If you'd like any insight into these
characters, here's my take: I think the Fantastic Four was really the start of a break
into more realistic characters in comics.
In the Golden Age, heroes, even monstrous
ones, loved every aspect of their role. The Thing was a guy who gladly took the role as a
hero but hated being a monster. He would have done anything to be rid of his monstrous
self while at the same time accepting that role.
Never before would a character have come
into comics who made that kind of impact into the otherwise happy, perfect genre of
heroism.
-Scott Redding