The Thing

Character Details

Benjamin Jacob Grimm was born on Yancy Street in New York's Lower East Side. It was a rough neighborhood and his older brother Daniel who he idolized died in a gang fight when he was 8. Poverty, the death of his brother, and the mean streets of Yancy turned young Ben into a street tough scrapper destined for a life of a hoodlum.

After his parent's death he is taken in by his Uncle Jake and his Aunt Petunia (Penny to her friends). It takes some work but they get Ben to stop running with the gang and getting his life back on track. He was doing better in school and started playing football, where his rough and tumble instincts found a real outlet as he became a star Linebacker for his high school team.

Receiving a full ride scholarship to Empire State University he met the man that would change his life, Reed Richards. Roommates his freshman year, the two men that couldn't be any more different eventually become fast friends. Ben looks out for Reed, and Reed helps Ben pass his classes. One day near graduation, Reed tells Ben that he wants to build a rocket and explore the stars, and Ben tells him when that day comes to call him and he'll fly it for him.

While Reed goes on to graduate studies, Ben finds that his friend has gotten him to think about bigger and brighter things and instead of pursuing a pro football career uses his ROTC credits to enter the U.S. Air Force officer training program, where he trains to be a pilot. Ben's aptitude as a pilot becomes quickly apparent and he meets Col. Nick Fury for the first time when he is assigned fly the mission to deliver several 'black ops' to their drop zones. Among them a scruffy runt named Logan.

His Meritorious service is eventually rewarded as he is assigned to test experimental craft and eventually trains to be a N.A.S.A. Pilot. That's when Reed calls him and tells him that he has a space ship he wants him to fly.

The project goes less than smoothly and with the government threatening to cut funding, Reed decides to launch a test flight of his ship immediately. Ben and Reed fight, Ben feeling the launch is too risky, but he is eventually convinced on account of his friend. They launch intent on traveling through Hyperspace into another solar system and back but they encountered intense levels of Cosmic Radiation that the ship was not able to shield. The cockpit was bathed in this radiation and the ships system were malfunctioning and so Ben aborted the mission and made an emergency landing.

While recovering, Reed Richards, Susan Storm and Johnny Storm were discovering their fantastic powers, Ben began mutating into a an orange skinned freak. Ben's bouts of self-loathing and depression where only beginning, but when push came to shove, he came to fight at Reed's side when he wanted them to fight by his side as the Fantastic Four, Ben morosely choose the name 'the Thing' because he felt that is what he had become.

Adventuring over the last few years, has seen Ben go through many ups and downs, and brief glimpses of hope that he can be cure only to have those hopes dashed. He's mutated further in his time almost as if his new body was growing stronger as he learned to use it. While his strength and durability have increased greatly from when he was first mutated, he has become even more inhuman, as he has mutated to the point where his skin is made up of thick, interlocking rocky plates, and his hands and feet only bear four digits now. He's even gotten larger over the years, where he was once, just broader and denser than before but still close to his original height, he's slowly grown over the decade he's been adventuring and is nearly seven feet tall weights near half a ton.

Despite his battles with his depression and his despair about his monstrous appearance Ben has learned to cope, albeit sometimes he does better than others. His pranks with Johnny often give him a little pick me up when he needs it, and Susan and Reed treat him like family. He takes his role as 'Uncle Ben' to Franklin very seriously. He's loved and lost as Alicia Masters, Sharon Vance and a few briefer romances have come and goneBut truth be told? What helps Ben cope the most? A good scrap. He takes great pride in being considered one of the toughest SOB's you could have the misfortune of having to go toe to toe with. He's gone toe to toe with the likes of the Hulk, Annillus, Ronan the Accuser, the U-Foes and even the Champion of the Galaxy. Time and again he's proved that Ben Grimm don't know the meaning of the word quit. If you come to the Earth looking to make it your personal play ground. Well there's really only one thing left to know about the Thing. That's right….

Relationships

Name	Relation	Notes

Date	Title	Characters	Rating

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Page tags: avg f4 fantastic-four fc hero pc thing

page revision: 9, last edited: 13 Mar 2012 16:37