A look at the Dark Horse series “Why don’t we just wait here for a little while. See what happens…” With those haunting final words spoken by R.J. MacReady, accompanied by the ominous, pulsing score of Ennio Morricone, John Carpenter’s 1982 creature feature, The Thing, ended on an ambiguous note, leaving the door wide open for a sequel. A dismal performance at the box office killed any chances of that, however. The Thing would live on as a once critically-panned remake to a film which has been hailed for its FX achievements (by Rob Bottin), moreover, it was a film later analyzed and accepted as not just a masterful re-telling of John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” but a poignant commentary on Cold War paranoia and the rise of AIDs in the â80s. The Thing would ultimately find its audience, yet chances of a follow-up were always slim. Within the last year, Strike Entertainment and Universal opted to revisit the property with a prequel to The Thing (set report) that is due to open on October 14, 2011. Going backward, rather than forward, the story focuses on the staff at the ill-fated Norwegian Antarctic outpost responsible for discovering, and freeing, the otherworldly creature that assimilates its prey. In 1991, however, Dark Horse Comics hired writer Chuck Pfarrer and artist John Higgins for the two-part “The Thing from Another World,” a tale picks up 24 hours after the â82 film. In several interviews, John Carpenter has stated that if the fans wanted a second part to his story, this was the place to look, even though he had no part in its creation. He considers the comic book a worthy sequel. Pfarrer was fresh off of writing Navy Seals and Sam Raimi’s Darkman at the time. He would later go on to pen Hard Target and the Dark Horse-produced Barb Wire, starring Pamela Anderson, and Virus. His last screen credit was 2000’s Red Planet.
It’s not long before Mac is detained, suspected of killing all of the Outpost’s men and torching the place to the ground. Mac’s wild stories of an alien creature don’t help his case either, but proof of the Thing’s existence is quickly made palpable when Erskine’s men become infected or are annihilated by the creature. Erskine and Mac are left on their own to find refuge at an Argentine camp and by the end of issue one, Childs reappears, healthy and uninfected. Issue two is riddled with monster mayhem. The Argentine camp – aware of the “blood test” and the Thing, thanks to Childs – experiences its first encounter with the alien. Erskine, meanwhile, reveals a nasty lil’ secret he’s been harboring for a few hours. The two-part arc culminates in a massive action sequence that finds the Thing, Mac and Childs aboard a submarine until one survivor (guess who?) is left floating to the surface of frigid waters and pummeled by icy winds.
Pfarrer reportedly pitched this sequel to Universal in the early â90s, alas, nothing ever came of it. Naturally, his comic book two-parter warranted a sequel, so Dark Horse teased, at the end of issue two, that a four-part series was to come in July of 1992. Source: Ryan Turek, Managing Editor Show Comments |