Note that for some odd reason, subsequent issues of this Giant-Size series will be titled, “Giant-Size Fantastic Four.” Actually, that’s not odd. What’s odd is that this issue ISN’T called “Giant-Size Fantastic Four.” Because it reprints some old FF stories and has one new one. I guess it is because this book is the one that launched the Giant Size format.
The story is pretty simple. Hulk vs Thing at Madison Square Garden.
I’d plunk down a sawbuck to see that!
Only they get body-switched as a result of Bruce Banner’s failed attempt to cure Thing. So when the other FF-ers show up to stop Hulk from killing Thing, they’re really stopping Thing from stopping Hulk who is in Thing’s body. Got it?
And we see signs of Thundra’s crush on Thing, which eventually becomes a full-blown relationship.
Lots of fun.
I understand that deep exposition was this issue’s writer Gerry Conway’s style- it was the early Seventies, he was new to Marvel, and he was undoubtedly trying to make a strong impression on not just the readership, both here and on ‘The Mighty Thor’, but on his bosses Roy Thomas and Stan Lee, as well. He was trying to be the Chris Claremont of his time, by attempting to elevate the artform to the level of Hemingway, Goethe, and Chaucer. Unfortunately for the Thing, in this issue, all of this prose was causing him to overthink the conflict, which was costing him his ass. ( or the Hulk’s ass, depending on how you look at it ) You notice that the Hulk ( in the Thing’s body ) is not suffering from this problem. The reason I feel so strongly about it is because I believe that my appreciation for Conway’s heady prose style is what got my own ass clobbered in high school on several notorious occasions, for all the same reasons. Psychologically trained by reading Marvel Comics, I approached brawls on an intellectual level, as Ben Grimm is doing here, and that got us both clobbered. I don’t have that problem, anymore. I learn my lessons. Admittedly, I am not engaging in a lot of brawls these days, but when I am called to it, I psychologically approach it from the same place as Wolverine, as opposed to a Conway character, overthinking everything, which gets you killed! Quite often, winning fights is a matter of shutting off the mind, and turning on the fury. I have learned. That’s why I don’t reread ‘Giant-Size Super-Stars’#1 very often. ‘Nuff said!