The Thing 5
“With Friends Like These …”
Published July 1983
Writer: John Byrne
Pencils: Ron Wilson
Inks: Hilary Barta
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: Bob Sharen
Cover: Wilson and Al Milgrom


Synopsis

The Thing is attacked by Wonder-Man, She-Hulk and Spider-Man, all of whom are revealed to be under the control of the Puppet Master. The story continues in the next issue.

What’s going on here?

The Thing’s solo comic, written by John Byrne with art by Ron Wilson, followed the cancellation of Marvel Two-in-One, which co-starred the Thing and a different guest star each issue and was often very entertaining.

I’m not sure why Marvel’s powers-that-be made the change, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Byrne, then writing the Fantastic Four, wanted more control over one of his main characters. In general, the Thing’s solo book never really delivered on its promise, and after about a year of indifferent stories, took a (literal) detour when Ben Grimm was stranded in space and the stories got loopier and loopier. Byrne left the book after issue 22, Mike Carlin took over and made Ben a professional wrestler and the comic was mercifully canceled with issue 36.

I started collecting comics in August 1983, the month after this issue came out, so my first issue was Thing 6, which is the second part of the story. This issue, which I eventually bought as a back issue, feels very much like a prelude to the next issue, in which Ben battles the Puppet Master in his mind in a very dark issue (literally and figuratively). That was a challenging first issue to read, but was much more ambitious than issue 5.

What I liked

I was never a huge fan of Ron Wilson, whose pencils often felt workman-like and static to me. But there’s a lot of fun action in this comic, which he does well. And he draws a great looking She-Hulk.

Interestingly, Byrne, includes a page at the end showing how to draw the Thing. It’s a fun guide that feels like it’s out of the classic How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. But looking back now, I wonder if Byrne was using it to answer critics who felt his Thing was too odd looking. (Also, for whatever reason, this page isn’t included in the digital edition).

What I didn’t like

As mentioned, this comic really feels like a setup for the next issue, and in itself doesn’t offer much besides nonstop fighting. That’s OK as far as it goes, but Ben is such a great character it would have been good to have more substance (besides his usual fretting about his relationship with Alicia, which gets tedious). Also, it takes him an awful longtime to suspect his friend are under the control of the Puppet Master. Given their history, wouldn’t that be his first guess?

Overall

Not terrible, but certainly not memorable.