It doesn’t take much to make the Thing mad. It takes even less to get on the Hulk‘s bad side. With that being the case, it was only a matter of time before these two pugilistic super-heroes rubbed each other the wrong way, spawning some of best battles in the history of Marvel Comics. While the Hulk has tussled with virtually every super-hero in the Marvel Universe at sometime or another, over the decades, the Thing has emerged as his true rival. For more than sixty years, the Thing and the Hulk have faced off against each other periodically, each seeing the other as a challenge to their status as the “Strongest One There Is.” That rivalry began in the pages of 1962’s Fantastic Four #12, which wasn’t just the first time that the Fantastic Four met the Hulk, but one of the first issues to cross-over Marvel titles, helping to establish the publisher’s interconnected universe.
Coming from the beginning of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s still-unsurpassed Fantastic Four run, issue twelve is a longstanding fan-favorite. The early Kirby-Lee Fantastic Four issues are some of the most collectible Silver Age Marvel comics, released at a time when the publisher was still trying to establish a readership and a foothold in the comic market. Far fewer copies are in circulation than of issues from even a few years later, driving value. Even collectors who don’t consider themselves fans or collectors of the Fantastic Four want issues from this run; they’re too historically significant and held in too high of esteem not to be a requisite part of a serious Marvel reader’s personal collection. The scarcity of these early issues means that high-grade samples are especially rare, as with this CGC (Certified Guarantee Company)-graded 9.4 Near-Mint copy of Fantastic Four #12 on auction now through Heritage. With nearly a week still left to bid, the auction has already reached a price of $8.9k — still well below the estimated value listed in the Overstreet Price Guide.
Fantastic Four #12 sees General “Thunderbolt” Ross pay the First Family a visit, asking for their help in destroying the Incredible Hulk, who Ross and the military brass at “Gamma Base” in New Mexico hold responsible for a string of recent equipment sabotage. The issue is arguably the very first inter-title cross-over of the Marvel Age, tied with Amazing Spider-Man #1, which hit newsstands the same week (December 12th). It takes the better part of the issue to see the Fantastic Four confront the Hulk, who dispatches most of the team in rapid fashion. The Thing is the last one left standing, and puts up a good fight against the Hulk (much less powerful in these early appearances), but before fans are given a clear winner, the Hulk is knocked out by “the Wrecker,” a Soviet spy and the true culprit of the recent sabotage. The resolution is a cop-out, and Lee and Kirby seemed to know it, because the following year, they gave fans a rematch — and this clash of the titans came with a clear winner.
Fantastic Four #25-26 presented a blockbuster two-issue crossover between not only the Fantastic Four and the Hulk, but the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. It integrated continuity from Avengers issues (a marketing tactic Marvel and DC would soon employ ad nauseum), referencing events in that title to incentivize readers who only partook of Fantastic Four to dip their toe into the House of Ideas’ other publications. The Hulk, a founding member of the Avengers, learns that Captain America has replaced him on the team’s roster, and journeys to New York City to seek revenge against his former teammates. On arrival, he is confronted by the Fantastic Four (minus a bedridden Mister Fantastic), and enters a knock-out, drag-out, issue-spanning slugfest with the Thing. The Thing is beaten badly at the end of issue twenty-five, but rallies to continue the fight, refusing to admit defeat and fearing for the safety of his city.
The Thing doesn’t get his rematch in #26, at least not in full: he faces off against the Hulk again for the issue’s opening pages, but is soon joined in battle by his own team-mates and the Avengers. Going off of the previous issue, the victor is clear: the Hulk is stronger than the Thing — a fact the Thing himself would acknowledge and bemoan in many a future issue, as in their next proper rematch, Fantastic Four #112. This time turns out no better for the Thing, who receives a knock-out blow so strong that Mister Fantastic initially pronounces him dead! The decade would bring several more “Fantastic Four vs. Hulk” confrontations, but these were strictly team efforts, as with 1976’s Fantastic Four #166. In that issue, the Thing technically scores a knock-out against Hulk, but only because of the Invisible Woman using a force-field to momentarily stagger the Hulk by cutting off his air supply. The Hulk defeats the Thing again in a one-on-one battle the next issue.
After another humiliating loss in Marvel Fanfare #21, the Thing finally scored an unequivocal victory in Fantastic Four #320. In the late eighties, the Thing had mutated further, becoming a significantly stronger as well as physically altered (his spiky appearance earns him the fan nickname of “Pineapple Thing”). Compounding this, the Hulk had been just-as-significantly depowered, becoming the more intelligent “Joe Fix-It,” a persona similar to his original “Grey Hulk” form. Demonstrating his greater intelligence, Joe Fix-It wins a second round against the Thing in Incredible Hulk #350, tricking his opponent into expending all his strength, then pouncing on the weakened Thing. The pair would not have another significant battle until the “World War Hulk” storyline, where a rage-blinded Hulk returns to Earth seeking revenge against the Illuminati, who exiled him to space and accidentally caused the death of his bride, Caiera. Here as well, the Thing loses badly, and is saved only by the intervention of Sentry. Dan Slott’s Fantastic Four run would hand the Thing another victory, though the Thing would shatter his arm delivering the decisive blow.
All the way back to Fantastic Four #25, battles between the Hulk and the Thing bring out the best in both heroes. The Hulk is a whirlwind force of nature, a proverbial unstoppable object driven by primal, animalistic rage. The Thing is equal parts bluster and heart, loudly proclaiming the pride that motivates his launching himself into battle, quietly fighting to protect the people he loves. It’s classic Marvel Comics, with all the action and spectacle underscored by emotions and relationships — and informed by decades and decades of continuity and in-jokes. Fantastic Four #12 is one of the issues that helped cement those dynamics and traditions, establishing a central recurring crossover that stood to remind readers that they weren’t just reading a comic, they were stepping into a universe.
The Overstreet Price Guide lists Fantastic Four #12 at number thirty-nine on its list of the top fifty Silver Age comics, taking into account not only value, but impact. Overstreet also estimates the issue’s near-mint value at $16k for a 9.2-graded sample. Other price guides place the price of a 9.4 or 9.6-graded copy much higher, mostly basing their numbers on a jaw-dropping 2012 sale of a CGC-graded 9.6, which sold for nearly $66k. The high-end value of a 9.4-graded copy is held at $36k, also based on past sales data. With all these numbers taken into account, the current price for the sample on auction at Heritage, even at nearly $9k, is low. It remains to be seen whether the final days of the auction will propel prices to any of these five-digit values, or if one collector will have the winning bid on a bargain — if you can call a $10k comic book a bargain.
