Yancy Street Gang - Fictional Group History

Fictional Group History

The gang is depicted as frequenting downtown Manhattan, and serves as a recurring antagonist of the Thing, tormenting him for typically humorous effect. The gang was originally depicted as composed only of youths, but later depictions have both youth members as well as adult members from an earlier generation, who have passed their grudge against Thing to the younger members.

The adult members of the Yancy Street Gang, all apparently blue-collar workers who still live in the neighborhood, are usually seen tormenting Thing in some way, usually by throwing things at him and shouting abuse whenever he entered Yancy Street. They were also thought to send him booby-trapped parcels, although a retcon in Fantastic Four vol.3, #61, written by Mark Waid, revealed that these packages were actually sent by the Human Torch. Ben Grimm formerly led the gang, and the others, who have retained their loyalty to it even in adulthood, seemingly resent him for having "sold out" and "abandoned" the neighborhood. However, they are generally portrayed as good-natured at heart, and have occasionally helped the Fantastic Four if a supervillain threatens the Street itself or if they think a villain is giving Thing too much trouble (they mentioned "That's our job" in those occasions). They sometimes seem to genuinely like the Thing, if only because he makes such an effective and (sometimes) good-humored target for their pranks; they were quite remorseful when he seemingly died in action, only to quickly retract the sentiment when he proved to have survived.