Saturday Splash Page #84

 

"Into the Hulkiverse," in The Thing (vol. 2) #2, by Dan Slott (writer), Andrea DiVito (artist), Laura Villari (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

The Thing didn't get another crack at a solo book for 20 years. To be fair, the '90s weren't a great time for the FF overall, but even the Human Torch got a brief ongoing series a couple of years before Ben's next turn. This time, it was Dan Slott as writer, with Andrea DiVito as artist (to start.)

In some manner owing to Ben only just learning one-quarter of the FF's money from patents or merchandising or whatever is his, he gets big-time rich. The first few issues are Ben letting the money go to his head, dating an actress, throwing cash around, while his friends tut-tut. Ben and Alicia are on the outs again, as she's dating some milquetoast architect guy who conveniently goes away at the series' conclusion. The actress girlfriend goes away even quicker, after a delightful journey to Murderworld.

Ben doesn't go broke or anything like that, but does decide to spend his money in more community-oriented ways after Reed uses Franklin to teach some sort of lesson on how meaningless it is to just spend money on personal pleasures. Reed's looking at it the wrong way. Ben buying customized SUV limos and whatnot keeps him in a better mood, and therefore less like to use Reed like a particularly annoying piece of dental floss.

DiVito's version of the Thing feels in the vein of George Perez's. Taller than most people, broad, but the features are rounded or smoothed rather than squared off. But the shading gives him a gritty texture that I don't see a lot of artists use. Like grains of sand would come off on your fingers if you ran them along his arm.

Kieron Dwyer's version is in that "squared off" style. Walks a bit hunched over, head broader, eyes bigger. The brow ridge sticks out farther, allowing for more expressive faces. The last two issues are humorous one-offs - a time travel birthday trip for Alicia gone wrong and a big superhero poker game - and that look works better for those than I think DiVito's would.

After 8 issues, the book ended with Ben and Alicia back together. Less than a quarter of what his first series got, and less than one-twelfth of Marvel Two-in-One. But it's a different time, plus this was during Straczynski's time on the main Fantastic Four title, and Aguirre-Sacasa's Marvel Knights FF book, so they might have been overloading the market.

Also, the book started just a few months before Civil War kicked off, so perhaps not the best time for it in terms of tone.