Random Comics Theatre
Startling Stories: The Thing - Night Falls On Yancy Street #2 [2003]The "Startling Stories" banner was a shortlived early 21st century line at Marvel mostly of independent comics creators working on non-continuity classic Marvel characters, including James Sturm on Fantastic Four, Richard Corben on the Hulk, and Peter Bagge on Spider-Man.
So this one is part of a four issue series written by Evan Dorkin and drawn by Dean Haspiel featuring the Jack Kirby created character Ben Grimm, the Thing. I was interested in it when it came out, but that was around the time almost everything started to be collected in superior editions soon after finishing. Turns out it wasn't the case for this series, which has to date never been collected, so eventually I picked up the individual issues. I see it is available digitally as of a few years ago.
It's a pretty interesting series. Dorkin and Haspiel do a great job of capturing both the look and tone of the original 1960s comics while telling a much darker story than you'd ever have seen in those page.
So in this issue, Ben is thinking of the young woman, Hazel, who he met on Yancy Street the previous issue, and decides to go and see her again. Taking, of course, the classic bathtub Fantasticar. Of course he has some misgivings because of his relationship with Alicia. He has more when he finds out Hazel's ex-boyfriend is the Spider-Man villain Sandman (created by Steve Ditko). Cue obligatory fight scene of rock vs. sand, and we also find out what those water towers that populate the top of Marvel NYC buildings are good for.
Fun stuff, overall. There's a slight problem that the colouring and lettering are a bit of their time, professional enough but a bit incongruous with the silver age feel of the art and story.
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