Great idea, Jeff.
Who would hate The Thing?
I know many people that are not a fan of a certain Benjamin Grimm. I am not one of them, however.
We are talking about one of the four fantastic
heroes that got me into comics. I remember being super stoked when MARVEL FEATURE 11 came out on my 7-11 spinner rack (well as stoked as a 8 or 9 year old could be
). I always thought that was a single issue, as I could never find issue #12, but then one day at the same 7-11, I saw MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #5 ... or #6 (I can't remember now) and I was sooo pissed. I missed the first few issues of one of my favorite characters? AARRRGGHHHH
I happily soaked up the other issues as they came out and eventually it led me to start buying MARVEL TEAM-UP (yes, I was a 2-in-1 fan before a Team-Up fan, even though TU had been out for years prior).
Ben Grim was as close to being my favorite character in my youth as any character could have been, and he remained so for most of teen years up until my late-teen years in his solo series ... soon after Bryne left (even though I have never like the way Byrne drew The Thing). I am not sure if the writing that followed on that series pushed me away from the character or if by then I had just started to wain on the character, but he fell from my top 5 shortly after that. Even in the F4 at that time (if I remember) he wasn't as involved or didn't feel as much part of the 'family' as years past, so that only helped the slide.
Still, the young fan in me shall never forget the impact he had on me early in my comic experience, and even though even more characters have now past him on my "favorite list", he will always be a special character to me. FANTASTIC FOUR and MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE were always comics I had to buy, when I only had a few cents, and he was the reason for that.
Long live the blue-eyed Benji !!!!
EDIT - Just noticed you actually had another question in your post, Jeff
, sorry about that.
Yes, Ben is tougher than the Hulk. Tougher ... but not stronger. I do honestly remember being pissed when I was younger knowing the Hulk was "stronger". I wanted my Ben to be the strong guy, but when compared to Hulk ... just wasn't possible. However, it would be years later when I finally realized that he was indeed tougher than the Hulk.
This was proven to me back when Ben had to box that Champion guy ... I think that was his name. That dude was killing him but Ben never gave up, his will was strong. He was tough. (Was it the Champion ? and was that in the THING series or ... )
And my favorite Thing story ... I think ... was the MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE Serpent Crown Affair arc. leaving to find pics
And to top that off, I had forgotten that Perez drew this (and a few great issue prior to these.
Damn, going to have to start my 2-in-1 collection all over again now. Gotta do it. Thanks, Jeff (I mean that both heartfelt and sarcastically)