Benjamin Grimm (Earth-61615)

{{Character Template
 * Image                  = Ben_Grimm_and_Thing_61615.jpg
 * ImageSize              = 250px
 * RealName               = Benjamin Jacob Grimm
 * Title                  = The Thing
 * CurrentAlias           = Thing
 * Aliases                = Ben Grimm, Bashful Benjy, Uncle Benjy, Grim Ben, Benjamin J. Grimm, Rocky Grimm, Benny, Uncle Ben, Commander Benjamin J. Grimm, Ben "Clobberin'" Grimm
 * Identity               = Public
 * Alignment              = Good
 * Affiliation            = Fantastic Four
 * Relatives              = Unnamed woman (maternal grandmother; deceased), Daniel Grimm (father; deceased), Elsie Grimm (mother; deceased), unnamed individual (cousin), Franklin Richards (godson), Alicia Masters (fiancée)
 * Universe               = Earth-61615
 * BaseOfOperations       = Baxter Building, Manhattan, New York City


 * Gender                 = Male
 * Height                 = 7'5"
 * Weight                 = 1600 lbs
 * Eyes                   = Blue
 * Hair                   = None
 * UnusualFeatures        = Rock skin


 * Citizenship            = American
 * MaritalStatus          = Engaged
 * Occupation             = Adventurer, pilot (formerly)
 * Education              = College graduate (State University), U.S. Air Force pilot training, NASA astronaut training


 * Origin                 = Human mutated via exposure to cosmic rays
 * PlaceOfBirth           = Yancy Street, Manhattan, New York City
 * Creators               =
 * First                  = Modern Comics: Fantastic Four Vol 1 1
 * Last                   =
 * Quote                  = It's clobberin' time!
 * Speaker                = The Thing


 * HistoryText            =

Early Years
Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm grew up in the neighborhood of Yancy Street, in New York City. At a young age, he attended Midtown Middle School, where he became the star linebacker for the school football team, earning himself the nickname The Grimm Reaper. During this time, he befriended a child prodigy named Reed Richards. Possessing such unique intellect, Reed was often the target of school bullies, and Ben took it upon himself to protect Reed from those who would seek to persecute him. As reward for this valuable service, Reed agreed to help Ben with his homework, which was the dread trigonometry.

Long-Term Separation
Ben and Reed parted ways when Reed was only approximately fourteen to fifteen years old. After graduating several colleges both within country and overseas, a government sponsored think-tank recruited Reed into working for them at the Baxter Building. Ben continued with his education and eventually entered college. Upon graduating, Grimm went into the U.S. Air Force and became a highly skilled fighter pilot, as well as a test pilot and an astronaut. In the meantime, Richards went ahead with his project to build a starship, using both his own fortune and funding from the Federal government. On the day that Grimm left the military, his old friend Reed Richards came to him to remind him of his promise to pilot the starship someday.

A Fantastic Foundation
Years later on, Ben decided to join his best friend Reed Richards, close friends Sue Storm, her brother Johnny Storm and Victor von Doom in Reed's spacial project, with the Baxter Building being the testing sight of a teleportation project, which sought to pierce the dimensional barrier into an antimatter realm called the Negative Zone. Ben knew that Reed had always experimented with quantum physics, and wanted to see how his old friend was getting along. Along with it, a brutal cosmic ray storm had battered the crew as they were on the alternate dimension, drastically affecting their DNAs, which gave them superpowers in the process, with Ben becoming the stone-skinned orange Thing, and one of the now famous and beloved superhero teams in the world, the Fantastic Four.

The Threat of Galactus
As the ancient and powerful cosmic being known as Galactus, the cosmic "Devourer of Worlds," first began his upon arrival at the Milky Way Galaxy, wherein he sends one of his Herald, the Silver Surfer on his way onto Earth. Out of hunger, Galactus attempted to fed on Earth's core many times but was stopped by the redeemed Surfer himself on the day of his arrival, helped by the Fantastic Four themselves, successfully banishing Galactus from the face of the Earth to another distinct region of space, using the powerful universal weapon as a result of Richards' mind, to which the latter had called the Ultimate Nullifier.

Finding The Cure
At some point in the Four's early adventures during the early 2000s, Reed was currently helping Ben on his condition as the Thing, since the latter still had hopes of getting himself back into his original form and live a normal life once more with his girlfriend, Alicia Masters. In the request of Ben and Reed's conscience will to help out his best friend, the four decided to travel into the future in order to search for a cure, or more accurately, find a blueprint or formula of a cure that would turn Ben back into his human form. Upon the arrival of the Fantastic Four had arrived inside the future version of the Baxter Building, they latter were kidnapped by a group of advanced-looking operatives, who interrogated their visit to the future on behalf of a higher individual named Scarlet Centurion, who supposedly was the former "monarch" of the future United States of America and the "leader" of the Resistance in their objective against Kang the Conqueror, during the arrival of the Fantastic Four. Moments before Kang turned into Centurion, he traveled back in time once again in a certain point in the past, recruiting his alternate past self as Kang so he could take his place in the meantime to take over his empire, while the Scarlet Centurion inside the ruins of the Baxter Building, "assisting" the Fantastic Four.

Honestly answering Centurion's question during their first encounter, Reed told Centurion that they went back in time using the Baxter Building's time machine in order to find a possible cure for Ben's worsening condition, and if he stayed as the "Thing" for far too long, his rock-like skin would become permanent for the rest of his entire life. Centurion questioned to why Ben does not embrace his true being as the Thing, only to accidentally insult Ben with that response that almost led them to have a brutal fight, before being calmed down by Sue Storm, Reed's fiancée. As he expected out of Ben's reaction and knowing that Reed and Sue aren't married yet, these version of the Fantastic Four were revealed to have come from the distant past, a few years even before his younger self had met and encountered the superhero team.

Centurion agreed to help the Fantastic Four, only to deceive the team, especially Reed, into "helping" him in the Resistance's lifelong mission, defeating Kang and his enforcers. As they were working on the cure for Grimm's condition inside the lab, Sue asked why he was willing to help them, when he hasn't even met them before. Centurion then partly told them the truth just so he could gain their trust even more, which was revealing his real identity, Nathan K. Richards, one of Reed Richard's long lost, distant cousin. Reed was confused by his revelation, since he had never met or have even heard of him before. Deciding not to "spoil the fun," Centurion simply hinted to Reed that they'll eventually meet his younger self, someday in the future. Aside from Centurion's background story, Reed also questioned the origins of Kang the Conqueror, to which Centurion tells him a fabricated origin about the latter, saying that Kang's true origins remains a mystery, with rumors only telling that he was a rogue time-traveler and a descendant of Victor von Doom.

The Wrath of Kang
Unbeknownst to Kang and the rest of the team, Johnny and Ben decided to roam and have a one-to-one talk on what he's truly feeling about his condition, when it was abruptly interrupted after Johnny accidentally stepped on a pressure pad located at the end of the halls, only meters away from the lab, where Centurion and Reed still currently were. Though it seem like everything they found out was coincidental, the two discovering the true horrifying events of the dark future was all part of Kang's game. Secretly finding out about what happened to Ben and Johnny, Centurion used his mental link to communicate with the Kang divergence, signalling his next objective to teleport inside the building, and ruthlessly attack Centurion and the Fantastic Four without stopping, interrupting Ben and Johnny, causing for them to leave the vault, and jeopardizing Reed's work on closely completing the serum of Ben's cure. Johnny and Ben tried to fight off Kang, but his power, forcing the two and the rest to follow Centurion on the hiding place.

Due to the unexpected arrival of Kang, Centurion led the Fantastic Four to a secret vault, the same vault where both Ben and Johnny were earlier, and forced them to hide there, while Centurion deals with Kang. Coming out of the vault, wherein he apparently killed the Conqueror in a brutal duel. In reality Centurion thanked the Kang remnant for easily agreeing with his little game. Kang then asked his future self if he finally gets to go home afterwards, only to be stabbed through the chest with his own sword, killing him without any signs of remorse, telling the remnant that he would not be needing to.

Following the actions of murdering Kang, Centurion returns to the hidden vault, holding Kang's head as he brings it in front of the heroic team like it was nothing new to him, much to the horror experienced by the latter. Since Ben already knew Centurion was not to be trusted, he immediately takes action, but before he could have thrown his massive fist at him, the unhinged uses his advanced combat skills, easily taking down the rocky behemoth, followed by gassing the rest down, before imprisoning every each one of them, except for Ben whom Centurion had taken to the lab, with the rest of his collection of trophies, located within another vault in the Baxter Building.

Ending Kang's Empire
Eventually, Sue Storm was able to get her and the rest of the Fantastic Four out of their cells and began their search for Ben, who was being experimented upon by Kang after he was close into creating the cure, but not before helping the imprisoned Resistance members escape the building first. However, in the wake of their escape with the rest of his prisoners, including the temporal duplicate of Ravonna Renslayer, Kang left Ben and went to get back up and created dozens of his temporal remnants to surround the prisons and prevent them from ever going home to their own timeline, and despite Kang knowing the risks of creating a larger fracture within the space-time continuum, he let his own unstable emotions and selfish ambitions of ruling the entire history of the "Prime Reality" get in the way, falsely assuring that he would still find a way if the structure of the multiverse were to suddenly collapse because of his reckless intentions.

Kang and the temporal remnants arrived and encircled the members of the Resistance as they try and escape the Baxter Building, killing several prisoners in the process, despite the three's efforts to save them. Reed tries to fight Kang while Johnny and Sue help the prisoners flee, but Kang's powerful anti-matter weapon combined with his combatant skills had only made him the victor, weakening Reed. As Kang prepares to deliver the killing blow to Reed, Ben rescues him and the rest of the team, conclusively giving up his goal to revert his own self back to human form by completely rejecting Kang's mischievous offer to have him cured at a risky and diabolical price, and instead has decided to embraced his powerful form, willingly accepting the heroic power and the persona of the Thing within him.

Nearing the end of their final show down, the heroic four and Renslayer ultimately battles Kang in a duel, with Reed successfully taking out all of Kang's counterparts out of existence using a improvisational device of his own design, ultimately enraging Kang in his allied selves' defeat. Shortly after the battle, Reed and the four were able to bide some time, thanks to Renslayer's diversion to handle Kang herself, to restart the deactivated portal that Kang tried to destroy, and finally, safely return home to their own reality, much to Kang's dismay in his failure to take down one of his greatest adversaries when he had the chance to.

Encounters from the Skrull Kind
The Fantastic Four were suddenly approached by their arch-nemesis, none other than Doom himself, who unexpectedly asked for the heroes' help, something he preferred calling his action a "reluctant request". The four were confused, especially Reed, asking him what kind of help does Victor need from them. Victor responded that he wouldn't even consider the four's help, if it wasn't for the sake of saving his own country, Latveria, and the rest of the world from an impending doom. The heroes then asked what was coming, to which Doom replied, "An invasion," confusing and surprising the four at the same time, though it was revealed that Doom had been studying extraterrestrial life since the Chitauri Invasion, leading to him making a theory about Earth being a frequent target for alien colonization after discovering that an ancient powerful species known as the Skrulls has been watching Earth and has attempted on colonizing it since the dawn of history. Doom then told them that the Skrull have been doing it every next thousand years, and now believes that they're coming to Earth, once again, although they have yet to know who the real responsible perpetrators were in contacting the Skrulls, and he had no other choice now that he needed their very help to stop another invasion from ever occurring, and at the same time keep this shocking discovery between them in the meantime to avoid mass panic and hysteria.

The Skrulls Attack Latveria
Some of the Skrull spacecrafts somehow found its way onto Earth, crashing into several locations all around the world, most notably the Kingdom of Latveria and the Kingdom of Wakanda, as Doom has suspected and predicted for it to actually happen. However, most of them were unfortunate on their ships' crash landing, having most of the Skrulls to perish as they have roughly crash landed into rocky terrains and fathomable oceans where no one gets back from. Nevertheless, those who did survive did proceed with their true intentions of exterminating and decimating Earth's entire race and life, who they have mistakenly taken as a rival species, daring to challenge them in becoming the far more superior species in the entire universe. After having to immediately know about their impending arrival on Earth, the Fantastic Four, even the Wakandan monarch Black Panther and the Subterranean ruler Arthur Molekevic (more commonly known as the on-and-off rogue Mole Man), has finally decided to help Doom in preventing another alien invasion from the hands of the Skrull Empire, a domain that the heroes and villains have only recently discovered its existence.

Rock-Like Skin: The Thing received his powers when cosmic rays bombarded his body. He is extremely strong and durable. Nick Fury's intel classified him as power level 8. The Thing possesses a smooth, rock-like hide as a result of exposure to cosmic rays. The mutagenic process caused his musculature, bone structure, internal organ composition, soft tissue structure, and skin to greatly increase in toughness and density. After being subjected to a serum, he now reverts to human form once a year, which is now the only time he ages.
 * Powers                 =
 * Superhuman Strength
 * Superhuman Durability
 * Superhuman Speed
 * Superhuman Stamina
 * Superhuman Sensory Adaptation
 * Temperature Tolerance
 * Biological Immortality

Class 100+
 * Abilities              =
 * Expert Pilot
 * Experienced Astronaut
 * Master Combatant
 * Strength               =
 * Weaknesses             =
 * Handicap
 * Equipment              =
 * Fantastic Four Uniform
 * Baxter Building issue communications equipment
 * Various advanced technology equipment
 * Fantasti-Flare
 * Universal Translator
 * Transportation         =
 * Fantasticars
 * Fantasti-Car (formerly; destroyed)
 * Fantasticar 2.0 (formerly)
 * Fantasticar 2.5 (formerly)
 * Fantastiships
 * Space Shuttles
 * Weapons                =

}}
 * Notes                  =
 * Trivia                 =
 * Marvel                 =
 * Wikipedia              =
 * Links                  =