by Dan Slott, Andrea Di Vito, Kieron Dwyer, Laura Villari
collects The Thing #1-8
The Thing is one of my favorite Marvel characters. Not only is he the perfect metaphor for those who are misunderstood and discriminated against because of their differences, but he also has special meaning to me as an openly Jewish character, whom artist Jack Kirby modeled after himself.
In Dan Slott’s eight issue miniseries, Ben Grimm is now a “billionaire playboy” and thrust into the world of riches, fame and celebrity girlfriends. Slott gets his character right, but the pacing of the book makes the series feel like wasted potential.
The first three issues are essentially pointless – I’m honestly not sure why this wasn’t condensed into one issue. Ben Grimm, several celebrities (including a short-lived girlfriend) and a few other superheroes and villains are kidnapped to “murder island” by an eccentric one note villain. Nothing of real consequence happens, and there’s no major character development for Grimm; unfortunately this entire plot was borrowed later for Gwenpool.
When Grimm returns to Yancy Street in the fourth issue, it finally feels like a story about his character. We see Sheckerberg again, the pawnshop owner who gave Grimm his Star of David necklace in Remembrance of Things Past, the 2001 issue that canonized Grimm as Jewish. Grimm’s plan to open a children’s center in his brother’s memory, which is a lovely concept – but it’s resolved in one issue and barely leaves room for any character development. (His realization about his riches, thanks to Franklin, was also shallow and rushed.) And instead of seriously updating the Yancy Street Gang, and perhaps making some important commentary on supporting youth in need, that element felt cliched and outdated. I wish this had been the grounding story in this arc that lasted 3-4 issues instead of “murder island” nonsense.
The last two issues are one-shot stories that loosely connect in disappointing ways. Issue seven (with an odd Disney’s Hercules reference on the cover) sees Ben still courting Alicia (happy with a new boyfriend) with an insane birthday present – time traveling to ancient Greece. Throughout the whole book, Ben continues to pine for Alicia, who is happy without him, and the fact that they (shocker) eventually end up together, with an incredibly weak send off for her boyfriend, is a disservice to Alicia making her own decisions for her own damn self. She is largely still relegated to love interest here and there’s still no investment in her character; she is grossly sexualized at the end of the last issue.
Speaking of which, the final issue is about Ben Grimm having a Bar Mitzvah. On the one hand, it’s cute to have him have a Bar Mitzvah on the 13th anniversary of becoming The Thing. However, it’s an extremely shallow portrayal of a Bar Mitzvah, and so many elements are off, particularly in the art. The synagogue interior is strange and has zero Jewish symbolism aside from a hastily drawn Star of David; the rest of it is basically in shadow. During the single-page service, Ben says his Torah portion is the Book of Job, which isn’t in the Torah, but far later in the Prophets – it would never be a Torah portion. A nice connection is made between the two, but if you’re going to include a religious minority’s lifecycle event, particularly since Grimm was created by two Jews and modeled after Kirby, please do it correctly.
Dwyer, Di Vito and Villari’s art continued to be hit and miss, and while it was consistent, didn’t seem particularly detail oriented especially when it came to facial expressions.
Idol of Millions was a rushed and unnecessary miniseries that doesn’t honor an iconic character who deserves better.
Reading Art 