Dan Slott’s brief attempt to reboot a Thing solo book has mostly failed to land for me. Each story feels like it’s about to go somewhere but never quite gets there. I guess Ben Grimm is just not a character that lends himself to humor as well as She-Hulk.
Having said that, you couldn’t ask for a better series finale than this one. Just about EVERYONE comes to play poker with Thing. The story has lots of character-narrated flashbacks, like the time Squirrel Girl faced off against Bi-Beast and Ben’s roots as a 13-year-old kid in New York. There are appearances by many characters from Thing’s past, like Aunt Petunia, Aquarian, and Impossible Man, and many of Slott’s best characters are a part of this. Like Great Lakes Avengers. They show up and we see how they had to change their name to “Great Lakes Defenders” when the Avengers refused to be affiliated with them. Then Doc Strange got offended so they changed to GL X-Men. And so on.
Flatman is the big winner…
…And in the end they become Great Lake Champions.
And that’s not all! Over the course of the issue, Alicia begins to fall for him again so that, by the end of the issue, she and Thing are again an item.
And so the series ends with Thing and Alicia back together. Nicely done. I wish every issue of this series were this good.