The Hulk and the Thing have one of the oldest rivalries in the Marvel Universe, and Ultimate Marvel was no different. The comics line that reimagined Marvel heroes for the modern day in the early 2000s had its own take on many familiar tropes from the superhero history of Marvel. In so doing, it managed to put its own unique spin on the showdown between two of the biggest powerhouses in Marvel's lineup.
While the two powerhouses never truly had the showdown that they deserved, the Ultimate Marvel heroes fought on a few different occasions with one hero consistently coming ou ton top.
Ultimate Thing's origins tied him in with the Negative Zone, while Ultimate Hulk took on a much more sinister edge as a botched super-soldier experiment made in an attempt to replicate Captain America. Both were among the mightiest beings in the Ultimate Marvel, but the first clash between them proved to be a tease more than anything. Trapped in a zombified alternate dimension, Ultimate Thing faces off with an undead Hulk and relishes the opportunity to finally test his mettle against the jade goliath.
The result is a one-hit knockout as the Thing proves the zombified Hulk can't hold a candle to his living counterpart in Mark Millar and Greg Land's Ultimate Fantastic Four #23 in 2005.
Luckily, fans would not have to wait long before they got a proper showdown between both Ultimate iterations of the characters. The fight finally happened in Jeph Loeb and Greg Land's portion of the Ultimate Power crossover that saw the new Squadron Supreme pass into the Ultimate Universe after Reed's experiments with alternate reality seemingly went terribly wrong. The Hulk and Thing face off in the midst of a massive superhero showdown, and yet it still isn't the knock-down, drag-out that many were expecting.
Though the two do exchange blows, the Thing has odds heavily weighed in his favor. Virtually every superhero present, including the Ultimate Marvel characters, the Squadron Supreme and duplicates of each Squadron member, lay into the Hulk with their strongest attacks. He is pummeled by Power Princess, lasered by Doctor Spectrum, scorched by the Human Torch, stabbed in the chest by Wolverine, zapped and blasted by Hyperion and Thor, webbed by Spider-Man and suffocated by the Invisible Woman. It's only then that the Thing's punches proves effective, and he lays out the Ultimate Hulk to incapacitate him at last.
The few blows the two traded amidst that fight would prove to be the only time in Ultimate Marvel's history they actually fought. They would indeed face off once more in Joshua Hale Fialkov and Carmind Di Di Gianddomenico's Ultimate Comics Ultimates #30 when the Hulk teams up with the Thing's former friend Reed Richards as the two plan to amass the Infinity Gems for themselves. But yet again their match is interrupted by fellow heroes, and the Hulk ends up taking on the Ultimates all at once. Even if the Thing is there at the front announcing that it is clobberin' time, fans hoping for a fair fight between the two never got their wish.
While the Hulk normally has a firm power advantage over the Thing, part of the fun in their bouts is watching the ordinarily powerful Thing play the underdog as he employs skill and determination to overcome the strength differential. Since sheer numbers were always in his favor, it never really felt like the two had a fair fight. The result is that the Hulk lost every fight they had. It truly was clobbering time, and the clobbering was anticlimactically one-sided every time.