The Mad Thinker created a series of androids to defeat and replace the Fantastic Four, all of which had the powers of the originals. The android made to look like the Thing waited-concealed in the Baxter Building-until the Human Torch’s android tricked Ben and knocked him out. Then the Mad Thinker activated the android and he joined the fake Torch to wait for the Thinker’s orders.
Once the other two androids had finished their work, the Mad Thinker made his way into the Baxter Building through his own secret elevator and congratulated himself on his victory. But when the android that he sent to replace Mister Fantastic returned, he revealed himself to be the original Reed Richards, who then turned on the Mad Thinker. The Thing android and the rest attacked Richards, but Richards dodged them until he realized that Invisible Girl’s android continued to keep him from a certain closet. Richards opened the closet to find the real Thing, whom he woke up and pressed into battle.
The real Thing quickly smashed the Human Torch android, but soon faced his own android counterpart and they clashed. They traded blows while the Thinker demanded they stop fighting before the building came down upon all of them. The Thinker soon turned a gun on the fighting Things, prepared to kill the original, but was unable to decipher which was the true Thing. Before he could fire, Richards disarmed him. The Invisible Girl’s android picked up the gun, but the real Thing pounded the wall to knock the gun out of her hands.
Ben Grimm returned to his android counterpart. They resumed their battle, but the real Thing gave the android a powerful punch that sent him crashing through the wall and onto a neighboring building, destroying his mechanisms and defeating him. The Thinker himself was quickly subdued and brought back to the authorities.