''Why can't I stay? The future hold nothing for me! In the twentieth century I'm nothing but a monster... a freak!'' - The Thing
Real name: Benjamin Jacob Grimm Other known aliases: Blackbeard the Pirate, Bashful Benjy. Occupation: Adventurer, former student, pilot, professional wrestler, motorcycle stunt driver and actor. Current group affiliation: Fantastic Four. Past group affiliations: Avengers, Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, Thunder Riders, Yancy Street Gang, Secret Wars Heroes, U.S. Air Force. Major enemies: Doctor Doom, Mad Thinker, Galactus, Skrulls. First appearance: Fantastic Four #1 Origin: Fantastic Four #1 Description: In human form Ben is an average looking man standing 6' tall with blue eyes and brown hair. In his super-powered form Ben is a powerhouse covered in an orange rock-like covering weighing 500 lbs. He has no hair and blue eyes. He has only four fingers and toes and no visible outer ear.
Characteristics
14/59 STR 4
18 DEX 24
14/24 CON 8
15 BODY 10
13 INT 3
18 EGO 16
18/23 PRE 8
6/10 COM -2
8/17 PD 5
8/11 ED 5
4 SPD 12
6/16 REC 0
28/48 END 0
29/54 STUN 0
Characteristics Cost: 93
Powers and Skills
3 0/4 Armor,Only vs. fire.(-1/2),Linked(-1/2),"to Shapeshift."
2 +4 COM,Only in normal ID.(-1/4)
13 +10 CON,Linked(-1/2),"to Shapeshift."
3 EC (5),"Brick!",Linked(-1/2),"to Shapeshift."
9a) 9/4 Armor
3b) 1 LVLS Density Increase (stats already included),0 END
Persistent(+1) 0
3 5 Flash Defense,Hearing Group,Linked(-1/2),"to Shapeshift."
4 Life Support,safe in heat/cold,immune to disease,Linked
(-1/2),"to Shapeshift."
2 +5 PRE,Negative uses only.(-1/2),Linked(-1/2),"to
Shapeshift."
13 +10" Running,Linked(-1/2),"to Shapeshift." 2
11 Shape Shift,Concentrate(-1/4),Extra Time(-1/2),0 END
Persistent(+1) 0
32 +40 STR,Only In Hero ID(-1/4) 4
5 Combat Piloting 14-
4 Crush
1 Interrogation 8-
3 KS: Public supers. 12-,(INT based)
24 3 Levels,all combat
2 Local Police Powers
7 Navigation 13-
2 PS: Professional Wrestler 11-
1 Stealth 8-
3 Streetwise 14-
3 Tactics 12-
4 TF,Air Vehicles,Space Vehicles
Powers Cost: 157
Disadvantages
Base Points: 100
10 DNPC,"Girlfriend",normal,appear 8-
15 Distinctive,"Big orange rocky guy in hero ID.",easily
concealable,extreme
25 Hunted,"Super villains galore!",as powerful,non-combat
influence,harsh,appear 14-
5 Physical Lim,"Big and heavy in hero ID.",infrequently,
slightly
15 Psych Lim,"Code vs. killing.",common,strong
15 Psych Lim,"Plays the dumb tough guy part.",very common,
moderate
15 Psych Lim,"Overconfident",common,strong
10 Public ID,"Benjamin Jacob Grimm"
15 Rep,"Famous hero.",occur 11-,extreme reputation
5 Rivalry,"with the other bricks.",professional
10 Unluck,2D6
10 Watched,"by the media.",as powerful,non-combat influence,
harsh,appear 11-
Disadvantages Total: 150
Experience Spent: 0
Total Points: 250
Explanation of the conversion:
History: Ben spent the early years of his life in the suburbs of Manhattan, especially on Yancy Street, were he lived as a teenager, trapped in a world of poverty and street violence. His elder brother died leading the Yancy Street Gang, and Ben took over as the leader as he grew up. When his parents died, he went to live with his uncle Jake and his aunt Petunia, the change being very positive for him. Soon, he became a football star and went to college, where he met his roommate and soon best friend, Reed Richards.
During WWII ben served with the Marines as a fighter pilot. He became a flying ace and flew missions over Guadalcanal and Okinawa (mentioned in Fantastic Four #11).
Later, he became a test-pilot. He was called then by Reed to fulfill a promise he jokingly made many time before, to pilot Reed's spaceship if he ever built one, but then funds for the project had been cut before tests were properly conducted, and Ben refused to pilot the spaceship. Reed talked him into it anyway. Reed, his girlfriend Susan Storm, her little brother Johnny and Ben all snuck onto the airfield and stole the experimental rocket. As Ben had feared, the hull wasn't capable of deflecting cosmic radiation, and their bodies were mutated. They crash landed and soon discovered they has gained super-human powers. Ben was transformed into an orange stone-skinned thing. Reed became the elastic bodied Mister Fantastic. Sue gained the ability to become invisible to the naked eye and became the Invisible Girl.
Johnny gained powers over fire and became the Human Torch II. Unlike his
friends, Ben was not happy with his mutation, feeling he was a monster (Fantastic Four #1).
Ben then started dating blind sculptress Alicia Masters, the adopted daughter of the villainous Puppet Master.
The Fantastic Four faced their most unusual threat ever when the Impossible Man came to Earth and caused all manner of chaos. Unable to defeat the Impossible Man, Reed decided the best way to get rid of the annoying alien was to ignore him. When the Impossible Man became board with Earth, he flew away. Reed then attempted to cure Ben of being the Thing with a serum he invented, but it only lasted a few minutes (Fantastic Four #11).
Ben then took Alicia to the symphony for a date, where he was attacked by army who mistook him for the Hulk. After straightening out his identity with the army Ben returned to the Fantastic Four headquarters to learn they were being called in by the army to find and stop the Hulk. The Fantastic Four then flew in their new Fantasticar to a missile base in the south west where they met general Thunderbolt Ross, scientist Bruce Banner and his helper Rick Jones. At the time Bruce had an assistant named Doctor Karl Kort, who ended up being a saboteur called the Wrecker. The Wrecker kidnapped Rick and left a note for the Hulk that he had to get rid of the Fantastic Four if he wanted Rick back. Banner then changed himself into the Hulk and fought the Fantastic Four while looking for Rick. The Fantastic Four were able to find the Wrecker and saved Rick, so the Hulk left them. After a celebration over uncovering the saboteur, the Fantastic Four left the base (Fantastic Four #12).
Reed then invented a new super rocket fuel from fragments of a meteorite, which he used to build a ship that could take him to the moon. The rest of the Fantastic Four insisted on joining him. About the same time the Soviet scientist Ivan Kragoff planned to fly to the moon in a rocket he invented, aided by three trained apes. He also built his ship without any shielding, hoping to expose himself to cosmic rays and gain super powers like the Fantastic Four did. The two ships launched at the same time and Ivan and his apes gained super abilities. Ivan gained the ability to become immaterial at will and dubber himself the Red Ghost. Landing in the blue area of the moon the travelers discovered an abandoned city and the home of the mysterious Watcher. The Watcher insisted man's wars would not follow them to his home and had the two teams battle in the abandoned city. Reed was able to paralyze the Red Ghost with a ray he built, and then left the Red Ghost to his apes, who rebelled against him. The Fantastic Four
returned home (Fantastic Four #13).
While the stratigic value of Earth in the Kree/Skrull war had dropped so that it was no longer worth invading, the Skrull leadership felt it should take revenge on those who had opposed them on Earth. Commander Kl'rt was bionically engineered by Skrull scientists to mimic the powers of the Fantastic Four and dubbed him the Super-Skrull. The Fantastic Four defeated the Super-Skrull by cutting off him off from his powers (Fantastic Four #18).
The Fantastic Four used Doctor Doom's time machine to travel back in time where they met Rama-Tut, who captured them with a device which drained them of their powers. When Ben was chained up he turned human again and slipped out of his chains, but later on he returned to his stone-like form (Fantastic Four #19).
The Fantastic Four traveled to the Skrull Galaxy and they loose their powers. Reed bargained with the Skrulls and tells them he will create a device to help them conquer the Earth. Instead, he built a gun that restored their powers (Fantastic Four #37).
In a battle with the Frightful Four, the Fantastic Four were stranded on an atoll when the Wizard's Q-Bomb went. The four were saved by Sue's force field but the after effect is that they lost their powers (Fantastic Four #38).
In a climatic battle of the Baxter Building against Doctor Doom, Reed restored their powers using the device he created on the Skrull planet. Reed did not use it earlier because it was recharging after having been drained of energy (Fantastic Four #40).
Once it was established that Bruce Banner's mind was in control of the Hulk's body, the Hulk was treated to a celebration in New York City where he received a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan, the key to the city, and praise from a number of superheroes, including the Thing (Incredible Hulk #279).
The Thing was among the superhumans who were invited to take on the Champion of the Universe in a fighting contest at Madison Square Garden. Although the Champion won the contest, the Thing lasted three rounds, and amazed the Champion with his fighting spirit (Marvel Two-In-One Annual #7).
When the group was captured by the Beyonder and taken to an alien planet during the Secret Wars, Ben decided to stay there for a while. He realized that he was capable of reverting to his human shape at will on this planet. When he returned, stuck in his stone shape, he discovered Alicia had fallen in love with Johnny and they were about to marry. Mad with grief, Ben left the Fantastic Four for a while. Years later he would learn that this was not the real Alicia, but a Skrull spy named Lyja posing as Alicia. While away he briefly joined up with the Thunder Riders, the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, and the Avengers.
The Thing got a job acting in a film being shot in the south seas about the time the Beyonder was trying to discover his place in the universe. During part of Mephisto's plot to kill the Beyonder Mephisto needed a someone to keep the Beyonder from leaving an island he was on, so Mephisto approached the Thing in his sleep about signing a contract that would grant the Thing a hundred fold his normal strength in order to attack the Beyonder, who the Thing balmed for loosing Alicia. The contract also secretly cost the Thing his soul. The Thing signed the contract, but when he arrived to attack the Beyonder, Mephisto's Legion Accursed attacked the Beyonder, and the Thing decided to oppose the Legion, which ended up delaying them long enough for Mephisto's plan to fall apart. During the fight Mephisto tore up the contract so that the Thing would loose his enhanced strength, but it was too late to save the Legion and Mephisto lost ownership of the Thing's soul (Secret Wars II #7).
He eventually came back to the Fantastic Four and even led it for a while when Reed and Sue left to spend more time raising their son, Franklin. He currently is a member of the Fantastic Four.
The Thing was among the people invited to the wedding of Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler. He gave the bride away (Incredible Hulk #418).
After an encounter with the alchemist Diablo (Fantastic Four III #36), where Ben was forced to drink one of his potions, then being turned into stone by the Grey Gargoyle (Fantastic Four III #38), Ben emerged with the ability to change between human form and his superhuman for at will.
He was among the heroes incapacitated by Graviton when he attempted to take over the Earth once again (Thunderbolts #57).
Trivia: So how is it that Ben served in World War II and is still only in his late 30's today? The magic of comic books!
Trivia: The origin of the Fantastic Four is a popular topic for stories of alternate realities. Their have been worlds where Ben didn't gain any powers at all, or where he died in the spaceship crash. Even more
interesting are worlds where he gained different powers all together. Their have been worlds where Ben gained Human Torch powers, or Mister Fantastic powers, or where he gained the ability to project force fields or grew a pair of leathery wings and went by the name Dragonfly.
Trivia: In the alternate future depicted in the M2 series of comics, Thing is a member of the Fantastic Five. He is the father of twins with Sharon Ventura.
Powers: Ben has the ability to change from human form into a into a rock-like superhuman powerhouse. In his superhuman form he is impervious to conventional damage and can survive blows from some of the strongest superhumans in the world. He can lift about 90 tons. The Thing possesses superhuman strength, endurance, and durability. The mutagenic, specific-frequency cosmic ray bombardment caused his musculature, bone structure, internal organ composition, soft tissue structure, and skin to greatly increase in toughness and density. The Thing can exert himself at high levels for about an hour before the build-up of fatigue poisons in his blood impairs his strength. His reflexes have remained at their above average human levels despite his greater mass. The Thing's lungs are of greater volume and efficiency than a normal man's, enabling him to hold his breath underwater for up to nine minutes, The Thing's five senses can withstand greater amounts of sensory stimuli than he could when he was a normal
human being, with no reduced sensitivity.
The Thing's body is able to withstand extremes of temperature from -75° to 800° Fahrenheit for up to an hour before exposure or heat prostration occurs. He can withstand the explosive effects of armor-piercing bazooka shells (15 pounds of high explosives) against his skin with no injury. He is still susceptible to colds, disease, and emotional stress.
For a long time after gaining his powers Ben didn't know how to control his change, and was often stuck in his rock form. Although he thought this was the fault of his powers, he later learned it was a psychological limitation. He can now change form by simply concentrating for a few moments.
For a short time his powers were increased by Mephisto.
Links to other Thing pages:
Character created by Marvel Comics.
Page setup by Mathew R. Ignash - mathewignash@comcast.net.
Last Updated - January, 2004
During WWII ben served with the Marines as a fighter pilot. He became a flying ace and flew missions over Guadalcanal and Okinawa (mentioned in Fantastic Four #11).
The Fantastic Four faced their most unusual threat ever when the Impossible Man came to Earth and caused all manner of chaos. Unable to defeat the Impossible Man, Reed decided the best way to get rid of the annoying alien was to ignore him. When the Impossible Man became board with Earth, he flew away. Reed then attempted to cure Ben of being the Thing with a serum he invented, but it only lasted a few minutes (Fantastic Four #11).
Ben then took Alicia to the symphony for a date, where he was attacked by army who mistook him for the Hulk. After straightening out his identity with the army Ben returned to the Fantastic Four headquarters to learn they were being called in by the army to find and stop the Hulk. The Fantastic Four then flew in their new Fantasticar to a missile base in the south west where they met general Thunderbolt Ross, scientist Bruce Banner and his helper Rick Jones. At the time Bruce had an assistant named Doctor Karl Kort, who ended up being a saboteur called the Wrecker. The Wrecker kidnapped Rick and left a note for the Hulk that he had to get rid of the Fantastic Four if he wanted Rick back. Banner then changed himself into the Hulk and fought the Fantastic Four while looking for Rick. The Fantastic Four were able to find the Wrecker and saved Rick, so the Hulk left them. After a celebration over uncovering the saboteur, the Fantastic Four left the base (Fantastic Four #12).
Reed then invented a new super rocket fuel from fragments of a meteorite, which he used to build a ship that could take him to the moon. The rest of the Fantastic Four insisted on joining him. About the same time the Soviet scientist Ivan Kragoff planned to fly to the moon in a rocket he invented, aided by three trained apes. He also built his ship without any shielding, hoping to expose himself to cosmic rays and gain super powers like the Fantastic Four did. The two ships launched at the same time and Ivan and his apes gained super abilities. Ivan gained the ability to become immaterial at will and dubber himself the Red Ghost. Landing in the blue area of the moon the travelers discovered an abandoned city and the home of the mysterious Watcher. The Watcher insisted man's wars would not follow them to his home and had the two teams battle in the abandoned city. Reed was able to paralyze the Red Ghost with a ray he built, and then left the Red Ghost to his apes, who rebelled against him. The Fantastic Four
returned home (Fantastic Four #13).
While the stratigic value of Earth in the Kree/Skrull war had dropped so that it was no longer worth invading, the Skrull leadership felt it should take revenge on those who had opposed them on Earth. Commander Kl'rt was bionically engineered by Skrull scientists to mimic the powers of the Fantastic Four and dubbed him the Super-Skrull. The Fantastic Four defeated the Super-Skrull by cutting off him off from his powers (Fantastic Four #18).
The Fantastic Four used Doctor Doom's time machine to travel back in time where they met Rama-Tut, who captured them with a device which drained them of their powers. When Ben was chained up he turned human again and slipped out of his chains, but later on he returned to his stone-like form (Fantastic Four #19).
The Fantastic Four traveled to the Skrull Galaxy and they loose their powers. Reed bargained with the Skrulls and tells them he will create a device to help them conquer the Earth. Instead, he built a gun that restored their powers (Fantastic Four #37).
In a battle with the Frightful Four, the Fantastic Four were stranded on an atoll when the Wizard's Q-Bomb went. The four were saved by Sue's force field but the after effect is that they lost their powers (Fantastic Four #38).
In a climatic battle of the Baxter Building against Doctor Doom, Reed restored their powers using the device he created on the Skrull planet. Reed did not use it earlier because it was recharging after having been drained of energy (Fantastic Four #40).
Once it was established that Bruce Banner's mind was in control of the Hulk's body, the Hulk was treated to a celebration in New York City where he received a presidential pardon from Ronald Reagan, the key to the city, and praise from a number of superheroes, including the Thing (Incredible Hulk #279).
