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The Thing

IdentityConfirmed

Real nameBen Grimm

CodenameThe Thing

ContinentFantastic Four

In DoomsdayEbon Moss-Bachrach, as The Thing¹

First seenFantastic Four #1, November 1961²

Created byStan Lee, Jack Kirby²

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Level 1 // The briefDecrypted · 30 seconds

WhoReed Richards' closest friend from college and a former test pilot, whom cosmic rays turned into the Thing, the rocky orange powerhouse of the Fantastic Four.³

AbilitiesTremendous strength and a tough, rock-covered orange hide.³

In DoomsdayMarvel named the role in its fourth teaser (13 January 2026), which featured Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing alongside Shuri, M'Baku and Namor.¹

Last seenThe Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), as Ben Grimm / The Thing: He slams into Galactus to free Reed, then topples a building to help Sue.⁷

Sources

Level 2 // Surveillance recordOn screen · 4 sightings, 1 in the MCU

Every live-action sighting of The Thing, and everything Marvel has confirmed.

2005
Fantastic Four FOX
Michael Chiklis Reed's friend Ben is out on a spacewalk when the cosmic storm hits Victor von Doom's station, and unlike the others he cannot switch his change off, leaving him a rocky orange giant his fiancée cannot bear to look at. Victor uses Reed's machine to make him human again as part of his revenge, but Ben steps back in to become the Thing and rescue his friends. He helps freeze Doom and ends the film at peace with himself thanks to Alicia Masters.¹²
2007
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer FOX
Michael Chiklis Ben is back with the team through the interrupted wedding of Reed and Sue, the hunt for the Silver Surfer and the forced alliance with Doom. When Doom steals the Surfer's board and the fight moves to Shanghai, Johnny breaks Doom's control and Ben swings a crane into him, knocking him into the harbour.³²
2015
Fantastic Four FOX
Jamie Bell This Ben is Reed's longtime friend and helper, invited along on the unauthorised jump to Planet Zero. He comes home a rock-covered powerhouse whom the government uses as a weapon; the Marvel Fandom wiki says he killed at least 43 people in that service. He helps track down Reed and, in the final battle, knocks Doom into the column of energy that destroys him.⁴⁵⁶
2025
The Fantastic Four: First Steps MCU
Ebon Moss-Bachrach On Earth-828, Ben is a Yancy Street kid turned Air Force test pilot who cooks for the team, strikes up a friendship with Rachel Rozman after showing off for a group of schoolchildren, and flies the Excelsior to Galactus' ship. In the battle for New York, Galactus hurls him up past the atmosphere, Johnny drags him back down, and Ben finally yells his catchphrase as he slams into Galactus to make him let go of Reed. He then brings down a building to help Sue push Galactus into range of the teleportation bridge.⁷⁸

What Marvel confirmed

The film. Avengers: Doomsday opens 18 December 2026.¹⁰
13 January 2026 Wakanda and the Fantastic Four. The fourth teaser featured Letitia Wright as Shuri, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing.⁹

Sources

Level 3 // Deep archiveThe comics · since November 1961

Origin, the comics by era, abilities and recorded feats.

Origin

Ben grew up poor on Yancy Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. His father drank and could not keep a job, so most of the family's money came from Ben's older brother Daniel, who led the Yancy Street Gang. Ben idolised him, and Daniel's death in a gang fight left the boy angry at the world. After his parents also died, Ben went to live with his uncle Jake, a doctor who had worked his way out of poverty, and his aunt Alyce. He resisted their kindness at first and even took over the gang for a while, but his uncle pulled him away from that life, and football earned him a college scholarship.

At university his roommate was the brilliant Reed Richards, who told him he would build a starship one day; Ben joked that he would fly it. He also crossed paths with Reed's rival, Victor von Doom. After graduating, Ben joined the Air Force, became an outstanding fighter and test pilot and went on to train as an astronaut. When Reed's rocket was finally ready, he came to hold Ben to his old promise.

Ben warned that the ship's shielding would not stop the radiation out there, but when Reed decided to launch before the government could pull the plug, he agreed to fly it, with Sue Storm and her teenage brother Johnny aboard. A storm of cosmic rays flooded the cabin and Ben had to bring the ship back down. He emerged as a hulking, orange-hided brute of tremendous strength and, bitter about how he looked, named himself the Thing as Reed rallied the four into the Fantastic Four.¹²³⁴

The record, by era

1961-1964
A monster with a heart The Silver Age debut
From the first issue Ben is the team's muscle and its unhappiest member, resentful of Reed for what happened and only ever human for brief, accidental stretches. The Puppet Master's scheme to turn him against his teammates brings in the villain's blind stepdaughter Alicia Masters, a sculptor who likes Ben as he is and becomes the great love of his life. When the Hulk storms into New York looking for the Avengers, Ben spends most of a punishing fight holding him off alone.¹²⁵⁶⁷
Key issues: Fantastic Four #1 (1961) · Fantastic Four #8 (1962) · Fantastic Four #25 (1964)
1966
This Man... This Monster! The Lee-Kirby peak
Ben battles Galactus' robot Punisher, then storms off when he decides Alicia has feelings for the Silver Surfer. Alone and gloomy, he is knocked out by a scientist who resents Reed and steals his powers and appearance, leaving Ben human but turned away from the Baxter Building as an impostor. The thief ends up giving his life to rescue Reed from the Negative Zone, and his death turns Ben back into the Thing.¹⁸⁹
Key issues: Fantastic Four #50 (1966) · Fantastic Four #51 (1966)
1976
Human again Bronze Age
Long exposure to the Hulk's gamma radiation during a clash with the green giant turns Ben back into a man, apparently for good, and Luke Cage fills in on the team for a short time. Ben soon returns inside an exoskeleton Reed builds to copy his old strength. That arrangement ends when Galactus, as a punishment, makes him the Thing once more during a crisis over Counter-Earth.¹¹⁰¹¹¹²
Key issues: Fantastic Four #167 (1976) · Fantastic Four #168 (1976) · Fantastic Four #175 (1976)
1984-1985
The first Secret Wars Battleworld
On the Beyonder's Battleworld, Ben finds he can switch between man and Thing; Reed knows the real cause, a mental block tied to Ben's fear that Alicia only loves the monster, but keeps it from him. Ben is among the heroes Doom kills with the Beyonder's stolen power before they are revived in Battleworld's medical chambers. He stays on the planet for months, and on returning to find Johnny with Alicia, he quits the team and spends a while as a wrestler in the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation.¹¹³¹⁴¹⁵
Key issues: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 (1984) · Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #11 (1985) · Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12 (1985)
1987-1988
The Thing in charge Team leader
When Reed and Sue step back to raise their son, they hand the Fantastic Four to Ben, who brings in Crystal and Sharon Ventura, the new Ms. Marvel. Ben and Sharon grow close, and a crash back through cosmic rays mutates them both, giving Sharon a Thing-like body and Ben a stronger, spikier hide. Their romance survives several more changes but falls apart after Sharon accepts Doom's help to become human again.¹¹⁶¹⁷
Key issues: Fantastic Four #307 (1987) · Fantastic Four #310 (1988)
2002-2004
Yancy Street to the gates of Heaven Faith and the afterlife
Defending an old pawnbroker he once robbed as a gang initiation, Ben recites the Kaddish when the man appears to be dead and then talks openly about the Jewish faith he usually keeps private. Two years later Ben is killed in the aftermath of a battle with Doom. Reed, Sue and Johnny travel to the edge of Heaven to bring him back, and although Ben says he is at peace there, he is allowed to return to life with them.¹¹⁸¹⁹²⁰
Key issues: Fantastic Four Vol 3 #56 (2002) · Fantastic Four #509 (2004) · Fantastic Four #511 (2004)
2006-2011
Objector, Avenger, Worthy Event era
Sickened when a Yancy Street youngster dies in the crossfire of the superhero Civil War, Ben refuses to fight for either side and moves to France, coming home only to protect civilians in the final battle. He later signs up with Luke Cage's New Avengers and takes a Future Foundation serum that lets him be human for one week each year. In Fear Itself, one of the Serpent's hammers lands on Yancy Street and turns him into Angrir, who flattens Avengers Tower before a blow from Thor and Franklin Richards' powers set him free.¹²¹²²²³²⁴²⁵
Key issues: Fantastic Four #539 (2006) · New Avengers Vol 2 #1 (2010) · Fear Itself #3 (2011)
2014-2015
A locked-room murder Framed
After the Watcher's stolen eye reveals that Johnny once unknowingly wrecked a chance to cure him, Ben is found with the apparently murdered Puppet Master in a room almost nobody could enter. Jailed on the Raft, he is attacked by other armoured inmates on the orders of Sharon Ventura, now running the prison. He escapes with help from friends, and the dead man turns out to be a Counter-Earth double planted by the Quiet Man, which clears Ben.¹²⁶²⁷²⁸
Key issues: Fantastic Four Vol 5 #7 (2014) · Fantastic Four Vol 5 #8 (2014) · Fantastic Four #645 (2015)
2015-2017
The Shield and the Guardians After the multiverse
On Doom's Battleworld a recreated Thing has become part of the Shield, the vast wall that protects the realm, until Thanos tells him Doom has lied to him and he tears himself loose to march on Doomstadt. He surrenders on learning that the boy leading the defence is Sue's son, only for that boy's Galactus to blast most of his upper body away. With the multiverse restored and his memory altered, Ben believes his family is gone and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy for a while.¹²⁹³⁰³¹
Key issues: Secret Wars #6 (2015) · Secret Wars #8 (2016) · Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 4 #1 (2015)
2018-2020
Married at last Family man
Ben takes Johnny across the multiverse searching for their family and, once ready to move on, proposes to Alicia just before Reed and Sue come back. The couple marry in a small ceremony, but the Puppet Master spoils their honeymoon with a mind-controlled Hulk, and the fight costs Ben the yearly week he could have spent human. After learning on Spyre that Reed did not cause the cosmic storm, he makes peace with his friend, and after the Empyre war he and Alicia adopt the alien orphans Jo-Venn and N'Kalla.¹³²³³³⁴³⁵
Key issues: Marvel 2-In-One #1 (2018) · Fantastic Four Vol 6 #5 (2019) · Empyre: Fallout Fantastic Four #1 (2020)

Capabilities

Rock-hide body

A craggy orange hide over denser muscle, bone and organs, about 6 feet 6 and nearly 500 pounds. He does not age while in this form.¹

Superhuman strength

Started around Class 5; years of training and further mutation pushed him to roughly Class 100, among the strongest beings on Earth.¹

Superhuman durability

Takes Hulk punches, bazooka shells and point-blank gunfire without injury, and survived a planet-splitting blast from Galactus. Adamantium claws can still cut him.¹

Stamina and lungs

Works at full effort for about an hour before fatigue sets in, and can hold his breath underwater for up to nine minutes.¹

Fast healing

Recovers from severe injuries at an accelerated rate, though he cannot regrow lost organs or limbs.¹

Pilot and astronaut

A former Air Force test pilot and astronaut who flew the Fantastic Four's ship, and once worked out an experimental Skrull craft in sixty seconds.¹

Brawler

Fights with a loose style of his own built on boxing and college wrestling, sharpened long before he became the Thing.¹

Source of power

Cosmic rays mutated him into a huge, rock-hided being of enormous strength and toughness on the Fantastic Four's first flight.¹

Recorded feats

comics Stopped a multi-storey building of roughly 30,000 tons from toppling over, then lifted it back into place. Fantastic Four Vol 1 #95 (February 1970)³⁶¹
comics In a brawl across Central Park and Manhattan, he landed a blow strong enough to send the Hulk flying. Fantastic Four Vol 1 #112 (July 1971)³⁷¹
comics Defeated the Immortal Hulk, sent against him by the Puppet Master, seconds before turning human, breaking his arm and passing out for a week. Fantastic Four Vol 6 #13 (October 2019)³⁴¹
screen Threw a fuel truck at Galactus so Johnny could ignite it, setting the giant's torso and neck alight. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)³⁸³⁹
screen Hurled into space by Galactus and pulled back by Johnny, he slammed into Galactus's face and made him release Reed. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)³⁸³⁹
screen Charged through a building's support columns to bring it down, letting Sue push Galactus into range of the teleportation bridge. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)³⁸³⁹

Notes from the archive

Ben is Jewish, like his co-creator Jack Kirby. Fantastic Four Vol 3 #56 (2002) is the story where he recites the Kaddish and talks about faith he seldom mentions.¹¹⁸
The Marvel Fandom wiki notes that Kirby named the Thing after his own father, Benjamin Kurtzberg.¹
A serum developed by the Future Foundation lets Ben turn back into his human self for one week every year.¹²³
Michael Bailey Smith, Ben in the never-released 1994 Fantastic Four film, plays a power plant worker in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.³⁸³⁹

Sources