The Thang

A delightful resident of Marvel's beloved funny-animal universe, The Thang made their debut in the very first issue of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham in 1985 — a Bronze Age launch that introduced readers to one of comics' most charmingly absurdist corners. Sharing pages with the likes of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham, Bunsen Bunny, and Ben Grizzly, The Thang keeps genuinely memorable company in a world where Marvel's iconic sensibility gets filtered through a wonderfully silly lens. Popping up across roughly a dozen years and even into the pages of What If...?, this character is a small but genuine piece of Marvel's playful, self-aware side — the kind of discovery that makes digging through back-issue bins so rewarding.