The Thing #6 Review

Written by: Walter Mosley
Art by: Tom Reilly
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: VC’s Joe Sabino
Cover art by: Tom Reilly
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: April 6, 2022

The Thing #6 follows Ben Grimm aka The Thing into the Underworld as he leads a robot army against Death itself to save the woman he loves.

Was It Good?

There’s probably some literary term I’m forgetting that describes a wacky story that ends with the least amount of wackiness compared to everything that came before it. Maybe I need to invent that word. Let’s call it “wackless”.

The Thing #6 is the wackless issue in the series so far, which may be fitting since it’s the last issue in this limited run. In this issue, we learn of Death’s grand designs for her intended lover, The Thing. We see how Death intends to use Alicia Masters to force Ben to comply. And, we see Ben use every tool at his disposal (and a few made up on the spot) to save the day.

It all ends with a conclusion that’s as complete and wackless as possible, considering the insanity of this series.

Tom Reilly’s art is okay but falls a little short in this issue compared to the previous ones. There were several times in the course of action scenes where it was tough to tell the positions of limbs and movement direction. In several panels, a thrown punch didn’t seem to make sense until you examined the panel closely and rotated the pages a few angles from the center. Up to this point, there’s been little reason to complain about Reilly’s art, but the clarity of the anatomy got away from him in this issue.

As for the plot, Death wants Ben to stay with her forever. She takes Alicia hostage to force his compliance, so Ben invades Hell to save the day with Doom’s robot army, using a magic globe helmet Kid Watcher whipped up out of nowhere. Again, this issue is relatively wackless, but the stilted, clunky dialog and nonsenscial plot contrivances never should have made it to print.

Bits and Pieces

The Thing #6 takes all the nonsense and insanity of the previous five issues and surprisingly wraps it all up in a relatively neat package. The neatness of the conclusion doesn’t excuse the awful dialog, the convenient plot contrivances, or the slightly downgraded art, but at least it’s done.