Weisblott brought this to my attention a few days back, but I promptly forgot about it because I was busy drinking heavily and stuffing myself with Frosted Mini-Wheats. Today’s New York Post, though, is giving the story some mainstream ink (scroll to the bottom):
The Chosen One
Finally, Jewish comic book fans have a hero all their own. The latest issue of ‘The Fantastic Four’ comic book reveals that the angry orange man of stone known as ‘The Thing’ is a child of Israel. When the 6-foot, 500-pound Marvel menace admits his Hebraic heritage, an arch-villain responds, ‘You don’t look Jewish,’ reports the Forward. Created in 1961 by Stan ‘Spider-Man’ Lee and Jack Kirby, The Thing was born Benjamin Jacob Grimm on the Lower East Side.
…And presumably circumsized with a masonry saw…
(Also revealed in the latest issue is that Benjy got his Fantastic Four appellation on prom night when his date — one Mindy Himmelfarb — is rumored to have said, “No way am I going to touch that…that thing…!”
Apocryphal? Perhaps. Plausible? Sure. I mean, you know Mindy. Freakin’ rock tease…)
Way back when in my GEnie days I argued that not Ragman but Peter Parker was the first Jewish superhero. But more than one person since has said “What about Ben Grimm?” (The FF came along the year before Spiderman.)
I don’t question it for a second. One of the things that made the early-60s Marvels great was precisely Lee’s smuggling that New York Jewish vibe into several characters. But Spiderman and the Thing are stone cold locks. Ben’s Yancey Street home surely harks back to the tough Jewish neighborhoods Lee would remember from his own childhood.
Back in the seventies, in the glory days of P.J.O’Rourke and Michael O’Donahue, National Lampoon had a Jewish comic book hero “Son o’ God.” He was a Jesus with muscles.
He’d always stride into trouble, turn the other cheek, and get the crap kicked out of him.