The Thing Is Jack Kirby’s Greatest Self-Portrait
Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the long-awaited return of Marvel’s First Family, and it was a real treat for fans of Jack Kirby. The movie a celebration of the “King of Comics’, and no character represents him better than The Thing. Ben Grimm is Jack Kirby.
Fantastic Four #1 hit shelves on August 8, 1961. Co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it kicked off the Marvel Age of Comics with a strange, chaotic, genre-blending punch. It was part space adventure, part monster movie, and part soap opera. But the magic was in the characters. Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben weren’t masked crusaders, they were a family, a family filled with bickering, messy, and human. Especially Ben Grimm.
A cigar-chomping, thick-browed, working-class bruiser with a heart of gold and a chip on his shoulder. And if you know anything about Kirby, he was unmistakable.
“It is generally recognized… that he based The Thing from Fantastic Four on himself, however, more based on his personality,” said Neal Kirby, Jack’s son.
“I often describe my father as having the scrappiness of Leo Gorcey in the Dead End Kids, the language of Damon Runyon, and the attitude of Jimmy Cagney. Stick a cigar in The Thing's mouth and you have my father.”
Jack himself didn’t deny it. “Everybody I’ve talked to has compared me to Ben Grimm,” he once said. “Perhaps I’ve got his temperament, I’ve got his stubbornness.”
Later, he would say: “If you'll notice the way the Thing talks and acts, you'll find that the Thing is really Jack Kirby… He has my manners, he has my manner of speech, and he thinks the way I do. He's excitable, and you'll find that he's very, very active among people, and he can muscle his way through a crowd. I find I'm that sort of person.”
The parallels go deeper. Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, was a poor Jewish kid from New York’s Lower East Side. So was Ben Grimm. Jack ran with the Suffolk Street Gang, Ben with the fictional Yancy Street Gang. Jack saw real combat in World War II. Ben became a war hero. And while Kirby rarely got the spotlight he deserved, Grimm always felt like the odd man out next to Reed’s genius and Sue’s elegance.
Even his full name, Benjamin Jacob Grimm, was a nod to Kirby himself. Ben for Jack’s father. Jacob for Jack’s birth name.
For decades, fans suspected the Thing was Jewish. He fit the golem mold perfectly, a creature formed of clay to protect the people. Before he became all rocky, the Thing looked more like clumpy mud than stone. His girlfriend Alicia Masters was a sculptor. Her father, Puppet Master, used clay to control others. That’s no accident.
In fact, Kirby once drew the Thing wearing a yarmulke and prayer shawl in a 1976 Hanukkah card. He proudly kept it on his studio wall. When visitors asked, he’d grin and say, “It’s a Jewish Thing.”
Even Kirby’s religious roots found their way into his stories. In the documentary Masters of Comic Book Art, he explained, “I went to the Bible. I came up with Galactus. And there I was, in front of this tremendous figure, who I knew very well because I’ve always felt him… And of course, the Silver Surfer is the fallen angel.”
That mythic, biblical energy shaped The Fantastic Four and, eventually, the larger Marvel Universe. But it always came back to Kirby, the man behind the panels. “Nick Fury is how I wish others saw me,” he once admitted. “Ben Grimm is probably closer to the way they do see me.”
Fantastic Four: First Steps honors that legacy. The movie opens in Earth-828, a nod to Kirby’s birthday, August 28. Giganto makes an appearance, pulled straight from the cover of Fantastic Four #1. Kirby’s trademark designs and cosmic scale are everywhere, especially when Galactus enters the scene.
“We wanted to honor that,” said director Matt Shakman. Kevin Feige added, “There are direct lines from his pencil… into this film.”
And in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, Kirby and Lee even cameo. As the Silver Surfer soars over Times Square, two comic creators resembling the legendary duo glance up from their monster comics. It’s a subtle tribute.
This movie is the most Kirby thing the MCU has ever done. Kirby himself once said: “If you look at my characters, you’ll find me. No matter what kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there.”
With the Thing, that little bit of Kirby wasn’t so little. It was everything.