Storm was cast as the Rawhide Kid, but producers reconsidered and gave the role to Lon Zelig (actually the alien Super-Skrull).

In his first comic book appearance, Fantastic Four #11, Lumpkin befriends the Fantastic Four, to whom he makes regular fan mail deliveries at their Baxter Building headquarters in New York City. He half-jokingly requests to join the team on the grounds that he has the "power" to wiggle his ears.

Reed spent a fair amount of time studying the Negative Zone through probes and determined that it was largely unpopulated. So much so, in fact, that he used the Negative Zone on several occasions to get rid of difficult enemies.

When Ben reverts back to his human form, seemingly for good, his replacement is none other than Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, who puts on an impressive display destroying a series of training robots convincing Reed that he is an ideal fit for the group.