Thing

The Thing (real name: Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm) is a member of the Fantastic Four.

History

Born on Yancy Street in New York City's Lower East Side, to a Jewish family, Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm's early life of poverty and hardship, shaped him 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. Following the death of his parents, Ben was raised by his Uncle Jake (who married a much younger wife, Petunia, who becomes a frequent reference used by the character until her death). He came to lead the Yancy Street gang at one point.

Excelling in football as a high school student, Ben received a full scholarship to Empire State University, where he first met his eventual lifelong friend in a teenaged genius named Reed Richards, as well as future enemy Victor Von Doom. Despite their being from radically different backgrounds, science student Richards described to Grimm his dream of building a space rocket to explore the regions of space around Mars; Grimm jokingly agreed to fly that rocket when the day came.

Some years later, Reed Richards, now a successful scientist, again made contact with Grimm. Richards had built his spaceship, and reminded Grimm of his promise to fly it. After the government denied him permission to fly the spaceship himself, Richards plotted a clandestine flight piloted by Grimm and accompanied by his future wife, Susan Storm, who had helped provide funding for the rocket, and her younger brother, Johnny Storm, who helped the group gain access to the launch system. Although reluctant to fly the rocket, Ben was persuaded to do so by Sue, for whom he had a soft spot. During this unauthorized ride into the upper atmosphere of Earth and the Van Allen Belts, they were pelted by a cosmic ray storm and exposed to radiation against which the ship's shields had no protection. Upon crashing down to Earth, each of the four learned that they have developed fantastic superhuman abilities. Grimm's skin was transformed into a thick, lumpy orange hide, which gradually evolved into his now-familiar craggy covering of large rocky plates. Richards proposed the quartet band together to use their new abilities for the betterment of humanity, and Grimm, in a moment of self-pity, adopted the super-heroic sobriquet, the Thing

Trapped in his monstrous form, Grimm was an unhappy yet reliable member of the team. He trusted in his friend, Reed Richards, to one day develop a cure for his condition. However, when he encounters blind sculptor Alicia Masters, Grimm developed an unconscious resistance to being transformed back to his human form. Subconsciously fearing that Masters prefered him to remain in the monstrous form of the Thing, Grimm's body rejected 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.

Appearances

• "Send Up a Flare!" (No Lines)

See Also

• Thing at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia