>Once one of the most famous Marvel heroes. >Today a character

Marvel doesn't have his film rights.

He's annoying as fuck.

Say what you will about Bendis, but I always think Thing belongs in the Avengers

>>90021040
His monster among men shtick got old when Mutants and other weird stuff walk around in the marvel universe.
Also his Yancy street shit doesnt really fit with the sliding timescale.
And dont forget this >>90021054

I still like the fuck out of him tho.

The status quo centric nature of comics means any character who's had a single defining story or two is doomed to have the results of that story reverted for the sake of telling it again.

How many times has Thing been cured? How many times has he been moping about being ugly? How many times has he clobbered Hulk?

annudah shoah

like most long-running marvel characters he's stuck in a rut

either he's angsty about his appearance or he's accepting of it

not much you can do with him after that

>>90022190
Two in one did a whole bunch of shit with him that had nothing to do with either of those.
He's a natural mentor, maybe THE most natural mentor in the MU.
He is a magnet for crazy chicks like Titana.
He is a natural for exploration of dangerous environments in every concievable way.
There is a shit-ton of stuff that can and has be done with him beyond the angsty stuff.
He is the most under utilized great character at Marvel.

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>>90021040
He should go hang out with the French superhero team, they were cool

>>90022478
Fuck, if you want to make Miles interesting, pair hm with fuckng Ben for a while.

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>>90021040
>and didn't have any character development since Byrne.
Someone brought up yesterday that Byrne was committed to making Ben eternally miserable and I can't find a source or quote. Anybody able to help me out?

>>90021040
I'd say Englehart did his fair share, culminating in that Beyonder story in #319.

>>90021112
What is Yancy Street? Not an American

>>90022478
but like you say all of that stuff has also been done

I agree that the F4 are better as legacy mentors anymore but the OP asked why Ben isn't super popular and why he doesn't have character development anymore, well that's why

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>>90022589
A street.
Seriously though back in the 60s Ben was constantly harassed & pranked by a punch of 'delinquent punks' called the Yancy Street Gang, based on Kirby's own childhood exploits IIRC. It may be because he's from Yancy Street himself and was a former member, idk.
They'd still be brought up every now and again until some point post-bankrupcy when a writer (Waid I think) retconned them to all have been Johnny under a pseudonym. Which pissed oldfags right off for various reasons.

>>90022727
*he's from as in Ben's from

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>>90022727
>It may be because he's from Yancy Street himself and was a former member, idk.
You pretty much nailed it.

>>90022878
Image source?

>>90022657
Everything has been done with every Marvel character worth doing anything with.

>>90023479
>like most long-running marvel characters he's stuck in a rut

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>>90021040
He never wins fights. That might be okay in the early day or for a decade or so. But when comics keep on going for anothr 40+ years and you have one incredibly shitty track record of Thing getting his ass handed to him by
>Hulk
>Thor
>Super Skrull
>Silver Surfer
>Namor
>Ronan
>Terrax
>She Hulk
>Gladiator
>Spider-Man
>Juggernaut
>Red Hulk
>Abomination
>Man-Thing
>Rhino
>Absorbing Man

The guy is just a goddamn loser in the scheme of things. His whole shtick of "Yea I kind of suck but I have a really fun personality that is great to read anyway" can only go so far for so long. And it is just not that great reading about the big guy that gets his ass handed to him so much more often than the mookiest of villain mooks that are supposed to lose at the end of each story.

>>90021040
>any character development since Byrne
WHAT character development? Getting cucked by Johnny? Fuck outta here, Byrne. Your Ben sucks ass.

I think it was pretty obvious that Byrne fucking loved Johnny and did not really care for Thing at all so he wrote his husbando getting everything.

>>90023885
How things have changed.

During Lee and Byrne F4, the thing with Dr. Doom was that no matter how intelligent or arrogant he was, Ben Grimm, a New Yorker jock, would always beat the shit out of him.

Today, if The Thing beat Doom, Doomfags would shit their pants.

>>90022727
I didn't like the Waid retcon because it seemed like he was just trying to get rid of anything "old-fashioned."

The Yancy Street Gang are an anachronism, probably didn't even exist in the '60s (they're really more street kids from Kirby and Lee's childhoods), so I get not using them now, but there's no reason to just retcon them away. But that's Waid. Good writer but wants everything to "make sense" and be up to date.

>>90023581
We're talking past each other.
You are operating under the assumption that big rocky guys who throw trucks require serious character development in order to be in entertaining stories.
I do not share this assumption. I am fine with the presence of a relatively static status quo past a certain point of development.
Also, Batman is on like his 17th Robin, original stories have nothing to do with how large a shadow casts at any given time.

>>90024164
It was what I have come to think of as a "fan fiction" move.
The impulse to fan fic is the rat chewing away at the foundation of marvel.

>>90024164
The more I hear about Waid the more he sounds like Byrne.

>>90024024
That was a great dynamic. No matter how machiavellian Doom got, if Ben started running toward him, an ass-beating was guaranteed.

Hell, he even did it somewhat in the latest Doom series.

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>>90024321
ENGLEHART WARNED US
>>89997242

>>90021040
>No character development sense Byrne

I've only read the Lee-Kirby run and a few more issues here and there but I remember he went from "I'm a monster I hate myself" to "I bet Alyssa would hate me if she could see me AND THE FUCKING SURFER BETTER NOT BE SEEING HER" to "I'm not worthy of her" to "Yeah I'm okay being a rock monster". It was a pretty good evolution of a character for a comic book.

I remember one late issue where he outright rejected a cure because he was fine being who he was. I take it later runs dialed back his characterization? Hickman's Ben was confident enough to flirt with girls, so he's preserved Ben's character development if nothing else.

>>90021077
t. Yancy Streeter

>>90022478
The greatest part of his character is that he's the Hellboy of the Fantastic Four. He's the blue collar guy with a heart of gold dealing with cosmic threats. He plays off Reed insanely well.

>>90023885
His second fight against the Hulk and his fight against The Champion were such good underdog stories I can see why they keep making him an underdog.

It would be great to see him whoop some named ass though.

>>90024024
That one issue of the Lee-Kirby run where he beats Doom so bad that his spirit is broken was elder-god tier. There's something so satisfying in having Ben kick Doom's ass.

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>>90025677
>I remember one late issue where he outright rejected a cure because he was fine being who he was
I remember that from one early issue.

>>90025677
>That one issue of the Lee-Kirby run where he beats Doom so bad that his spirit is broken
That the "Mebbe I'm too dumb to die & ugly to live" moment?
The arc where Doom siphons Surfer right?

>>90025748
>Make her see again

You know, why hasn't he cured blindness yet? I remember like before issue ten he had an elixer that allowed him to turn human for like a minute. If he can temporarily cure space rocks he should be able to lick blindness.

>>90025677
>his fight against The Champion were such good underdog stories I can see why they keep making him an underdog.

That was just Ben getting his ass kicked over and over again until the Champion thought his resolve to getting the shit beat out of him was respectable.

Should have only happened once or twice but now that is the core of the whole character. He needs a few actual victories to his name. Even Spider-Man does a lot better against top level bricks in Marvel than Ben. And Colossus who was mostly his equal had a few chances to shine against the top bruisers for a while.

>>90025777
No, but that was a great moment for Ben. I'm thinking of issue 40 where Dr. Doom invades the Baxter Building and the FF have to take it back with the help of Daredevil.

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>>90021040
>mfw grew up with Byrne's and Wilson's Thing

>>90021054
This.
>>90021040
People say that Spider-Man is supposed to be the every-man of the Marvel Universe, but Peter Parker is too smart for that.

The Thing is the stand in for the every-man. He's not as bright as those around him, he's not as good looking as most heroes, and he's really only good for one thing, and that's fighting, and refusing to give in. He'll often say what the reader is thinking about the absurdity of the situations he's in, and cuts the explanations to get to the action and adventure.

What happened is that Marvel decided that Spider-Man should be the every-man to guide you through the MU, and shoved the Thing to the back corners of the Fantastic Four.

Make the Thing stand in for the reader again, or make him Jack Kirby, either one will be fine.

>>90025864
Spiderman has the advantage of being super fast and precognitive, of course he does better against people stronger than him or Thing when he has more options than just slug it out

>>90027048
>Spider-Man
FTFY