THING iterations

Membership: None identified by name

Purpose: To cause destruction

Affiliations: (most of them): None; (a small band of them): Thing (Ben Grimm)

Enemies: (most of them): Fantastic Four (Human Torch (Johnny Storm), Invisible Woman (Sue Richards), Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), Thing (Ben Grimm)), Valeria Richards

Base of Operations: The Baxter Building, New York, USA;
    briefly the temporary pocket universe created by Mr. Fantastic's Temporary Pocket Universe Generator device

First Appearance: Fantastic Four III#57 (August, 2002)

 

History: 

(Fantastic Four III#59 (fb) - BTS) - Each time the Thing transformed from the Thing back into Ben Grimm, his rocky hide reverted to a virtual state, essentially ceasing to exist. His transformations ultimately triggered the replicative and mutative processes of his skin, causing the shell to spawn duplicates of itself.

(Fantastic Four III#57 (fb) - BTS) - While the Thing slept, the duplicates emerged from his rocky shell.

(Fantastic Four III#57) - The Thing awoke to find the duplicates of himself rampaging around his room in the Baxter Building. Quickly noticing strange sprouts on his rocky form, the Thing brushed them off, only to see them absorb matter from the floor and grow into more duplicates. Hearing the commotion, Mr. Fantastic rushed in and began inspecting the Thing's rocky hide, only to determine that there was too little data to determine the cause of the duplicates. Realizing that the duplicates did not seem to be harming either the Thing or Mr. Fantastic, Mr. Fantastic asked the Thing to revert to his Ben Grimm form and when he did so, the duplicates turned their attention towards Grimm, forcing Grimm to transform back into the Thing, which only created even more duplicates. Deducing a way to isolate the duplicates in order to better determine a solution to the problem, Mr. Fantastic had the Thing hold the Temporary Pocket Universe Generator device that Mr. Fantastic had recently designed. The device immediately activated, sending the Thing, his berserk iterations and a chunk of the Baxter Building into a pocket universe. While Mr. Fantastic explained the situation to the returning Human Torch and Invisible Woman, the Thing found himself in the futuristic pocket universe surrounded by the Thing iterations. Looking at the Baxter Building's future-predicting television that had also been sent into the pocket universe, the Thing learned that it predicted his own death at the hands of the Thing duplicates.

 

(Fantastic Four III#58) - Spraying themselves with various colored "war paint," the Thing iterations began destroying the buildings of the pocket universe and delivering the true Thing a beating for his ability to transform back into human form. After being punched through several buildings and learning from the future-predicting television that the rest of the Fantastic Four were predicted to be the first to die at the hands of the Thing duplicates, the true Thing began compacting cars into super-dense artillery shells and used them against the rampaging duplicates. When the duplicates began to gain the upper hand, the true Thing was rescued by a small band of heroic duplicates that had recently spawned from the Thing's hide.




(Fantastic Four III#59) - With the help of the heroic Thing duplicates, the true Thing continued to fight against the maniacal Thing iterations while the rest of the Fantastic Four built a device that allowed to study a chunk of the Thing's shell in fastforward, in hopes of finding a way to stop the generation of more duplicates. Following the defeat of some of the maniacal iterations, the Thing found his hide spawning more duplicates, which he brushed off, then transformed back into Ben Grimm, hoping to keep more duplicates from appearing. When he did so, one of the heroic iterations mentioned how unnerving it was to see the Thing transform into Ben Grimm. Not wishing to annoy his allies, Ben transformed back into Thing form and continued building compacted, super-dense weapons out of futuristic cars. The rampaging Thing duplicates shortly thereafter stormed the Thing's headquarters, nearly destroying it from the shaking of the ground caused by their footsteps. Eventually, the rampaging Thing iterations slaughtered their heroic counterparts, leaving only the true Thing to battle the remaining savage iterations. Shortly thereafter, the pocket universe containing them all collapsed, bringing the Thing and the remaining savage iterations back into the Baxter Building, where Mr. Fantastic had contacted a hyperevolved version of the Thing's hide. The hyperevolved Thing iteration, having control of every molecule of its body and those of its ancestors, returned the iterations to their virtual states, effectively destroying the maniacal iterations and itself, removing the Thing's ability to transform back into Ben Grimm in the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments: Created by Adam Warren, Keron Grant and Derek Fridolfs.

Profile by Proto-Man.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Thing iterations have no known connections to

images: (without ads)
Fantastic Four III#57, front cover (Thing iterations, main image)
Fantastic Four III#57, p8-9, splash page (Thing iterations surrounding the surprised Thing)
Fantastic Four III#58, p22, pan1 (Heroic Thing iterations saving the true Thing)
Fantastic Four III#59, p20, pan4 (Hyperevolved Thing iteration)

Appearances:
Fantastic Four III#57 (August, 2002) - Adam Warren (writer), Keron Grant (pencils), Derek Fridolfs (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Fantastic Four III#58 (October, 2002) - Adam Warren (writer), Keron Grant (pencils), Derek Fridolfs (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Fantastic Four III#59 (October, 2002) - Adam Warren (writer), Keron Grant (pencil), Derek Fridolfs, Scott Hanna (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)

Last updated: 07/20/14.

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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