Character: Thing (Ben Grimm)

Tough Guy First appearance: Fantastic Four #1 (1961)

FANTASTIC FOUR #25-26 (1964 and The Top 10 Hulk vs Thing Fights

hairy guy wrestles rocky

This is an ageold fanboy battle, and the second time it graced the pages of Fantastic Four.  Hulk is tearing NYC apart looking for The Avengers, but they’re out of town.

So Hulk beats up 75% of the Fantastic Four. This is what Johnny looks like injured:

Then Hulk and Thing fight for most of issue #25.

And into #26.

Until The Avengers show up.

And Hulk beats them up, too. Until Ant-Man’s ants defeat him, and he floats away.

This is really the first World War Hulk.

The Hulk vs Thing fights are some of the best and most fun in Marvel history. They even made it to TV.

This guy here has a pretty thorough review of most of the major battles between these two guys.  Fun post to read.  But, according to one of my favorite bloggers, this one: F4 #25-26, is the best Hulk/Thing battle of all time.  But I would have picked the ones you’ll see below here, if you click the “read more” tag.

FANTASTIC FOUR #34 (1965)

Thing and Human Torch’s constant pranking gets twisted beyond recognition when a rich guy named Gideon decides to start messing with them to try to get them to break up–just to win a bet.  Kinda like those old rich dicks in the movie Trading Places who fucked up Eddie and Dan’s lives with their own stupid bet.

Also he does it because he wants his son to love him more than he loves the FF.

It’s all worth it, though, to see Thing in a Beatles Wig.  Because doing something Beatles-ish was such a hit when they were in Strange Tales #130.
Before he puts it on, Johnny gets a sick burn.

Get it?  Johnny gets in a sick burn?  Because he’s Human Torch?

 The rich dude’s son, Thomas Gideon, will eventually become Glorian eventually.

In the end, the rich dude feels bad for what he did.

Grade: D.  One of the few missteps in this brilliant run.

FANTASTIC FOUR #54 (1966)

This issue starts a grand tradition–invoked most often by Chris Claremont–of superheroes playing baseball.

Then, it’s on to Wakanda.

First, it’s dinner in Wakanda.  Then…

The Inhumans return, but it’s the panel above that makes this issue worth a read.  It’s a Maximus story, in which he does bad by doing good.

The rest is mostly Human Torch and Wyatt Wingfoot.