FW Team-Up: The Thing and the Thing

How can a character meet himself in a team-up situation? How can a podcaster do the same? Find out as Siskoid 2020 calls Siskoid 2016 to discuss Marvel Two-in-One #50 by John Byrne and Joe Sinnott, starring the Thing 1979 and the Thing 1961! It's a battle for the ages, and maybe one of us will learn a little something about himself along the way.

Listen to the Team-Up below, or subscribe to FW Team-Up on iTunes!

Relevant images and further credits at: FW Team-Up Supplemental

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17 responses to “FW Team-Up: The Thing and the Thing

  1. 1) Again, thank you (both?).
    2) It’s Rand-Meachum from Iron Fist — another John Byrne production
    3) Never pour liquid down an unconscious person’s throat. You’ll probably drown them.
    4) I love Thing’s observations on his old attitude and dialogue.
    5) “Saturday , night, monster! Time for a bath!” stuck in my head for years, along with “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fightin’” (as seen here) and “Live From New York.”
    6) Now you should do the sequel in MTIO #100 (I think). Spoiler: Everybody dies! Well, a lot of people do.

  2. Great job, Siskoid and Siskoid! I thought you both brought up some good points and represented your Things admirably.
    I agree with Captain Entropy above, I would love to hear a follow-up episode on Marvel Two-In-One #100. When now-Siskoid calls then-Siskoid, then-Siskoid might mention some news coming out of Berlin, Ontario and that could lead into the discussion of the issue.

  3. I wonder what kind of alternate timeline was created from this little podcast exercise? Did 2016 Siskoid start FW Team-Up earlier in that timeline, given the inspiration here? Did the ripple effect change the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election, which thereby allowed Siskoid to come to the US and attend Heroes Con the following year with the rest of the F&W founders, possibly stopping Ryan and Shag from ever spooning?

    The mind boggles.

    Great comic, and I love how “Kirby” Byrne gets when he shows Ben Grimm ’61 back in his human form. That’s year-appropriate Kirby as well. And of course Byrne would later revert the Thing to his lumpy “mud” or “dinosaur hide” look within the early days of his FF run.

    Fun show, Siskoids!

    Chris

    1. I already chastised Siskoid for not warning his past self about how things have gotten worse from about 2016.

  4. Great discussion between two very learned hosts.

    I might throw Marvel Two In One #100, the rollout to this story starring The Thing and Ben Grimm, in the ‘same guests in multiples of 50’ hopper.

    And yes Siskoid, a lot of people die in that issue. What if, indeed.

  5. Great episode, Siskoids — and possibly not linear with all the cross-time stuff.

    This is an issue I bought as a kid and which I remember well. Around the same time I had the Pocket Books reprint of the first six FF issues, so I was familiar with the past Thing too.

    Speaking of familiarity — for a long time, this heavy-inked, Sinnot influence was my default image on John Byrne’s Fantastic Four. I had read Byrne’s early art-robot run on the FF, and that’s how they appeared there. Even their cameo in the Austin-inked Dark Phoenix issues is more in keeping with this. When Byrne started writing and drawing the Fantastic Four, his changed style looked odd to me. It took me ages to accept this.

    I agree with others in saying you should do the sequel in Marvel Two-in-One #100. Perhaps it can appear as if Siskoid’s previous interaction caused Avengers Endgame to be a box-office bomb in his world. But then it turns out that Alt-Siskoid has no idea who Kevin Feige is. So, he was always doomed to a crapsack “What If” like existence. (I had thought of darker, more political versions of this gag.) I love Paul’s Berlin, ON idea as a Canadian spin on the New Amsterdam gag of the original comic.

    When West Coast Avengers did their time-travel story line, I remember one of the letter writers wondered how they’d be able to do get out of their mess as Doom’s time machine only leads to alternate dimensions. I think the editorial response was something along the lines of “What? Marvel time travel doesn’t work like that. Our story would be completely screwed if it did.”

    Thanks for the Scarlet Witch team-up, although unfortunately to meet me at a beef barbecue, Wanda would have needed to travel back to 1993 — which by the time travel rules in this issue would mean she only met an alternate Allen of 1993.

      1. Sure, but then I’d have not been able to do that time-travel riff. Now, bringing a 2020 veggie burger back to the 1980s. That would have been transformative. I remember trying a soya burger in the early 1980s after Raven had one in New Teen Titans — awful.

        Oh, and thumbs up on using the Voyagers! theme.

  6. What a great episode, Siskoid! And you were perhaps one of the greatest guests, Siskoid!

    Kidding aside, listening to this podcast has made me appreciate these old team up comics and I’ve gone out and bought some old issues of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel-Two-In-One. I recently read the MTIO issue that had Jack Of Hearts it was a great synergy of Team Up and OHotMU! I couldn’t stop seeing his arrow. Oh, and that issue also had a great letter from a young Kurt Busiek!

    Have a fun summer off and I can’t wait to see who the next team-up will be! Keep up the great work!

  7. Present Tim: I called back to 2016 Tim to help me write this feedback.
    Past Tim: Sure, what’s this feedback for?
    Pres: A podcast episode I just listened to.
    Past: Really? That’s weird. I’m just about to listen to my first ever podcast, something called JLI Bwah-hah-hah Podcast. Am I still listening to that show in the future?
    Pres: Um, sure. This one’s about Team-Ups. It’s great coverage of MTIO #50. I loved this issue, it was so crazy the Things together, but I had read #100 back when that first came out, so I kinda knew how it would end. But boy, they did a great job capturing his look and personality differences.
    Past: Wait, when did I read this issue?
    Pres: Oh, just a year ago on the Marvel Unlimited app.
    Past: Ah yes, I’ve heard about that. I bet I got hooked on it good. I hope DC doesn’t come out with something like it, or I’ll spend all my free time reading comics on them.
    Pres: Yeah… so … you were so great, Siskoid and Siskoid. But my head is still trying to wrap around the idea that Pas-koid knew about DCCP #50, but Pres-koid didn’t!
    Past: Oh that’s easy, The alternate timeline began as soon as Pres-koid contacted Pas-koid. (What kind of names are these? Reminds me of Sisko of DS9. Wonder if that’s relevant.) The memory of DCCP #50 was marginally fresher for Pas-koid than for Pres-koid, so Pas-koid recalled the story, as well as a marginal decay in neural pathways, and given enough more time, Pres-koid is likely to recall it as well thanks to Pas-koid’s reminder.
    Pres: Really? Huh, yeah that does make sense! Good job, Tim!
    Past: Thanks, Tim. This has been fun. Maybe I should write feedback to these podcasts, too. I’ve never really been that much of a writer.
    Pres: Very true. (In your time, certainly.) Anyway, thanks for the great episode, enjoy your hiatus! Time Priest, signing off!
    Past: Who?

  8. Top team-up, that was very clever production, with young Siskoid sounding suitably far away. I don’t remember the sequel, although I must have read it… probably I was too annoyed at the lack of a ‘proper ‘ co-star to pay attention, he may as well have teamed up with Mr Fantastic again… of course, things got even worse when MTIO was replaced by a Thing solo book. Who wants that? Ben must bounce off other people!

    That said, this was a very good, clever issue, Marvel’s answer to DC’s To Kill a Legend.

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