Cover: Nick Bradshaw

The Thing #1

Jul 2025 · Marvel · 4.99 USD

📊 ~30,187 copies sold its debut month

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“The King of Yancy Street Part One”

About this Issue

The Thing #1 (2025) marks the fourth solo volume headlined by Ben Grimm in Marvel history, deliberately situating him in a street-level, hard-boiled detective framework that the character had never before inhabited as the spine of an entire series. By transplanting the Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing into a gauntlet-style urban noir — consciously drawing on the structure of Walter Hill's 1979 film The Warriors — writer Tony Fleecs forces one of Marvel's most cosmically-scaled characters into the grounded, morally complex corners of New York that usually belong to Daredevil or Luke Cage, recontextualizing what a Ben Grimm solo story can be. The issue also serves as an explicit on-ramp for readers drawn in by Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps, functioning as accessible mythology-building timed to a major MCU release. Introduced here for the first time in any Marvel publication is Marty Flynn, a figure from Ben's Yancy Street boyhood whose reappearance sets the entire conspiracy in motion.

In "The King of Yancy Street Part One," Ben Grimm returns to his roots with a mission that pulls him back into the streets he once called home—only now, the price on his head is ten million dollars, and every villain with a grudge or a payday is circling. Written by Tony Fleecs and illustrated by Justin Mason, with colors by Alex Sinclair and letters by VC's Joe Caramagna, this first issue sets a gritty, high-stakes tone as Ben’s past collides with a dangerous new threat. The cover by Nick Bradshaw captures the weight of the moment, a striking image of the Thing standing firm amid rising chaos.

writer Tony Fleecs · artist, inker Justin Mason · colorist Alex Sinclair · letterer VC's Joe Caramagna · cover Nick Bradshaw

ComicBooks.com Value

Our Model is In Beta

Raw (NM) $4

CGC 9.8 · 8 in census $62*

CGC 9.6 · 1 in census $30*

CGC 9.4 · 1 in census $30*

* estimate — limited direct-sales data at this grade

Our model’s value — refined as new sales data arrives · CGC census counts shown where available

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History

Marvel announced the series in February 2025, with Tony Fleecs — best known for his creator-owned horror work on Stray Dogs and Feral at Image Comics — marking his most prominent Marvel work-for-hire assignment as writer. Artist Justin Mason, fresh off Spider-Punk, provided the interior pencils and inks, while colorist Alex Sinclair and letterer VC's Joe Caramagna rounded out the production team, with Nick Bradshaw supplying the main cover. The series was editorially positioned to launch in May 2025, timed deliberately ahead of the July 2025 theatrical debut of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with Marvel describing it as suitable for both longtime fans and new readers arriving via the film.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Marty Flynn, a childhood acquaintance of Ben Grimm from Yancy Street, whose niece's disappearance drives the series' central mystery.
Written by Tony Fleecs (Stray Dogs, Feral) with art by Justin Mason (Spider-Punk); cover by Nick Bradshaw; colors by Alex Sinclair; letters by VC's Joe Caramagna; edited by Darren Shan.
Published May 21, 2025 as the first issue of a five-issue limited series (Vol. 4 of Thing solo series in Marvel history).
Structurally modeled on Walter Hill's 1979 film The Warriors: the issue opens in media res with an anonymous radio voice broadcasting a bounty on the Thing to every super-powered criminal in New York City.
The issue features a large ensemble of returning Marvel villains in their first story appearance together here, including Gladiator (Melvin Potter), Turk Barrett, the full Wrecking Crew (Wrecker, Bulldozer, Thunderball, Piledriver), and the Serpent Society (Anaconda, Princess Python, Death Adder, Sidewinder, Diamondback, Cottonmouth, Boomslang, Rock Python, and others).
The series is deliberately set at a continuity-ambiguous earlier point in Marvel history when the Fantastic Four still operated out of the Baxter Building, with H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot present as part of that household.
Explicitly timed by Marvel as a companion release ahead of Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 2025), designed to serve as a new-reader entry point to Ben Grimm's solo mythology.
The Serpent Society's roster as depicted in this issue contains acknowledged continuity anachronisms — members like Boomslang and Princess Python whose comic-book timelines do not overlap — a storytelling choice the series' non-specific retro setting partially accommodates but does not fully resolve.