Benjamin Grimm (Earth-21399)

"Guess what time it is. Seriously, you'll never guess."

- The Thing

Early Life
Benjamin Jacob Grimm was born in 1942 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn. During his adolescence, Ben initially fell in with a group of delinquents called the Yancy Street Boys, who mostly committed acts of petty vandalism, shoplifting and harrassment. However, after the gang's leader suggested a full-fledged home burglary so that he could purchase a stash of alcohol with the money, Ben realized the error of his ways and left the gang.

During high school, Ben joined the football team as a linebacker and became the star player, with his peers nicknaming him “the Grimm Reaper”. It was also during high school that Ben met his lifelong friend, child prodigy Reed Richards. Reed was a frequent target of bullying by Ben's former Yancy Street buds, and so Ben took it upon himself to protect Reed whenever he could. Reed was grateful, and returned the favor by helping Ben with his math homework.

College
Ben applied for college on a football scholarship, where he and Reed were roommates alongside exchange student Viktor Domashev. It was during college that Reed developed his ideas on manned space flight, and Ben half-jokingly promised to fly the prototype ship, should Reed ever get one working.

Pilot Career
Ben's childhood dream was to become a pilot – to this end, he joined the Air Force after college and became one of their top test flyers. When he was given the opportunity to transfer to NASA, Ben took it without hesitation, and was accepted for astronaut training.

Once he arrived at NASA headquarters, Ben was surprised to find his old high school friend, Reed Richards, working there and having managed to build a manned spacecraft as part of the Apollo Moon shuttle project. Reed held Ben to his promise from college, and Ben became instrumental in designing and building various modifications to the shuttle frame of the Apollo 13 craft.

Birth of the Fantastic Four
During the maiden flight of Apollo 13, Reed, Ben and fellow crew member Bentley Whitman landed in the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon. With Whitman in the command module, Reed and Ben went out to dig for materials to conduct experiments with, only to dig up a strange, glowing blue cubical artifact. Upon trying to contact the cube, Reed and Ben were suddenly blasted by a beam of energy from the cube and disappeared. Whitman lost contact and returned home, with both men presumed dead.

To be added...