This is an age-old 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:
He’s a good friend to wear an asbestos cast and bandages and return to the battle. But, again, it’s the Thing/Hulk fight that everyone wants to see.
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.
MY TOP 10 THING-HULK BATTLES
10. Hulk vs. Thing: Hard Knocks
“A Hulk walks into a bar…” Mostly, I love this for the cover to #2. But it’s also a quirky, neat little two-parter. One of the better Marvel Knights products.
9. The Big Change
Hilarious. They don’t fight each other with fists, but they do bicker quite a bit, and the end of the book teases a matchup between them. Basically, we wait the whole issue for a fight that never comes.
8. Marvel Fanfare #21
Because it’s Jim Starlin, one of my all-time favorites.
7. Thing #3 (2005)
Okay, so technically its a robot fight, but still, it’s Dan Slott and it’s fantastic.
6. Fantastic Four #12
The first match up.
5. Fantastic Four #112
100 issues later, one of the most rollicking fights of them all. Lots of wanton destruction and mayhem.
4. Incredible Hulk #278
This one might not win many awards from most people, and the battle scene is very short, but I have sentimental attachment to this comic. By Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, and featuring The Avengers.
3. Fantastic Four #166-167
Because George Perez drew it, Roy Thomas wrote it, and it concludes with Thing and Hulk teaming up against the rest of the Fantastic Four. Plus: A Kirby cover.
2. World War Hulk #2
Because if Hulk’s gonna fight the world, then Thing’s gotta be in the picture.
1. Fantastic Four #25-26.
This one.
Because it’s got The Avengers in it as well, and because the FF are sick during it so we get to see them all get nauseous and dizzy. Great two-parter.
I’ll admit I haven’t had the opportunity to read all these Hulk-Thing battles, but of the ones I have, my vote would go to ‘FF’#112, simply because it was totally “no-gimmicks”- just twenty pages of the Hulk and the Thing trying to kill each other!! Honorable mention should go to ‘Incredible Hulk’#122, for a brief-yet-vicious brawl between these two, and of all the “gimmick” fights, that would have to go to ‘Giant-Size Super-Stars’#1, ( aka ‘Giant-Size Fantastic Four’#1 ) where our two battlin’ brawlers switched minds, making for a very unusual battle circumstance! I like the rather clever way Reed restored their minds into their proper bodies- ( it hearkens back to the conclusion of ‘Thor’#181, where Thor restored his and Loki’s minds to their proper bodies, using a variation of the same stunt by capitalizing on the ‘Don Blake’ persona ) although I have serious reservations about the Hulk’s epiderm being penetrated by a hypodermic needle. That must have been some hypodermic needle!!! Good comics!!