Grimm

I forgot a thing or two in my prior comment.

The cosmic rays also gradually increased Ben's superstrength until he was the SECOND strongest one of all.

There was also a point where Thing, happening to be teamed up with Hulk -out of anger for the way the arrmy was restraining & abusing Banner, was reverted back to Ben from prolonged exposure to Hulk's radiation leakage, and this did not wear off. Reed had to devise a Thing exo-skeleton,a rock take on Iron Man's, to enable Ben to be a member of the team. This lasted a number of issues. Galactus in #75 I think, hit Ben with an energy blast and Ben became the Thing again for real, in a delayed reaction. About the same time, Reed was suffering a gradual and steady loss of his ability to stretch & shape, and finally had to be re-energized by cosmic rays to be Mr. Fantastic again. Still, his REAL power was his big brain and many the time the FF just managed, for all their powers, to buy time for Reed Richards to whip up some fancy weapon that would finish the fight. (Same way Dr.Simon Magnus would use some gadget to win the battle after all the Metal Men had been reduced to scrap metal and slag.)

The issue # is an educated guess. All my Marvels that were in the basement were stolen by some masked burglar, and so I am going by memory.The thug might have gone on to pillage the other stashes had not I surprised him. Yes, I was attacked and tied up -and I feared for my life ! I called the police and soon had ADT installed. The thug has not been back, and that was over a year ago !