Benjamin Grimm (Earth-981)

Early Life
Ben Grimm grew up in a neighborhood in Queens, New York. Ben Grimm had a rough childhood, He lived with his parents who owned a junkyard. He was a great football athlete but was doing poorly in school. But all of that changed when helped a kid from being bullied constantly. His name was Reed Richards and ever since then they became best friends. Ben kept the bullies away from Reed and Reed help Ben with school.

Fantastic Four
Ben and Reed parted ways when Reed was only sixteen years-old. A government sponsored think-tank recruited Reed into working for them at the Baxter Building. Ben continued with his education and eventually joined the military. Even thou they had complete different lives, they still kept in contact with each other.

Years later on spring break, Ben Grimm visited the testing sight of Reed's teleportation project after he invited him. The project sought to pierce the dimensional barrier into an antimatter realm called the Null Void. During the visit, once given an A-Level Clearance, Reed introduced him to his colleagues, Vincent van Damme, Susan Storm  and her younger brother,  Johnny Storm. The experiment proved to be a tragic disaster. Moments before the initial testing phase was to commence, Vincent Van Damme adjusted the coordinates on the machine causing it to malfunction. It tore open a dimensional breach, releasing a blinding wave of energy, which shunted all five witnesses to different geological locations. Ben awakened in a small town in Puerto Rico. As he rose to his feet, he discovered that he was no longer entirely human. The Null Void effect increased his body mass, transforming him into a gargantuan thing with flesh composed of living rock. The others also developed super powers of their own, Johnny Storm was able to control fire and fly, Reed Richards was able to stretched out his entire body, and Sue Storm was able to turn invisible and project force fields. Members of the Baxter Building research team tracked him down and brought him back to New York for testing. There, Ben learned from Reed that he had made a miscalculation in the experiment that caused them to possess their powers. Ben angrily attacked Reed for his condition before being subdued by Reed's powers.

Ben and his friends were later approached by Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and was tasked to help SHIELD out with some assignments until Reed finds a cure to their powers. On the other hand, Johnny had an idea to become a superhero team. Everybody disagreed for their own reasons. Reed secretly liked the idea to use there powers for good but was too afraid to do so. So they all went to the Baxter Building to help control their new powers while Ben was put in a very special unit for S.H.E.I.L.D. However, after S.H.I.E.L.D. successfully rescued Vincent from the Null Void dimension after he went missing, they attracted an unwanted attention from the inhabitants of the Null Void and  soon encountered an alien known as Annihilus. His goal was to start a universal invasion so his people from the Null Void could survive and take over Earth's solar system. After Annihilus started attacking Manhattan, Ben teams up with his friends to defeat him and his army. Ever since that day, They became the Fantastic Four, The world first Superhero family.

Powers
Rock-like Skin: The Thing possesses a smooth, rock-like hide as a result of exposure to the extradimensional energy. The mutagenic process caused his musculature, bone structure, internal organ composition, soft tissue structure, and skin to greatly increase in toughness and density.
 * Superhuman Stamina: The Thing can exert himself at high levels for about an hour before the build-up of fatigue poisons in his blood impairs his strength.


 * Superhuman Strength: Ben possesses far more strength then a normal human; he can generate the force capable of destroying tanks with punches or charges and tear them apart with ease. Ben could easily destroy large machinery, large and thick masses of stone, and tree trunks with his punches. He also could pick up a military truck and be carrying it over his head without difficulty, as well as throw it at a great distance.


 * Superhuman Mobility: Ben possesses far more mobility then a normal human; as he can run at speeds that rivals that of moving vehicles.


 * Invulnerability: Ben possesses far more durability then a normal human; his otherworldly composition, along with superhuman density, volume, thickness, bulk, and size have made him seemingly indestructible. His tissues are completely impact resistant, making high impact of hundreds to thousands of feet, bullets of the highest caliber, explosions of all intensities, and even direct energy beams or blasts. He cannot feel discomfort of almost any attack, casually walking while being shot repeatedly from all directions. If he is injured, his rock like composition still heals like normal flesh and is seemingly immune to scars or marks of any kind. He seemingly rock like tissues seem to not have a melting point and are immune to the most extreme and intense heat and fire, as well as similar amounts of pressure and friction.


 * Immortality: Ben's rock-like tissue does not age and he is theoretically unable to die of natural causes, as his organs are also rock like and and are possibly not susceptible to chemicals and other substances poisonous or otherwise hazardous to normal organic beings, as well as colds and other forms of disease.

Abilities

 * Master Combatant: He is uniquely gifted in the art of hand-to-hand combat (a skill Ben honed long before he became the Thing)