Who Would Win In a Fight: The Hulk or The Thing?

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Reader Matthew C. writes in to ask, “Who would win: The Hulk vs. The Thing?”

First of all, great question, Matthew. I never get tired of this game, especially when it deals with superheroes. Let’s take a look at the two Marvel characters:

THE HULK

Real Name
Robert Bruce Banner

Aliases
Annihilator, Captain Universe, Joe Fixit, Mr. Fixit, Mechano, Professor, War, Bruce Bancroft, David Banner, David Bixby, Bob Danner, Bruce Jones, Bruce Roberts, David Blaine, the Green Scar, Green Goliath, Jade Giant, Bob, World-breaker, Sakaarson

Abilities
Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk when emotionally stressed, or angered. The Hulk has potential for limitless physical strength, depending solely on his emotional state — particularly his anger. “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets.” His strength allows him to leap into lower Earth orbit or across continents, and he has even shown superhuman speed.

His durability, regeneration, and endurance can also increase in relation to his anger. Hulk is resistant to injury or damage and has even withstood solar temperatures and nuclear explosions. He has both regenerative healing abilities that allow him to grow new tissue, breathe underwater, survive in space and heal from most wounds within seconds.

 

THE THING

Real Name
Benjamin Jacob Grimm

Aliases
Bashful Benjy, Uncle Benjy, The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing, Idol of Millions (self-proclaimed), Grim Ben, Dr. Josiah Verpoorteen, Blackbeard the Pirate

Abilities
After being exposed to radiation Ben Grimm’s skin is transformed into a covered with an orange, flexible, rock-like hide. The Thing possesses high levels of superhuman strength, stamina and resistance to physical injury. With the help of mutation and exercise, his strength has continued to increase over the years.

He is capable of surviving impacts of great strength and force without sustaining injury. He is also able to withstand gunfire from high caliber weapons as well as armor piercing rounds. It is possible to breach his exterior, but he does bleed as a result. The Thing also has superhuman levels of stamina. When in his Thing form, he has only three fingers and a thumb on each hand. The loss of one digit on each hand, and the increase in volume of the remainder, does not affect his manual dexterity.

Aside from his physical attributes, the Thing’s senses can withstand greater levels of sensory stimulation than an ordinary human, with the exception of his sense of touch. His lungs possess greater efficiency and volume than those of an ordinary human. As a result, the Thing is capable of holding his breath for much greater periods of time.

Interestingly, when in his Thing form, he suffers no change in personality nor his level of intelligence. And his agility and reflexes remain at the same level they had been prior to his transformation.

He is also a formidable and relentless hand-to-hand combatant. His fighting style incorporates elements of boxing, wrestling, judo, jujutsu, and street-fighting techniques, as well as hand-to-hand combat training from the military.

 

Who Wins?

I say Hulk wins, and fairly easily. Why?

Lucky for us, these two beasts have fought plenty of times in the Marvel universe. And in almost every case The Hulk Wins. It’s a simple matter of strength. The Hulk will continue to get stronger as he gets madder. So even if he loses for a while, he will always comes back to win due to his anger. Even without his growing rage, The Hulk starts off stronger than The Thing. So strength and endurance and athleticism would all go to The Hulk.

The Thing’s best chance for winning would be outsmarting The Hulk.  Since Hulk loses some of his intelligence when transformed, he may be susceptible to The Thing, who loses no intelligence. But even so, The Hulk would likely be only angered more.

I would actually go so far as to say The Hulk would be able to withstand any humanly attack. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to think of a character that could beat the Hulk, strictly in a match of strength. Hulk is likely the strongest character in the Marvel universe. That said, magic, and other alien powers can beat him, so he is by no means unbeatable.

Here’s a quick clip from a fight the two had in the 1990s Fantastic Four animated TV series.

Thoughts? Have another opinion on this one?

As always post your thoughts in the comments section below, and feel free to submit your own, Who Wins battle. Go to the homepage, headsup.boyslife.org and enter it into the box on the right side. You may just see it posted on Heads Up soon.

 

61 Comments

    • the thing has never beat the hulk in a toe to toe slugfest but i love old blue eyed benjamin in world war hulk he knows he cant win but goes right in with one of the coolest comic punches i ever saw he said he never walks away from a fight

      • Incorrect. The Thing beat The Hulk in a slugfest, but 2 things made this possible: 1) The Thing had been amped up by cosmic rays (and the second Ms. Marvel was turned into the She-Thing), and 2) The Hulk was back in his gray form, which is smarter but only about as strong as The Thing unamped. *The gray Hulk can be stronger than the green Hulk, but starting at a lower base it’s harder for him to reach it.

    • The Thing would go all “Clobber Time” on The Hulk. Then the Hulk would go all ” Smash” on The Thing. Then they both would go out for drinks and be best buds for the rest of their super hero careers.

  1. I think that if the Thing could think up a pretty good trick, the Hulk could lose. Also, the Thing is usually with the rest of the Fantastic Four, so they could help him. But the Hulk in the Avengers had more intelligence than usual when he tried to become Hulk to fight off the aliens. Soooooo…………. this is a hard choice.

    • You must remember The Realistic Marvel Super Heroes characters are often drastically changed so I would say The comic Hulk is the real one (cause) he came first)

    • about Hulk being the strongest Character (physically) don’t you thing super man would beat him up (super man has survived anti-matter bombs which are capable of destroying the entire planet)

      • The hulk survived thermo radiation (which is kind of of what created him), plus ,if you’ve seen man of steel, Super Man gets “emotionally clogged”,so to speak, in a fight (final battle againt Zog).

      • Superman’s owned by DC comics and hulks Marvel comics. Tho all three times they have actually fought in the combined Marvel/DC comics, Superman has won.

  2. now thing might be weaker but he is faster and smarter and almost has the same equivalent strength as the hulk so I think thing would win

    • The Thing isn’t ‘faster’ than The Hulk, and he’s definitely not close in strength (norMal Thing vs green Hulk). The only thing The Thing has on The Hulk is his training as a fighter, and even that isn’t enough to get one in the win column.

  3. and sure the hulk has a lot of muscle but there are a lot of things that are harder than for example rocks which is what the thing is made of

  4. Actually depending how you look at it, you could defeat the hulk by being nice to him. If you do he reverts back to Bruce Banner and is completely harmless at least, until he gets angry again.

    • Yeah but if the plan is to “defeat” him at all then you are probably against him. So eventually your going to have to turn on him and then he’s going to get angry again. Soooo it’s a lose lose situation.

  5. Two absolutely GREAT characters that have stood the test of time! God Bless America for allowing gifted people to use their imaginations in creating “super heroes” to bring on a public forum for us “geeks”!

  6. speaking of thing, there’s this comic book where he turns into a devil of distruction. That’s after Jhonny, the flame guy dies, of course.

    • That would most likely make Hulk angrier! You would need multiple therapists, and a budget of Stark’s bank account.

  7. The best way to defeat Hulk if you are in the movies, have someone like Doctor Strange or Scarlet Witch, they both exist in the movie universe or will. Scarlet Witch is coming in Age of Ultron and Doctor Strange was mentioned in Captain America.

  8. In the rage dept the hulk wins, as the only limiting factor for the Thing is in fact his humanity. I remember a excerpt from a comic pre 1990.

    Where both were placed in an equal footing scenario of a weekly arm wrestling match to test their strength. Once Ben’s fear of hurting anyone, and the hulks rage were removed from the equation they were at a perpetual stalemate. The funniest part is where the villains of the Marvel universe dropped a nuke on them while they were distracted with the arm wresting match to take them both out, and both just shrugged their shoulders after the nuke destroyed the table and proclaimed “next week then”.

    That excerpt can be seen in the link.
    http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_thing.html

  9. In the early days, it was a close battle. Hulk was always strongest but Ben Grimm has a military background and used strategy and tactics as leverage against the Hulk. Now, the Hulk is just so insanely strong that nobody can beat him, not even Thor and Hercules. The Hulk needs to be smacked with the nerf bats hard, because his strength is just ridiculous at this point.

  10. The only reason why Thing has lost before is because he’s afraid of letting loose and hurting people. Once you get that out of the way, Things strength grows tremendously and it has been stated that he is stronger than the hulk. His psyche, however, doesn’t let him reach his full potential

  11. I’ve read a lot of Marvel comics, even had a collection of over 10,000 at one point, and played the Marvel Super Heroes RPG… The Hulk comes out on top, and it’s not even close. The Thing has only ever beaten The Hulk once, and he was amped up even further by cosmic rays while The Hulk was in his gray form (slightly smaller and much weaker, from lifting 100 tons to 70 tons, which is normal Thing level). Basically no one on earth can go toe-to-toe with The (green) Hulk if he’s ready, although he has been coldcocked by someone with one punch who has half his strength… no-prize if anyone can remember. ;}

  12. doen,t matter if the hulk always wins , the thing is always up for it and ready to go, believing he will win , the thing is no quitter, i love his never say die attitude , someday he,ll whoop him

  13. Read an old Comic… FF #112 Cover says “Hulk vs Thing – ‘Nuff Said!” Classic! I think it was the first time that the two of them actually went toe to toe (though they had met before and a fight had been teased, it hadn’t happened).

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