Issue(s): Thing #30
Cover Date: Dec 85
Title: "Above and beyond"
Credits:
Mike Carlin - Writer
Ron Wilson - Penciler
Dennis Janke - Inker
Howard Mackie - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
The Beyonder is drunk in a bar and approached by a pair of thugs annoyed at what they assume are tall tales that he is spinning. When he easily pushes them off, he's approached by an agent, Thurm, who wants to sign him up for Unlimited Class Wrestling. When the Beyonder's strength is shown to be beyond (heh) anything Ed Garner has seen before...

...Garner rejects the Beyonder for being too powerful. However, the Thing has just recently worked himself up into blaming the Beyonder for all his recent problems, so when he overhears that the Beyonder is trying out for the federation, he strong-arms Garner into letting him in.

And so, the Thing vs. Drunk Beyonder.

The Beyonder is still in a despondent mood, and he doesn't do much fighting back. It turns out that Sharon Ventura is in the audience tonight (and has actually been coming to all his matches), and the Thing is embarrassed over the beating he gave the Beyonder.

I'm really past the point of talking about how ridiculous Secret Wars II is, but there's a decent panel where the Beyonder, having now experienced love and loss, tells the Thing he understands about Tarianna.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Ethan Thurm

Chronological Placement Considerations: Per a flashback panel while the Thing is talking to a bartender at the beginning of this issue...

...this takes place after Secret Wars II #5.

References:

• The Beyonder tells the bartender a bit about his history in the beginning of this issue, including scenes from the original Secret Wars series, Captain America #308, Secret Wars II #4, and Secret Wars II #5.
  
• While the Thing is training and talking to Vance Astrovik, there's another recap that references the original Secret Wars series again plus Thing #11 to Thing #29, which is an abuse of footnotes.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Just fyi, you refer to Shary Ventura as Sharon CARTER during the summary....

Thanks, Dermie. Fixed it.

First of all, how did the UCW fashion a stage that could hold in excess of 500 tons?

Also, what the heck was the Beyonder drinking? Absinthe?

Ron does a good impression of Al in that flashback panel.

Re: the stage- maybe the UCW had access to vibranium or adamantium?

If memory serves, that weight is nowhere near 500 tons. I think issue #28 said that three of those bars totalled a ton, and they never reached the upper limit of what Thing could lift, they simply ran out of weights (as they do again with Beyonder here).

So, Beyonder lifting over 5 times what Ben lifted is not the same as lifting 5 times as much as the maximum Ben could. (D-Man, who is much less strong than Ben, lifted the same amount of weights that Thing lifted, though it was clear it was near maximum effort for him & fairly easy for Ben.)