Thing (Ben Grimm)

Benjamin Grimm

• Covered in a thick, durable, stone-polymer hide that resembles orange desert rocks: this hide enhances his natural strength, speed, agility, and reflexes far beyond most Olympic athletes.
• Ben's hide is extremely durable, able to withstand high-caliber arms fire and most conventional melee weapons such as knives or swords.

• Ben's hide does have an upper limit to its endurance, and can be damaged with sufficient force, revealing soft, fleshy muscle tissue fibers that are more susceptible to damage.

As a youth, Ben was aggressive and ambitious, committing petty crimes with the Yancy Street Gang. As an adult, he cleaned up his act, remaining tough on the outside, though he had a heart of gold. This was a major influence to join the Air Force and serve his country. His close friendships with Reed Richards and Susan Storm further mellowed him out.

After becoming the Thing, Ben became extremely depressed and despondent over his monstrous appearance. Though he would never say it out loud, Ben harbored a deep-seated resentment towards Reed for his condition: this resentment was only tempered by Reed's steadfast and unrelenting efforts to find a cure for his friend's condition, which he considered his greatest personal failure in his entire scientific career.

Ben usually finds himself at odds with the Fantastic Four's junior member Johnny, who enjoys taunting and tormenting Ben with assorted pranks and the like. Ben, in turn, retaliates most of the time.

Ben Grimm, also known as the Thing, is the resident strongman and chief pilot of the Fantastic Four. Born and raised in the neighborhood of Yancy Street in New York City, Ben Grimm was known for his tough exterior and attitude. He became leader of the local youths, the Yancy Street Gang, for a number of years before he stepped down after a store robbery resulted in the grievous injury of the shopowner. He got his act together and eventually enlisted in the Air Force soon after graduating high school. After completing basic training, Grimm began attending Empire State University, where he met and became close friends with science majors Reed Richards and Susan Storm.

Ten years after graduating, Ben Grimm had achieved an impressive flight record, becoming among the most skilled flying aces in the Air Force and serving several tours of duty. Eventually, Reed approached Ben with a proposal to help fly the former's experimental starship, the Marvel-01, when their funding was put at risk. Ben agreed, though reluctantly. Joined by Susan's younger brother Johnny, the quartet embarked on an unauthorized test flight into space with the Marvel-01.

Three hours into the flight, however, the group became bombarded by a freak storm of cosmic radiation. Forced to make an emergency landing back on Earth, the group found themselves altered by exposure to radiation: Ben found himself covered in a thick, rock-like polymer hide. After halting the rampage of a kaiju-controlling Mole Man in New York City, the quartet banded together as the Fantastic Four.