By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Andy Lanning & Doug Hazlewood and various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-KKKK-6
In super-hero iconography the Thing is the quintessential tragic hero. His simple origins as a slum kid made good by dint of hard work and a Football Scholarship, his selfless bravery as a pilot in defence of his country, the reckless loyalty that compelled him to pilot a rocket ship against his own better judgement all indicate a noble and hardy soul. To entrap that soul in the misshapen husk of an ambulatory boulder seems the harshest of judgements.
But as all fans know, that’s precisely the situation that has doomed Ben Grimm to a solitary life, even amidst his truest friends. How odd then that this beacon of noble misfortune is at his absolute best when he’s played against type, in stories of a lighter stripe.
Freak Show (collecting the miniseries of that name plus the Thing & She-Hulk: The Long Night one-shot) has ample slices of high tension, bombastic action and scurrilous villainy, but the basic everyman core of the character is the real attraction. The Thing is a man never too far from a hearty chuckle at adversity, which of course he’s seen more than his fair share of. The lead story, courtesy of Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Andy Lanning and Doug Hazlewood gives us a peek into Grimm’s childhood and specifically his reactions to a carnival of circus freaks ,and how years later the reappearance of those benighted creatures leads to some revelatory soul-searching. Comics form is sustained as these travails also involve two bands of rival alien invaders and a baby deity.
Although a much more traditional team-up, the Long Night (by Todd Dezago, Brian Hitch, Ivan Reis, Paul Neary and Randy Emberlin) also has these welcome touches of levity and humanity to leaven a rather dark tale of Subway Vampires and a big punch-up with the gigantic android Dragon Man.
The saddest thing about this volume, however, is simply that despite the popular films – and this is one of those rare super-hero books that isn’t mired in an impenetrable shield of nit-picking continuity – only the already converted are liable to read it.
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