an exceptionally skilled pilot, due to his time spent as a test pilot in the United States Air Force and as a member of the Fantastic Four. He is also a formidable and relentless hand to hand combatant. His fighting style incorporates elements of boxing, wrestling, judo, jujutsu, and street-fighting techniques, as well as hand to hand combat training from the military.
After an encounter with the Grey Gargoyle, the Thing seemed to have gained the ability to shift between his human and rock forms at will.[54] That ability has since been lost.
On occasion, when Ben Grimm regained his human form and lost his Thing powers, he used a suit of powered battle armor designed by Reed Richards that simulated the strength and durability of his mutated body, albeit to a weaker degree. Wearing the suit, which was designed to physically resemble his rocky form, Ben continued to participate in the Fantastic Four's adventures. The first exo-skeletal Thing suit was destroyed after Galactus restored Ben's natural powers and form. A second suit was built (presumably by Richards) and used sporadically when Ben had been returned to his human form.[55]
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