"Remembrance of Things Past!"
Frustrated by another failed attempt to restore his human form, Ben Grimm is inspired by something Reed Richards said, to take a journey into his own past via Doctor Doom's Time Machine.
Ben materializes in the same spot of the Baxter Building years before the Fantastic Four made it their home. In fact the landlord, Collins is just giving Reed a grand tour of the empty top floors.
Ben makes his way to his old apartment building where he comes face to face with himself, as he was when he first became the Thing. The earlier incarnation of the Thing lashes out with rage and bitterness that stuns the modern day Ben Grimm.
So, in this clash of Things will the brash, brute force of the early coarse-hided monster win through against the current Blue-Eyed Idol of Millions? Has Ben gone soft in his older age?