TITLE: The Adventures of the Thing vol. 1, issue #12
YEAR: April 1992
COMPANY: Marvel Comics
Written by John Byrne
Penciller: Joe Sinnott
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: F. Mouly
Editor: Roger Stern
Reprint Editor: Hildy Mesnik
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Among the Marvel characters that has maintained solid popularity since debuting in the’60s, The Thing (Ben Grimm) is Marvel’s strongman with wit, with heart and dare I say it, a lot of sensitivity.
Early in the “Fantastic Four” comic books, has had a hard time dealing with his rocky exterior and always wanted to become human.
There are times when he could have been and Reed Richards had found a way, but unfortunately, to defeat the enemy, Reed took it upon himself to bring the Thing back (without Ben’s permission) with the “I’ll do whatever I can to bring you back to normal” routine.
If anything, Reed Richards, despite how good his intentions are, he has been a big jerk around The Thing and all these years, Ben had to live through this depression of being some monstrous being.
May never find love in his life (well, he found Alicia Masters but it doesn’t help when Johnny started dating her, another jerk move).
But he is a man who defends his friends, not afraid to go against the Incredible Hulk (when he knows he will lose in a battle of strength, but The Thing is much better in the intelligence department – when Hulk didn’t have Bruce Banner’s intellect) and he does care about people.
So, when “Marvel-Two-in-One” came out, it was a way to pair an unknown superhero with the popular Thing. Sure, there were times a well-known hero would pop up but for the most part, you had people no one has even heard of, teaming up with the Thing.
Which leads us to “The Adventures of the Thing”, a reprint of “Marvel-Two-in-One” issue #50.
The limited series takes four issues from M2iO and provides a reprinted story of the Thing that people will no doubt enjoy and back in the ’90s, a perfect way to read the comic (this was released way before eBay).
The story is about Reed trying to find a way to make the Thing human with some special goo. Reed surmises that it was easier back then because The Thing was evolving but now he’s in his current rocky state which may be final.
As Reed is unable to figure it out, The Thing decides, what if he takes that goop that could make him human, take a ride on Dr. Doom’s time machine and administer the goop on his old self.
But of course, the modern Thing confronts his depressed version of himself and it leads to a major brawl between the two Things.
But what happens when the Thing (modern) puts the goop on the early Thing?
Suffie to say, with the Thing changing the time stream…he ends up creating an altered reality.
Overall, I don’t think people will have a hard time finding issue #50 of “Marvel-Two-in-One” these days but back then, these reprints were the way to go.