Meet Ben Grimm
Ben Grimm was a pilot and the best friend of Reed Richards. He flew the space mission that exposed four people to cosmic rays, and while the others came back with powers they could switch on and off, Ben came back permanently changed. His skin is now orange rock, his strength is enormous and he will never pass as a regular guy in a crowd again.
The Fantastic 4: First Steps meets the team after they have already become famous, so the film skips most of the origin. Ben has had time to get used to his new body, at least on the surface. He jokes, he cooks, he looks out for the kids on his old block, and the film quietly lets you see how much he has given up.
His films so far and what is listed
- The Fantastic 4: First Steps (film, essential): the team's MCU introduction, set in its own retro-styled version of Earth.
- Avengers: Doomsday (film, essential): upcoming.
- Avengers: Secret Wars (film, essential): upcoming.
Plot details for the two Avengers films have not been announced. What we can say is that First Steps is set apart from the main MCU world, so how the Fantastic Four meet the rest of the heroes is one of the big open questions heading into Doomsday.
Ben's role on the team
Every version of the Fantastic Four needs someone to keep it human, and in First Steps that job belongs to Ben. Reed thinks in equations, Sue holds everyone together and Johnny is restless. Ben is the one who talks to people like a neighbor, not a celebrity. When the team faces a threat on a cosmic scale, his loyalty and his bluntness carry a lot of the film's emotion.
He also gets the most physical action. If you know the comics' famous catchphrase about clobbering, you will know what kind of scenes to expect.
Family and future teammates
Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards) is his oldest friend, and their bond goes back long before the accident. Invisible Woman (Sue Storm) is the team's steady center, and Ben treats her and her brother Johnny as family. Looking ahead, Doomsday's announced cast places the Fantastic Four alongside heroes such as Falcon / Captain America (Sam Wilson) and Yelena Belova, though how those characters meet has not been revealed.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing
Moss-Bachrach plays Ben through performance capture, so the voice and the facial work behind all that rock are his. He brings a gruff tenderness to the part that suits the character perfectly. Many viewers know him as the loud, lovable Richie in The Bear, and he also played Desi in Girls. Marvel fans may recognize him from a very different role: David Lieberman, the hacker known as Micro, in the Netflix series The Punisher.
How to watch the Thing's story
Right now there is one film to see: The Fantastic 4: First Steps. You do not need any earlier MCU titles to follow it, which makes it a friendly entry point. Before Avengers: Doomsday, it is worth catching up on recent MCU films as well, since that movie is expected to bring several corners of the franchise together. Our character index is a handy way to check who else is involved.