AVENGERS POLL: THE THING

[Doctor Bong]

How do you rate the Thing as an avenger, on a scale from 1 to 8 points?
How well does he work for you within the dynamics of the team?
How much do you like/dislike him as a character?

[Tana Nile]

I love Ben. He's one of my favorite comics characters. That said, he will always be a member of the FF in my head, not an Avenger. I gave him a 2.

[woodside]

Definetly not an Avenger to me. How long did he last with the team?

[scottharris]

I went with a five even though Thing never really served any time as an active member. For me, Thing is such a strong character that he could have thrived on the Avengers as much or more than he did on FF. I don't really feel that's the case for the other members of the FF, whom really feel like FF guys no matter what book they are in. But Thing, especially after reading his stuff in MTiO, feels to me like a character that could easily have made the transition to another title and I think he would have worked very well on the Avengers if editorial would ever have let such a thing happen.

[freedomfighter]

did the Thing actually ever join?? I seem to remember the arc where his joining was such a big deal to hawkeye, in the early Englehart issues, but did he actually become an official member?

[spiderwasp]

I gave him a 1. Of course I love the character but his membership in the WCA was so short and uneventful it hardly even qualifies as an authentic membership.

[Doctor Bong]

Jul 29, 2008 9:51:16 GMT -5 freedomfighter said:

did the Thing actually ever join?? I seem to remember the arc where his joining was such a big deal to hawkeye, in the early Englehart issues, but did he actually become an official member?

From what I understand, after a long courtship by Hawkeye he finally joined the team officially, only to leave them inmediately afterwards because editorial and creatives decided on other plans for him... in other words, business as usual for the Avengers.

[starfoxxx]

A 2. Everything Tana Nile stated, also, he has had such great camraderie with the Avengers in any capacity. Marvel 2-in-1 #51 is one of my favorite examples.

[Bored Yesterday]

2 -- Love the character, but I don't see why he would join the Avengers. Don't mind that he did it, but a short stay was fitting. Marvel 2-in-1 number 75 was a good one too (in the Negative Zone vs. Annihilus, Blastarr, and the Super Adaptoid).

[Dr. Hank Pym]

I'll give him a three, because I love Ben Grimm and all, and I thought the short role he had was cute. But yeah, he's really not Avenger material at all.

[Shiryu]

5, I'm a sucker for inter-team memberships ;D
Clearly, this is just a vote on his potential as an Avenger, but I think that Reed is the only FF who couldn't really fit in an Avengers team, the other 3 would do pretty well. They would have different dynamics compared to the usual ones, but still do well.

As for Ben, it's not just the strenght, but also the experience he has which would benefit every Avenger's team.

[Doctor Bong]

I voted 5.
While he will always be, of course, primarily a core member of the FF and he's not as powerful as some of the other "strong men" on our list, he's one of my favorite characters in the MU and I think he integrates himself very well within the dynamics of the team.
I was left wanting more of him as an avenger after his brief stint with the Wackos.

[dlw66]

3

Ben could have been in some great stories with the Beast and Wonder Man. I was actually pulling for him to say "yes" back in those first issues of WCA. IMO, he would have been a better fit than when Reed and Sue were on the team around #300.