Random Back Issues #161 - The Thing #2

Once an idol of millions, now a janitor. 

We looked at the final issue of this book 4 years ago, but today, Ben's still on the FF, his ultimately disastrous stint on Battleworld yet to come. He's cleaning up after some big fight with Annihilus that also involved the Avengers. Ben finds what at first glance is Annihilus' skull, but it turns out the bug-guy was wearing a mask all along (feel like that's been retconned, but maybe not.)

In a hurry to get to the hospital and check on Alicia and Franklin, Ben crumples 20 tons of wreckage into a beach ball-sized package and dumps it in a waste disposal unit Reed built that will break it into its component molecules, to be used for whatever 'gizmo' Reed decides to build next. Grab a trench coat, hat and some slacks and Ben's out the door, only to run into Willy Lumpkin, who is a little weary hauling all the FF's fan mail. Still, it beats the route that would have him delivering mail to Nixon. There's one letter addressed to "Ben Grimm" and labeled Priority Mail, so Willy hands it over and Ben reads something during the cab ride that bothers him.

At the hospital, Franklin is in stable condition, but there's no timetable for his recovery, so Ben's off to visit Alicia, who has one arm in a cast and a lot of bandages around her head. She can tell something's wrong, and we learn what the letter is about via flashback! To college, where Big Football Star Ben Grimm marches into a science lab and picks up Reed Richards, carrying him off for a night of fun.

Don't get your hopes up, this is '80s Marvel. Shooter's still in charge, so they're meeting some girls. One, Alynn Chambers, is Ben's girlfriend, while the other has heard 'oodles' about Reed from Ben. Reed's not stoked about hitting the student pub, no doubt calculating the number of brain cells it'll kill, but which Ben attributes to Reed thinking of his landlady's niece, that he met last summer (Sue.) Two weeks later, Alynn's waiting outside the locker room as Ben gets ready to take the field. She won't say what's wrong, only promising she loves him, then telling him to pretend she was never in his life at all. Sure, sounds simple. Reed bumps into Alynn and asks if she's going to sit with him to watch the game, but Alynn only cries and bails.

Ben apparently has a great first half, but when he notices Alynn isn't in the crowd as he returns to the locker room, it busts his concentration. They lose, his coach gives him a bunch of crap, which is pretty lousy when Coach admits Ben carried whole games by himself. Let someone else win the damn game once in a while!

Ben throws his helmet so hard it shatters against a locker, and storms out. Reed catches up later and advises Ben to tell Alynn how he feels. Ben tries, even proposes, and she turns him down. Alynn wants to be big in Hollywood, and to make it happen, she'd probably neglect him. Better to break it off now. She leaves, he chucks the ring into a pond, which is kind of a shitty thing to do with his mother's ring.

In the present, we learn Alynn became a huge star, one of the most beautiful women in movies. Alicia figures this is the big kiss-off from Ben, but he assures her that's not it. He's just scared of seeing Alynn again, now that he's the Thing. Not unexpected, but a little limp for all this build-up. That evening, Alynn arrives, revealing she had a stroke eighteen months ago that she's so far hidden from the press. She regained some use of her right side, but the droop in her face and slur in her voice are here to stay. She wants to know how Ben deals with it.

You might think, as I did, she means how does to deal with stares and whispers? Sooner or later her condition will be revealed, and that's what people will do when she passes on the street. Otherwise, his condition of "being a rock guy" is not really the same as her having a stroke. He hasn't lost any function of his body to my knowledge.

Maybe I'm wrong, because the caption on the next page reads, 'Sadness and memories begin the night, but with the Thing's support, Alynn Chambers realizes that even though her beauty has passed away, she will go on.' So she thinks she's ugly now, and wants to know how Ben deals with that? Ooof. Ben really dodged a bullet when she turned him down. Probably a relief to return to the hospital, where Reed's come to a decision. If you just felt a chill down your spine at those words, I don't blame you.

Franklin's powers are closed down, which makes him vulnerable. So Reed, Sue and Franklin will leave the FF, and find a small town where they'll live under assumed identities. The thing to note is Reed says 'I have decided on a course of action,' which strongly implies he didn't bother to discuss this with Sue, Franklin's mother. Her expression is more surprised than anything that says, "I am in firm agreement with this plan I definitely had input on."

The other thing I notice, the editor's note at the start of the issue refers readers to FF #257 for the big fight, and the blurb at the end also refers the reader to FF #257 to see the continuation of half the group packing up and leaving. They really didn't waste any time making things happen in comics back in the day, that's for sure.

{11th longbox, 78th comic. The Thing (vol. 1) #2, by John Byrne (writer/inker), Ron Wilson (penciler), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)}