The Thing

Long before Marvel's lovable rocky strongman ever graced a page, Charlton Comics staked its own claim on the name with this eerie Golden Age creation, debuting in 1954 courtesy of writer Carl Memling and artist Dick Ayers. A product of comics' most gloriously lurid era, The Thing emerged from Charlton's appetite for the strange and unsettling, the kind of character who haunted spinner racks alongside a thousand other delicious mid-century mysteries. With only a handful of catalog appearances, this is a genuine rarity — a piece of pre-Comics Code atmosphere that serious Golden Age collectors will want on their radar precisely because so few are looking.