brevoortformspring:

I’d never quite thought about it that way, but you might be on to something. For myself, i think it has more to do with the fact that other characters surpassed him in other ways as the decades wore on. When created, and for his first decade of existence, the Thing was probably the most dangerous character in comics—the darkest hero of the Marvel Universe apart from maybe the Hulk. But once you got to the 70s, other characters began to surpass him in this regard, notably Wolverine. At the same time, Ben became more cuddly, more domesticated, more safe. And I think that combination put a big dent in his popularity over time.