The Thing #16
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe Thing #16 occupies a specific narrative position as the sixth chapter of the twelve-part 'Rocky Grimm, Space Ranger' serial, the extended storyline in which Ben Grimm elected to remain on Battleworld after the events of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars rather than return to Earth. That choice gave the solo Thing series a genuinely unusual premise for the Copper Age: a Marvel headliner stranded on an alien patchwork planet, wrestling with both its sword-and-sorcery dangers and his unresolved feelings for Alicia Masters. The issue introduces Grimm the Sorcerer, a recurring antagonist who would thread through subsequent chapters of the arc, and deepens the emotional tension between Ben and Tarianna that served as the series' central human drama during this run. As part of a twelve-issue run that deliberately separated Ben from every familiar Marvel corner of New York, the arc as a whole represents one of the more ambitious structural experiments in the character's publishing history.
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The 'Rocky Grimm, Space Ranger' arc was the direct narrative consequence of Secret Wars, during which Ben discovered he could transform back to human form and chose to stay behind on Battleworld to sort out his complicated feelings — a decision that editor-in-chief Jim Shooter greenlit as a way to give the solo series its own distinct identity apart from Fantastic Four. John Byrne had launched the solo title and written the earliest issues, but by the time the Battleworld arc was underway, Mike Carlin had taken over scripting duties, with penciler Ron Wilson and inker Joe Sinnott providing visual continuity throughout the run. Issue #16 is the sixth installment of that twelve-part sequence, published with an October 1984 cover date.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Story title: 'One Thing Leads to Another!' — Part 6 of the 12-part 'Rocky Grimm, Space Ranger' arc.
- Written by Mike Carlin; penciled by Ron Wilson; inked by Joe Sinnott — the core creative team for this phase of the series.
- First appearance of Grimm the Sorcerer, a villain who recurs in subsequent issues of the Battleworld arc.
- The issue is set entirely on Battleworld, the patchwork planet created by the Beyonder in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1–12, which Ben had voluntarily remained on after Secret Wars concluded.
- Ben's ability to toggle between his human and Thing forms on Battleworld is a central dramatic device of the arc; the real psychological reason — a mental block tied to his relationship with Alicia Masters — is not revealed to Ben himself until Thing #23.
- The issue was later collected in The Thing Omnibus (2022), which gathers the full 1983–1986 solo series run.
- Available in both direct edition and newsstand edition variants, as was standard Marvel practice in 1984.
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Thing Classic #2 (2012), Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: Battleworld #[3] (2015), The Thing Omnibus #[nn] (2022), Die Fantastischen Vier #27
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