Chapter 3

Part 7: The Homecoming Dance

Ben Grimm returns to Yancy Street for the first time after he has been transformed into the Thing. He stops at Clancey's Irish Pub. After a brief moments hesitation, he goes inside. Inside he finds member of the Yancy Street Gang watching Fatal Finnegan's wrestling matches. Ben asks the bartender about what is remembered about the Grimms, he recalls how Dan Grimm was a member of the gang, but Ben grew up to be a test pilot. Ben's questions upset the gang members who tells him to pipe down. When they start causing him trouble, Ben decides to walk away but they get him angry enough to pull the door off the hinges. As the Thing walks away, the bar tender screams at him not to come back and calls him a freak.

Meanwhile, in Glenville, Johnny shows off his new flame powers when he is shown the vintage car he melted when he used he made his first public appearance. Johnny apologises but he's told that the melted out car will be used as an attraction. Elsewhere in New York, the Reed and Sue have set up operations in a warehouse on the pier. However, Reed is finding it hard to store all his equipment in this location. Sue then tells Reed that one of his screens is flashing. Reed checks it out and discovers that something from Monster Island has been tunnelling its way all the way to New York City. Reed tells her to grab their space suits while he contacts the others. He explains that the space suits have become molecularly unstable after being exposed to cosmic rays and can meld with their powers.

Part 8: Round Two

Reed fires the Fantasti-Flare into the sky summoning the Human Torch and the thing to their location. Suddenly the monster Giganto bursts from the ground and begins rampaging through the city. As the Fantastic Four begins getting people to safety, Sue begins expressing her concerns that the Mole Man might still be alive, Reed becomes unresponsive. This is because he is being mentally contacted by Franz Stohl once again.

Stohl questions why Reed is trying to save people when they are beneath them on an evolutionary scale. He warns Reed that the future is coming and that he will have to face it eventually. Reed snaps out of the mental trance and helps the team co-ordinate and toss Giganto out of the city, saving it from further destruction. In the aftermath of the battle, Reed talks to the press explaining who they are. When the Thing crawls out of the bay he scares off a group of people who have gathered.

After the press meeting, Reed contacts General Montgomery and they both agree that they need to put a public face on their operation. Reed explains that they need a larger space and they both agree upon moving operations to the Baxter Building in Manhattan. Reed leaves to go over the plans and believes that nothing else is more important. Reed is unaware that Sue was invisibly spying on him and is not happy about his shifting priorities.

Recurring Characters

Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, Thing), Franz Stahl, Giganto

Continuity Notes

• Mention is made that Ben's brother Dan was the leader of the Yancy Street Gang. This was first referenced in Thing #1.

• Fatal Finnigan the wrestler that the Thing sees on television later makes the mistake of challenging the Thing to a fight in Fantastic Four #15. The Thing left him tied to a lamp post.

Continuity Errors

• This story states that the car that Johnny melted was in Glenville, Long Island. However, this doesn't make sense since Fantastic Four #1 the Fantastic Four had initially set up shop in Central City.