Essential Marvel Two-in-One, Vol. 1 by Len Wein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When the Fantastic Four was born, it was thought that if any character would break away for a solo career, it'd be the young and handsome Johnny Storm. Yet, the public had other ideas, it was the human brick monster the Thing who sold the most toys and starred in three Comic book series as well as a limited edition run "Freak Show."

This book marks the start of the Thing's first series, Marvel Two-In-One, like the all ready existing Marvel Team Up series starring Spider-man, each issue featured a team up between the Thing and another Marvel character.

This book collects Marvel Feature 11-12, Marvel Two-in-one #1-#20 and #22-25, Annual #1, Marvel Team Up #47, and Fantastic Four Annual #11: nearly 600 pages of Comic book action.

The try out for the the concept was in Marvel Feature #11 and #12. For the first audition, Marvel led off with the fan favorite fan match up: The Thing and the Hulk. After a pre-requisite fight, they teamed up to fight bad guys who had manipulated them into fighting so they could wager on the fate of the world. This was followed by a team up with Iron Man in Marvel Feature #12.

With the success of these two issue, old Ben Grimm was set for success in Marvel Two in One. It would begin as a bi-monthly series and continue that way until Marvel Two in One #15, when it’d become a monthly.

There are many writers on the series. Steve Gerber wrote issues 1-9, Chris Claremont wrote issue #10, Bill Manlo scripted #11 and 12, 14-19, 22-24 as well as Marvel Two in One #47 with assists from Roy Thomas and Jim Shooter on a few issues. Thomas wrote issue #20 as well as the Annual. And #13 was written by Len Wein and Issue 25 by Marv Wolfman. A lot of cooks stirring this pot and that’s before we start to list all the artists.

In addition, comic book stories were getting shorter. Gone were the 23-page stories in early Fantastic Four magazines. Most of the stories in this book are told in 18 pages and the last few in 17. This can lead to rushed stories.

That said, the book has some pretty good stories. The best are the fist nine written by Stephen Gerber who does a good job capturing the wonderful character of the Thing including his compassion. He begins Issue #1 heading Florida to fight Man-thing for stealing his name but upon learning the poor man-turned-into beast’s story, he has a more compassionate reaction. He also takes to carrying for the overgrown alien child Wundaar as a foster parent of sorts for several issues. His compassion is further shown in comforting Valkryie who questions whether she’s in even real after the end of Issue 7. Grimm responds, “Paper dolls don’t cry. Only us real people got that problem.”

The rest of the stories manage to capture Grimm’s can do determination and indomitable courage. One of the best examples of that is the Two Part team up with Thor in #22 and #23 that has Ben Grimm battling Seth.

Some critics knock the book for having the Thing team up with D-listers, but really he has a pretty solid list of partners including: Submariner, Daredevil, Iron Man (twice), Thor (three times), Captain America (twice), Doctor Strange, and Spider-man. And not every story with a lesser known character was a bad one. My favorite stories in the book:

1) Issues 4 and 5: Captain America and the Thing travel to the time of the Guardians of the Galaxy and team up with them to fight for freedom.

2) Issues 6 and 7: A surprisingly moving story about a magic harmonica and two people haunted by a painful memory with Doctor Strange.

3) Issue 10: This Chris Claemont tale with Black Widow is wonderful. The two really wonderfully together to save the world from one of Black Widow’s old cohorts.

4) Issue 13: Team up with Power Man to fight a dangerous monster.

5) Issue 17 and Marvel Team up #47: Spidey and the Thing battle Basilisk Just a great story.

6) Issue 22 and 23: With Thor battling Seth with all humanity at stake.

7) Issue 24: Black Goliath-Never heard of this character but it was nice to run into him in an overall somewhat generic story.

8) Issue 25: A team up with Iron Fist as they’re brought into a troubled country

On the negative side, some comics I didn’t like:

1) Issue 3: A real head-scratcher. Daredevil appears in a story that seems to barely forward a continuing story going on in Daredevil and the rest of the story finishes up in Daredevil. Kind of pointless really.
2) Issue 11: Battle with Golem, a pointless story that wraps up a previous story no one cared about in the first place. Also, violated an established precedent. Ben Grimm has been shown to be a celebrity superhero yet when he boards a train to Florida, everyone switches sides of the train. Some, I could see. Everyone, not really. It seems to be an attempt to make the Thing relatable and to show solidarity with people being picked on for being different. That should be done in a way that’s not totally nonsensical.
3) Issue #18 with the Scarecrow, the continuation of yet another horror story the Thing doesn’t belong in and nobody cared about in the first place.

While it was an okay story, the biggest disappointment was the Liberty Legion Story in Annual #1 and Issue #20 by Roy Thomas. After the entire FF went back to help the Invaders in the superb Fantastic Four Annual #11, the Thing goes back to finish the job and teams up with the Liberty Legion. The story has potential, but it also highlights the challenge of the Liberty Legion: we don’t know anything about most of them so we have to spend a lot of time establishing who they are. Thus the Annual dragged on and on in an interminable story. Fewer character, at least in this story, might have made Ben Grimm’s time travelling adventures a lot more fun.

As an aside, Issue 21 is not in this collection as it teamed Ben up with Doc Savage and those rights are no longer held by Marvel. I bought this issue online for a pretty inexpensive price. The Doc Savage Issue had great art and was a fun story that true fans of Doc or the Thing should get their hands on, but it’s not really necessary to get it to understand the book.

Overall, not a perfect book, but if you want some great Bronze Age stories of the Thing filled with splash pages of him shouting, “It’s clobberin’ time,” than this is a worthwhile read.




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