What Happened Every Time The Thing Fought The Hulk?
The Fantastic Four's strongman has taken on Marvel's Hulk countless times, but who's won most?
Comic readers love to watch their favorite heroes go head to head to see who would win. It's by far the one thing about BEING a comic book fan that's remained unchanged since comic books had dedicated fanbases at all.
Even before they were making superhero books full time, Marvel understood this, having their first two superheroes, the Human Torch and Namor, going at it when they first met.
But by far one of the most famous superhero rivalries to come out of the house of ideas has been that between the ever loving blue eyed Thing, and the jade giant himself, the Incredible Hulk.
The two are practically built to dislike each other, the two being similar in all the wrong ways. While the two definitely respect each other, if they spend too long in the same room together, that room is inevitably going to be destroyed.
The Thing and the Hulk have fought a LOT, so to keep this concise, we'll be keeping it to the most important fights between The Thing and the various different versions of Bruce Banner's temperamental other half.
9. Fantastic Four #25-26
What better place to start than at the beginning?
The initial run of Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is nothing short of legendary, due to how much groundwork it laid that Marvel writers are still building on today. So, of course, this is where Ben Grimm's rivalry with the Hulk had its explosive beginning.
Granted, they technically first met back in Fantastic Four #12, but that fight was cut short by shenanigans leaving a winner undecided. When fans complained, Lee and Kirby made it up to them with an explosive two-parter where the Hulk and the Thing square off for a proper round two, tearing down half of Manhattan in the process with an efficiency that would make Robert Moses feel incredibly anxious.
The fight ends with Ben coming out on top thanks to his more level headed and stubborn nature giving him an edge against the animalistic Hulk.
If Lee and Kirby had left their interactions in that previous story, these two most likely would not be the bitter rivals they are today. But this two-parter showed Marvel's readership that them coming to blows was the coolest damn thing ever, and the rest is history.