This Man...This Monster!
We should not be surprised that so much of Peter Parker’s internal (and external) monologue is about his secret identity. Not only is it the axis around which nearly all his problems revolve, it is also a clear metaphor for the very problem of interiority and representation: to what extent can or does one’s external presentation match with the self for which the body and costume serve as a calling card? Semiotics teaches us that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary, but that only really holds for systems that cannot be seen as products of any kind of intent (such as language). Masked superheroes are deliberately setting up a barrier between the self they perform and the self they see as true, natural, or essential. Small wonder that the anxious and neurotic Peter Parker feels the need to talk about his identities all the time.
Peter Parker is far from the only Marvel hero to suffer (out loud) because of his divided self. But he is one of the few for whom the secret identity as a problem is not compounded by disability, monstrosity, physical metamorphosis, or entrapment. [1]
Like Peter Parker, Tony Stark spends the entire 1960s maintaining the fiction that he and his super heroic alter ego (in this case, Iron Man), are two different people. But Stark’s vulnerabilities are of a different source. Where Peter Parker is constantly strapped for money, Tony Stark is fabulously wealthy. Where Parker has to pretend that he is in two places at once, photographing Spider-Man during his battles with supervillains, Stark is in the even more paradoxical position of pretending to be his own bodyguard (somehow, the fact that one usually expects to see a bodyguard standing next to the principal he guards is rarely an issue).
One of Parker’s moral strengths is that he has a good heart: he cares for the people around him, frets about those he can’t save, and metaphorically bleeds over the suffering he inadvertently causes. Stark, initially an industrialist and weapons manufacturer, becomes a hero because his heart is literally failing him: a piece of shrapnel lodged in his chest initially makes it impossible for him to live without being connected to his armor’s chest plate.
Spider-Man's dual identity entangles him in a web of conflicting obligations; Iron Man’s very existence is a trap. Tony Stark, the soft, chewy center encased within the Iron Man shell, is the inner self that cannot let itself by glimpsed behind the mask. Nor is he the only one to face such a dilemma; the Fantastic Four’s arch nemesis, Dr. Doom, could remove his armor whenever he likes, but if he does, he is confronted with the hideously scarred face that he hides from both the world and himself.
The Fantastic Four, in turn, include two members whose metaphorical portfolio also includes the drama of the interior and the exterior. Sue Storm Richards, so often an afterthought to her friends and enemies alike, possesses the deeply ironic power of invisibility. But it is Ben Grimm, transformed by cosmic rays into the orange, brick-bodied monster know as The Thing, who suffers from profound depression and fits of rage due to science fictional dysphoria: the body he presents to the world is not the self he knows himself to be. In the early comics, his mental state is arguably bipolar: his occasional, often inexplicable reversions to his human form cause bouts of euphoria that inevitably turn to depressive rage when his monstrous body returns. [2]
The Thing’s ongoing trauma complicates the relationship between the internal and the external, in part because of the general metaphorical power of monstrosity, and in part because of the character’s context as member of a team. Taken together, the Fantastic Four lend themselves to interpretations that are obvious, but nonetheless valid. For example, they represent the four elements (Reed is water, Sue is air, Johnny is air, Ben is earth). But they also are yet another superheroic example of art (which is at least partly the product of intention) functioning differently from natural semiotic systems (which arise on their own): in their case, the relationship between signifier (outer experience/power set) and signified (inner self/character) is anything but arbitrary. Numerous stories have reimagined the Fantastic Four and their powers over the years, including:
Having entirely different people gaining their familiar power set from cosmic rays (including even Lee and Kirby themselves) (What If Volume 1, Issue 11)
Having Reed, Ben and Sue gain entirely different super powers (What If? Volume 1, Issue 6, 1977)
Having all four gain the same power (What If? Volume 2, Issue 11 1990)
Having them fail to gain superpowers at all (What if? Volume 1, Issue 36)
Having them lose control of their powers (What If? Volume 2, Issue 89)
Having Russian cosmonauts gain the FF’s powers (What If Volume 4)
An alternate universe in which Reed Richards becomes The Thing (first appearance, Fantastic Four Volume 1, Issue 118, 1972)
A storyline in which Sue and Johnny swap powers, and then the superpowers of all four teammates begin hopping from person to person all over New York City (Fantastic Four 520-524, 2005)
A storyline in which Doctor Doom tortures the Fantastic Four by swapping their powers (Reed’s stretching ability becomes medieval stretching torture for Johnny, Sue is on fire and feeling herself burn) (Fantastic Four volume 3, Issue 70 (2003)
The wrongness of these scenarios only reinforces the rightness of the original power set distribution. Johnny is the Human Torch because he is a hothead, Reed’s mind is as flexible as his body, Sue is always in danger of metaphorically fading into the background, and Ben is strong and prone to anger. Thus the external manifestation of their powers ultimately renders their inner selves visible and legible to the outside world. No wonder they have no secret identities—the Fantastic Four, more than nearly any other Marvel character, are always essentially themselves. [3]
But where does that leave Ben? Does the monstrous body of the Thing reveal or belie Ben Grimm’s inner self? Unsurprisingly, the answer seems to be: both. Perhaps the gruff exterior does not simply mask a softer, gentler self; it enables it by being protective.
The key text for understanding the Lee/Kirby Thing is “This Man…This Monster!” A stand-alone story published in the first volume’s fifty-first issue, its placement in the history of the Fantastic Four is significant. The splash page is introduced by Lee with characteristic bombast “Quite possibly, this may be one of the greatest illustrated pieces yet produced” by the team behind the Fantastic Four. This is no small claim, as this story comes on the heels of the famed “Galactus Trilogy,” one of the most acclaimed storylines of the 1960s, whose themes center on the contrast between the human and the sublime (more on this below). At their best, Lee and Kirby kept their work delicately balanced between the cosmic and the mundane, often alternating approach and subject matter in order to keep both in view (something we will see again when we turn to their work on Thor).
Virtually no attempt is made to connect this issue with the previous ones (though when we last saw the Thing in issue 50, a young woman had just run away from him in fear). The first caption on the first page of the story proper tells us that “Occasionally, a tale needs no intruduction! This is just such a tale!” If it weren’t for Ben’s reference to Alice abandoning him, this would be a story that could take place at almost any point in the the Lee/Kirby run, because it focuses on Ben in his default, depressive state. [4] It’s a rainy night, and Ben rejects the offer of a ride from a friendly police officer. He is approached by a stranger, whose bald, beetle-browed appearance is frankly more off-putting in a Fantastic Four comic than the Thing’s rocky orange exterior. The man is a scientist who “knows how it feels to be scorned by others—to be mocked and ridiculed—because of my theories!” The man (whose name we never learn) drugs Ben into unconsciousness, and then uses a mysterious device to turn himself into a perfect copy of the Thing, leaving a now-human Ben asleep on the couch.
HOW STRANGE! YOU SEEM SO CREDIBLE!
Having practiced his imitation of Ben’s manner of speaking, the faux Thing arrives at the Baxter Building, but is almost immediately confronted by Ben Grimm. Reed and Sue are both taken aback, but decide that the human Ben must be the fake, since he would be easier to copy than the Thing. Ben storms off in a huff, and Reed tells the faux Thing that he trusts him with his life. Inexplicably, nobody bothers to follow up on the supposed imposter who somehow managed to make his way into the Baxter Building.[5]
Reed is about to make his first trip into “sub-space” (soon to be renamed the “Negative Zone”), and needs the Thing’s strength to hold on to the cable that will tether him to our world as he explores this other dimension. The false Thing agrees, since this will be his chance to do away with the scientist he has long envied and resented. Reed enters subspace, only to realize that he is in danger of annihilation if he continues towards an anti-matter version of Earth. He tugs on the cord, the “Thing” contemplates letting go, but has a change of heart. He pulls on the tether, only for it to snap—he waited too long, and now it is too taught. He grabs the end of the broken tether, leaps into subspace, joins Reed, and then uses his monstrous strength to throw Reed back to the portal leading to Earth. He dies, just at the moment that Ben was about to greet Alicia in his human form. Ben becomes the Thing again, and flees. Back at the Baxter Building, Reed, Sue are elated to find that Ben is still alive, and Reed delivers a eulogy to the mysterious man who saved him: “He paid the full price—and he paid it—like a man!”
One of the reasons this story works as well as it does is that it strips down all the characters to their absolute basics: Reed, Ben, and Sue are very much themselves. [6] Or at least Ben was himself; now that he is divided, his selfhood is about to come into question. Reed, on the other hand, is the embodiment of unadulterated scientific curiosity, impatient to stretch into new frontiers (how appropriate, then, that his near downfall comes when the line holding him can stretch no further). Sue constantly expresses concern, questioning or exclaiming about Reed’s plans, but being brushed off at every turn; she never becomes invisible in this issue, but she might as well be inaudible.
SHUT UP, REED!
Reed’s project also allows Lee to be Lee and Kirby to be Kirby. Because the entire adventure is based on complex interdimensional pseudoscience, Reed has every excuse to narrate like there’s no tomorrow (“I’ve done it! The universe seems to be tearing itself open—falling apart—! / “I’ve shredded the very fabric of infinity—where all positive matter is transposed into negative form! / “And now I’m plunging thru the resulting void which I’ve created in the space-time dimensional barrier!!” Once across, Reed’s narration also tries to bear some of the burden of conveying the sublime (“It’s almost more than human eyes can bear!”), but really, that’s Kirby’s job. While Reed chatters nonstop, Kirby provides trippy cosmic backdrops that far exceed the bounds of conventional comics art.
DUDE, YOU’RE HARSHING MY MELLOW
As so often happened in the best Fantastic Four and Thor stories, Lee and Kirby succeed thanks to the ongoing dialectic of Lee’s humanism and Kirby’s cosmism (more on this below). In depicting the Negative Zone, Kirby has created a new site not just for this issue, but for countless FF adventures over the years to come. It is cosmic adventure as uncanny, anti-human trap: in the Negative Zone, all travelers are subject to the inexorable gravitational pull of the Earth, but an Earth that, rather than familiar and mundane, is lethal because it is composed of anti-matter. The only way out for Reed is literally in the hands of his best friend: human bonds can conquer cosmic terror.
Reed’s life is saved not by Ben, but by the unnamed, jealous scientist who has transformed his body into a copy of the Thing’s. And not just his body: he has also taught himself to talk like Ben. This is key not just to the plot (his disguise has to be a success), but to the comic’s reception by the reader. What, after all, is a comic book character as experience by a reader? A set of familiar images and an assortment of words uttered in a way that is consistent with our expectations of the character. For the comics reader, if it looks like Ben and talks like Ben, then it’s Ben. With one exception: we get to hear his thoughts, which are not initially phrased in Ben’s characteristic style. As readers, we know the contrast between the inner and outer selves of this particular character, but to Reed and Sue, everything about him, up through his sacrifice of his own life to save Reed’s, is utterly consistent with their understanding of their old friend.
So why does the imposter have a change of heart? In a way, that change of heart happened the moment he assumed the Thing’s form, in that he now has the Thing’s literal heart. But the transformation of his self lags behind the transformation of his body. Two things happen that cause him to forsake revenge in favor of heroism. First, he is treated by Reed and Sue exactly as they would treat Ben. Reed repeatedly affirms his confidence in Ben: “Have faith in me—as I have faith in Ben”; “Only Ben can do it!” ; “Remember, Ben—don’t let go of that line! My life is in your hands!” Meanwhile, Sue is also relying on him, literally leaning on him for support before declaring that that she is going into the Negative Zone after her husband.
Second, he is confronted with the truth about Reed Richards: his selfless pursuit of scientific knowledge is no act. Uncharacteristically, the false Thing’s thoughts are conveyed in something closer to Ben’s own idiom: “I always thought he was just a glamorpants—out for all the dough and glory he could get! But he’s tacklin’ a job that won’t net him a plugged nickel—/ and he’s doing it without any fanfare—or any publicity!” That is, it’s not exactly how Ben would talk, but it’s not the neutral language the antagonist had before his transformation. Becoming the Thing externally has already begun to alter him internally: the outer metamorphosis is accompanied by an alteration of his own subjectivity.
The false Thing is both a physical and ethical hybrid, neither the beetle-browned scientist nor Ben Grimm. At this point, the issue’s portentous title starts to take on new meaning: he is both man and monster, but not in the most obvious fashion. He was a monster before he became the Thing; now that he looks like a freak, internally he has become a man. [7] This recapitulates the implicit logic of comicbook characterization, in that the readers meet the character as an image before learning about them as a self. Once the antagonist is drawn as the Thing, he starts assuming Ben’s ethics and moral code as his own.
“He’s tugging! All I gotta do is ignore him, and I’ll have beaten the one man I’ve always envied—the one man no one else could ever defeat!
“But—all of a sudden, I don’t envy him any more. I—I never knew how brave he was—how unselfish—!”
[…]
“All these years—when I thought I never go the breaks—now I know the truth! It was my fault—nobody else’s! I wouldn’t work hard enough—I would make the sacrifices that a Reed Richards would—!”
[…]
‘I never saw things so clear before! It—it’s almost like I've really become the Thing—not just an imitation!”
[…]
“I never did a worthwhile thing in my whole life!! But now—I’ve finally got the chance! I can really be Ben Grimm!”
Appropriately enough for a scene involving brute strength, the antagonist’s interior monologue does most of the heavy lifting for the story’s redemption arc. Otherwise, his newfound admiration for Reed is simply too sudden. Though he starts out laying out the logical case for changing his mind, his subsequent observation that “it’s almost like I’ve really become the Thing” and resolution to “really be Ben Grimm” are what sells the story. His physical transformation is also a psychological and emotional one. His decision to enter the Negative Zone, save Reed, and make peace with his impending demise are completely consistent with what we would expect of Ben Grimm himself.
Though the Thing might seem to be a freakish distortion of Ben’s essential self, it turns out that the opposite is true: the Thing’s rocky exterior can no longer serve as a sign of simple monstrosity. Inhabited for 50 issues by the reliably moral Ben Grimm, it has been so thoroughly imbued with his “Ben-ness” that, at least in this story, taking on his physical traits inevitably entails adopting his morals. Despite the emotional suffering his form causes him, there is no real gap between Ben Grimm and the Thing. What we see is what we get.
Notes
[1] Disability and disfigurement in superhero narratives are the subject of Jose Alaniz’s excellent study, Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond.
[2] For more on Ben Grimm’s bouts of hostility towards his comrades, see Alaniz, Chapter 3.
[3] The connection between internal and external works both ways, particular in Sue’s case. Early in her career, she develops the power to project invisible force fields; this fits comfortably in the conventional gendering of the Invisible Girl as a passive, defensive character. Later writers, starting with John Byrne, start to deploy her force field power more creatively and aggressively: as a construct of invisible force, it can be quite destructive. Once Sue is possessed by the evil entity known as Malice, the spikes she wears on her collar are matched by the spikes (and potentially deadly) force fields she sometimes projects. The general trend in the past three decades to make Sue a more assertive and complex character are both dependent on new applications of her power and also symbolized by such applications.
[4] Of course, Alicia has done no such thing. Ben has completely misinterpreted Alicia’s concern for the Silver Surfer.
[5] Nor are we told how Ben, now in human form and wearing borrowed clothes, managed to gain access to the FF headquarters. Is it too late for me to ask for a no-prize?
[6] Johnny, who has just started college, gets a three-page scene in which, separated from the rest of the team, he doesn’t act much like himself at all. Continually provoked by loudmouth students, Johnny is doing his best not to get into a fight and not to show off.
[7] Here I choose to be charitable and assume that Lee is using “man” in the old-fashioned sense of “generic human,” rather than a paragon of masculine virtue. In a pinch, however, both work.