THE THING #10: After that rocket flight... this!

[starwolf_oakley]

In THE THING #10, John Byrne has Ben Grimm add an extra scene to the Fantastic Four's origin.





All right. And now for what happened right after that special vow...






I'm guessing this was the "starting point" for the FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST FAMILY miniseries, where the government has the team as their "guests" and aren't sure what to do with them.



Ah, yes. John Bryne's revelation that the Thing could always turn back into Ben Grimm (and into the Thing) whenever he wanted, he just had a psychological block from his relationship with Alicia Masters. Ben thought Alicia wouldn't love him anymore as "just" Ben Grimm. Which either means Ben subconsciously thinks Alicia is shallow, or he subconsciously thinks ALL women are shallow. And for some very, VERY strange reason Reed never told Ben (his best friend) this.

The rest of this issue is Ben, Reed and Johnny getting taken into the Marvel Superheroes Secret War. The next 12 issues were the Thing's adventures on Battleworld, shifting back and forth from Ben Grimm at will. I'm surprised they didn't call it PLANET GRIMM.

(Warning: Fanboy rant to follow)

The Thing has been stuck as Ben Grimm for some FF storylines, once for over two years. Ben's fondest wish to shift to and from the Thing at will, not permanently back into Ben Grimm. He knows all the threats that the Thing's strength is needed for (and some he might not yet know about). But he also wants a "normal" life.

In that case, Ben's logic is sound, and also the reason I never quite bought any story where Spider-Man purposely tries to get rid of his spider-powers. Peter Parker is too aware of all the threats around to get rid of his powers. Of course, it seemed Peter would lose his powers whenever he got the sniffles.

I've mentioned the flip side of that. Bruce Wayne knows how important Batman is to Gotham City, so his mind has the death of the Waynes on a constant loop.

Comments

[glprime]

See, I've always enjoyed the stories where Ben is just perfectly fine with his mutation at this point. He's over it. The Shuttle Incident happened years prior (my head!canon has it at about 15-20 years prior, so Peter can also have been Spidey when he was 15, but be in his early-to-mid-thirties now), and he's adjusted. In Earth X, he has a pleasant, normal (or as normal as possible in a world full of super-powered mankind) life with his wife and children (GODS, I loved the Brothers Grimm; those kids were awesome). Then there was that mini that revealed he took a vacation to an island nation once year where he was treated as a local legend/celebrity with a parade and everything.

Ben Grimm is The Thing. The Thing is Ben Grimm. Beneath the rocky exterior and brutish strength, is the heart of a solid, honest, upstanding man, with a lot of tolerance in his heart for misfits and outcasts (learned by experience). He's a pilot, a vet, an experienced fighter (but not a blood thirsty maniac) and a person with humility despite his talents and flaws.

I like the character as someone who has adapted to his circumstance and shrugs it off more often than not. And really, this is the Marvel U. More average people should shrug off the weird stuff because it's been going on for awhile.

[freezer]

That's the biggest problem with publisher-owned comics, IMHO: Character and plot development lasts only as long the current creative team wants it to.

[glprime]

And really, I lay the blame at editors allowing writers to stray too far from a central idea of a character*. That CAN lead to stagnation, but the opposite is Wallbanger uncharacteristic moments where it's more what the author wants to see the character do, and what they would do based on previously established nature. If you don't have good justifications for this behavior (that the character would believably react to as they are, again, based on past behavior), you're just writing a script with a pre-established character In-Name-Only.

*And editors who just don't get the history of their own characters.

[auggie18]

Hah! Weird. My head-canon is also about 15 years for the Marvel Universe, mostly coming from Kid Omega holding up an newspaper article that came out during the original run of the X-men and saying it came out on the day he was born. That's why I find it weird when people refer to Cyclops as being in his twenties or Bobby Drake as being a kid. They're both in their 30s by now.

DC headcanon...

[glprime]

Countdown to IC had Ted Kord talking about "getting his first laptop" and that changing everything in his worldview and future. So, with a somewhat-wealthy family background (we're not talking the Waynes, here), Ted gets a laptop around the late-80s, early 90s. It would be a few years before he started out as Blue beetle, but that period would probably already see a Year One Batman and Superman just starting out. A few years into the 90s probably has the rest of the Silver Age starting, and then the Justice League (probably very much like depicted in Mark Waid's mini).

So, really, Bruce is now in his early-to-mid Forties, Dick Grayson was his ward at about 13-14, now making him late-20s, early 30s (much like Peter Parker and Johnny Storm) and each Robin is about 4-5 years younger than the previous (except Stephanie Brown).

I think time between major storylines has to be rather condensed, but judging by in-unverse commentary, the heroes from both companies always feel pretty worn out from all the stuff going on in their lives, how full and frenetic it all seems.

[md84]

At this point, Ben's issues should only be physical. He still has problems fitting in -- I mean literally fitting into places since he's a huge golem. And he's too heavy to resume his original career as a pilot. Ben is still the unluckiest member of the Four since his powers unlike theirs does cut him off from certain aspects of life that most people take for granted.

He's long since conquered his psychological issues -- at least until the next writer wants to wring out some more angst out of him.

[cainofdreaming]

And he's too heavy to resume his original career as a pilot.

Though, as a counterpoint to that, he also gets to fly things that other pilots can only dream about.

[md84]

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Come to think of it, he can't exactly drive or take public transportation since only the most advanced and over-engineered vehicles can support his weight. Though again, being able to drive Reed's supercars and superjets probably helps Ben feel better about it.

[bruinsfan]

Ben's supposed to weigh about 400 lbs. So bucket seats and wicker furniture are right out, but people larger and heavier than he do take public transportation and drive their own cars every day.

[glprime]

Eh, his density has varied. Official Marvel site, says 500, I've seen him listed at as much as 800. The Hulk (who he regular goes toe-to-toe with, not getting knocked ass-over-tea-kettle 'til Hulk lays on the rage) is anywhere between 900 and half a ton.

It's hard to pin down, especially seeing as nobody holds artists to a standard proportion/size for him. I can buy he's shorter than the hulk, but he can only be so wide, but even that varies widely.

I would say, a heavy truck or SUV should be able to handle him.

[cainofdreaming]

He's been shown to use a limo to get around, for a date with Alicia, or a NY cab. So he's not that insurmountably untransportable.

[starwolf_oakley]

IIRC, Ben Grimm was a test pilot (like Hal Jordan). Which means his whole thing was flying experimental prototype aircraft. And you have to be pretty smart to be a test pilot.

Ben Grimm can talk like a Bowery Boy or Jimmy Durante if he wants to, but more writers should show he's very intelligent. Maybe not "super inventor" smart like Reed, but very smart.

[arbre_rieur]

I'm kind of torn on whether the Thing should still long to become human. On the one hand, I get it, yeah, it's played out, both in FF and other comics. On the other hand, I feel it's kind of like saying Johnny should stop being hot-headed. It's part of the character's distinctiveness.

Lee & Kirby really struck gold with the creation of the team. They created such a *perfect* set-up and dynamic. I'm not against changing it (I've been meaning to check out the First Family stuff in trades, which looks good from all the snippets I've seen), but if you remove one element, you better have something equally good to replace it with. Ben's curse has been such a rich story-generating engine over the years. What will you replace it with?

[eyz]

classic Thing^^

I wish they could have at least tried to capture this in that awful FF live movie...

[arbre_rieur]

Also, the way Byrne wrote it, the reason for the subconscious block goes back to a specific scene from the first appearance of Alicia Masters:

She first meets Ben in his Thing form and feels his face then. Later, when he's changed back to human, he runs into her again. She recognizes his voice but, feeling his face, basically goes, "Oh, you're not that sweet man I met earlier after all." At that moment, his cure du jour (he was finding cures, like, every other month back then) fades and he reverts to Thing form.

[wizardru]

I assume the motivation was for Byrne to figure out an in-story reason for why Reed Richards appeared to be incompetent when trying to solve a 'Gilligan's Island' kind of scenario. If Ben was cured, he'd no longer be a superhero. If Ben wasn't cured, it made Reed looks stupid.

Of course, a lot of this is the result of the transitionary period that Marvel was entering, where the 'real time' format of the characters adventures was fading. It wasn't a big deal when Spidey had been active for like 10 years...but by this point, they were fast closing in on 20 and it was starting to get hard to maintain the illusion. So the revisions began in earnest.

[auggie18]

You could argue that a cure could just consist of a way to let Ben switch back and forth between Thing form and human form. But you'd still lose a lot of what made the Thing the Thing.

[bjornwilde]

By the end of Dan Slott's run of the second volume Ben had made a certain peace with himself and even had a second Bar Mitzvah to celebrate his rocky self.

Additionally, in Hickman's run of F4 he now gets to be human for one week a year. Of course we'll see if any other author has the stones to use that well or if it gets ignored.