How Are Things with Ben Grimm?

The story of Ben Grimm is not an easy one to tell. Bombarded by cosmic rays while piloting Reed Richards' first spaceship, Ben was transformed into a large creature made of rock, ... some sort of thing! While the other three members of the rocket crew found that they had gained extraordinary powers that left them human in appearance, Ben's incredible strength came with a body suited for one whose strength is second only to Thor and the Hulk. This, then, his the tragic story of...

""Nuff said already! If there's any stories to be told around here, they will be up close and personal like, courtesy of Benjamin J. Grimm. This stuff was reading about as dull as a Marvel Universe handbook entry. That'll put ya to sleep faster than listenin' to the Mole Man's diary."

Art By Jim Lee

Blue Eyed Idol O' Millions

"Well, I'll tell ya one thing, it's sure easy to get recognized nowadays. Not even an oversized overcoat and a extra large pair of shades keeps this mug incognito fer very long. I don't know why I bother anyways, every time I buy any clothes they only get trashed when I'm attacked by some creep like Diablo. Nothing's built quite as tough as my Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew. So being big and made of rocks comes in handy sometimes! It ain't all a bed o' roses, that's true. Ya ever try to find a cab that can hold someone my size? I can't fit through the subway doors, can't fit behind the wheel of a car, and can't park the Fantasticar on Broadway. That leaves me wishin' taxi cab drivers weren't so easy to rattle. Leastaways they're usually soothed by my autograph.

"Obviously, I don't spend all my time as a man about town, anyways! As part of being the Fantastic Four, I get to go to all kinds of strange places like the Negative Zone, the Microverse, and even alternate dimensions. Wherever I go, the story's always the same, though. There's always some bum tryin' to put the squeeze on innocent victims. So we got a system goin' now, see. Reed and Suzie sniff the baddies out and I clobber 'em! Torchie just comes along fer the ride."

Art By John Byrne

The Hardest Part

"The hardest part about being the ever-lovin' blue-eyed idol of millions is having to put up with so many adorin' fans! You gotta wonder about the people who clamor to get a glimpse of a mug like mine, but at least most of them don't have the Yancy Street Gang's peculiar sense of humor. I don't hafta live with the Yancy Streeters like I do the Torch. The kid loves me. It's just that his sense of humor is a bit more warped than anything they got on Yancy Street. Being on the receivin' end of so many practical jokes is just Johnny's way of showing affection, I guess, which is why I don't clobber 'im too hard when it's payback time. Heck, with such a great role model hangin' around, it's no wonder ol' Johnny's shaping up to be like the good guy Bashful Benjy is."

Art By Barry Windsor-Smith

Ben Listens to Reed

The Second Hardest Part

"The hardest part about bein' me after puttin' up with Johnny Storm is puttin' up with Reed Richards! He may be the smartest guy this side of Alpha Centauri, but he could talk Galactus to death if ol' high pants wuz short enough to hear him. It's kinda hard to appreciate the scientific value of Annihilus' thingamawatchit when the bug-eyed punk is fryin' ya with it, ... well, unless yer Reed, that is. Lookit that picture above, fer cryin' out loud! There's Stretch lecturing me on the changes in my physical appearance as if I didn't have a mirror handy all these years. It's kinda hard not to notice yer transformations when some cock-eyed company's producin' a comic book with yer brick head on it every month. But, then, if the world were crumbling inta space dust, Reed would be the guy on teevee telling everyone all about it, just in words no one could understand. Maybe he's just too enthusiastic about droppin' my li'l orange bod in a contraption that looks like it scrambles eggs fer the Watcher.

"Nah, I gotta be honest with ya. Reed's the best friend a guy could ever have. I know I'm not the most jovial person to have around sometimes, but Reed never complains and he always comes through for me. Heck, most of the times he tried to cure me of being the Thing, he failed mostly because I didn't want to be cured. When I was cured and replaced by that Power Man joker back in Fantastic Four #169, I put on a Thing armor suit so's I could still be a fightin' member o' the team. Then, when I wuz cured by Reed in Fantastic Four #326, I later exposed my bod to cosmic rays again so I could give Doc Doom the payback he deserved. Let's face it -- the Thing is who I am. And Reed Richards is the Thing's best buddy and donchya fergit it."

Whatta Revoltin' Development

"Speakin' of my transformations, I've had a few doozies. I'm Richard Gere now compared ta what I went through in Fantastic Four #310 when I wuz exposed to cosmic rays again. Shary and I were tryin' ta stop a guy name o' Fasaud when our space shuttle got bombarded. Near as I can figger, Fasaud wuz this electric Arab who was all grumpy because Arabs need lots of oil, not lots of electricity. Shary went from bein' the tall red-headed gal o' my dreams to a lumpy female thing so I guess she got the worse end of the deal. Me, I got all spikey and stronger. I wuz that way 'til Reed cured me not long later.

Art by Keith Pollard

"All in all, it wuz circumstances that made that a bad time fer the FF. I wuz leader of the team while Reed and Suzie were spending more time as a family with my godson Franklin, which wuz good, but we hadda lotta bad things happen to us, which wuz bad. The FF's gotta reputation fer dealin' with a lot of stuff that's over people's heads and without Reed to run our equipment and tell us up from down in places like the Negative Zone, we tend ta get in over our heads. And I couldn't deal with Shary's transformation the way I shoulda been able to which mebee is why she betrayed us ta Doc Doom later.

It's not like I wuz having great luck with the ladies before then either. I wuz reevaluating my relationship with Alicia when we went off with a bunch of other heroes ta fight the Secret War, and those slimey Skrulls used that opportunity ta replace her with a shape shiftin' fake who dumped me and married Johnny. With problems like these, you can see why I don't exactly leap inta another relationship."

What It's All About "I've lost a lot. I can't deny it. But bein' part of the Fantastic Four ain't about bein' a handsome jet jockey. It's about makin' things right. Period. I gotta world o' problems that comes with bein' the Thing, but I've traded them to be normal a few times already and the result is always the same. I always choose to go back to being big and rocky. I'm still the best damn pilot around, though, so I'm counting my blessings.
	Art by Marc Silvestri
" I can't run from my problems, but bein' the Thing sure helps me solve other people's problems. So whenever there's some cosmic joker tearin' up the streets in order to tenderize the city fer his consumption, you can bet your last dollar that I'm going to be there to teach him the meaning of pain. It's Clobbering Time!" [Top of Page]

The Thing's Guide To Rocks

A Geologist He Ain't!