In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I'll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is "missing" if it is not listed. It's just not one of the five examples that I chose.

My buddy, Chris Nowlin, has a new blog where he will blog about comic books called Coke and Comics. Since he is reading Marvel from the beginning, he is e-mailing me when he hits upon interesting patterns. Early in the run on the Fantastic Four, he found one! In the early issues of the Fantastic Four, Reed Richards had to use his elastic arms to restrain Ben Grimm, the Thing, a LOT. Like, a LOT.

It all started in Fantastic Four #1 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and...George Klein, I guess?), when the Fantastic Four first got their powers and they were all freaking out. Ben was not handling becoming a monstrous thing very well (could you blame him?) and he began lashing out. Reed had to quickly think of a way to stop him and instinctively went to wrap him up, at which point he realized that he had stretching powers...

In the next issue (by Kirby, Lee and Klein), the shape-shifting Skrulls have turned the world against the Fantastic Four and the Thing was ready to just start thrashing the ungrateful people of the world when Reed restrained him...

Later in the issue, the Fantastic Four have successfully captured the Skrulls impersonating them and Reed is coming up with a plan to impersonate their own impersonators when the Thing decides he wants to attack the Skrulls and Reed has to restrain him...

In Fantastic Four #3 (by Kirby, Lee and Sol Brodsky), the team goes to a performance by a magician known as the Miracle Man. He gets a lot of laughs at the sake of the Fantastic Four and the Thing is none too pleased about it and actually tries to attack the dude during his show. Reed explains that that is a bad idea and restrains him from doing so...

Later, after the Miracle Man has become a super-villain, the team has him captured and Thing is about to punch him when Reed has to restrain him. It appears that Reed realized that the Miracle Man has no actual powers and is just a great hypnotist, so a punch from the Thing might kill him...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='More restraint!']

Fantastic Four has more examples of Reed restraining Ben.

In Fantastic Four #5 (by Kirby, Lee and Joe Sinnott), the Thing and the Human Torch have their first sort of brotherly squabble and Reed has to restrain the Thing from crushing Johnny...

In Fantastic Four #6 (by Kirby, Lee and Dick Ayers), Reed has to restrain Ben from attacking Namor right away before they hear what their old foe has to say (it turns out it is not much good, but hey, gotta give him the chance to speak first)....

Now, amusingly enough, in Fantastic Four #8 (by Kirby, Lee and Ayers), the Thing is brainwashed by the Puppet Master. He then attacks the Fantastic Four and Reed...doesn't try to restrain him?!!? Whaaaa?????

How funny is that? Perfect reason to restrain him and he tries to trick him instead. Weird.

Thanks for the suggestion, Chris! Be sure to check out his blog, people!

If anyone else has an idea for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!