The Stop Button

blogging by Andrew Wickliffe

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Category: Thing from Another World

  • The Thing: The Northman Nightmare 3 (October 2011)

    Uh oh, Reynolds had to show something on the last page–an ominous reveal of future Viking Thing incidents I think–and he couldn’t do it. I’m getting to hate those moments in comics, where writers do something totally natural for film and then the artist can’t get the point across. Otherwise, Reynolds’s art continues to be…

  • The Thing: The Northman Nightmare 2 (September 2011)

    Niles is beginning to impress me on Northman. He moves into the famous Thing standard… a lot of suspicious people standing around inspecting one another. His dialogue’s somewhat better too. There’s one passage where he’s completely obvious at trying to lay the groundwork for a reveal and it’s stunning he’s so brazenly predictable. But still,…

  • The Thing: The Northman Nightmare 1 (September 2011)

    As an online exclusive, Dark Horse is publishing these Northman Nightmare “issues” (for free). It’s a prequel to the new Thing movie, which is a prequel to the old Thing movie (the 1982 one, not the original). Dark Horse previously published sequels to the 1982 film. It’d be more interesting if they’d done a sequel…

  • Dark Horse Comics 16 (December 1993)

    I feel like I need to send Dan Jolley a thank you letter for making this issue of Dark Horse Comics tolerable. Well, for his Aliens story anyway. It’s got an unexpected conclusion. There’s not a lot of story—it’s a chase sequence and a resolution—but Jolley plays with expectations a little. Nadeau and Pallot do…

  • Dark Horse Comics 15 (November 1993)

    Well, when Naifeh’s art falls off, The Thing gets a lot less interesting. Martin falls into the same tropes the pervious series did (even though Martin ignores them)—repeating the plot points in the Thing movie, only in a new setting. But Naifeh’s the disappointment here. It doesn’t even look like his work. Barr and Rader…

  • Dark Horse Comics 14 (October 1993)

    I realized, a few pages in to Mike W. Barr and Brad Rader’s Mark story, Rader’s a good artist. He’s at the beginning of his career, but he’s good. He does these Eisner-homage close-ups. Nice stuff. But The Mark looked bad at the start—because the character’s design is ludicrous. It takes place in a pseudo-Nazi…

  • Dark Horse Comics 13 (September 1993)

    So is Dark Horse Comics where Dark Horse stuck all their licensed properties once Presents’s sales dropped? The creative teams are mildly interesting. Jim Woodring writing Aliens—nothing happens, it’s an all action story—with Kilian Plunkett on the art? It looks good anyway. Ted Naifeh pencilling a Thing story? It’s more distinct because Edward Martin III’s…

  • The Thing from Another World: Eternal Vows 4 (March 1994)

    I’m sadly unimpressed with de Vries’s finish to Eternal Vows. It’s all supposed to be this great love story about this sailor and his squeeze in this little town. I thought de Vries was actually going to kill MacReady or something. I swear I read these Thing comics back when I was a kid and…

  • The Thing from Another World: Eternal Vows 3 (February 1994)

    For someone who really likes explaining things, de Vries doesn’t go into how MacReady has become an international Thing hunter. But while his presence is narratively ludicrous, de Vries uses the character well. Oh, there’s some lame dialogue, but the issue’s sort of good. de Vries cuts back a little on how the Thing operates…

  • The Thing from Another World: Eternal Vows 2 (January 1994)

    Turns out de Vries has the reverse problem of John Arcudi on The Thing. de Vries is better with MacReady around. MacReady shows up—in a private helicopter, in sunglasses and maybe with a laser gun. Gulacy loves sunglasses. They make no sense in the context and it’s not particularly good art, but it’s an amusing…

  • The Thing from Another World: Eternal Vows 1 (December 1993)

    Eternal Vows is the Thing comic I had expected from Dark Horse. Not a direct sequel to the movie, but some lame story set in the “same universe.” David de Vries sets this one in Australia (presumably because it’s close to the Antarctic location of the movie, but he doesn’t explain) and it’s a murder…

  • The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear 4 (December 1992)

    Here’s one thing about comic book sequels to movies. Look, I know you can do things in a comic book you can’t do in a movie, but respect the level of reality in the source. You shouldn’t all of a sudden have a giant monster just because Somerville can draw it badly. In other words,…

  • The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear 3 (November 1992)

    Arcudi gets to the cliffhanger I imagine readers had been waiting for since the end of the movie. I won’t spoil—which is not to recommend the series, I really can’t with Somerville’s artwork. He ruins the cliffhanger. It looks like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, not a horror comic. But Arcudi tries some…

  • The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear 2 (September 1992)

    It’s shocking how much better Climate of Fear reads when it’s not about MacReady and Childs (from the movie). Arcudi continues—for the majority of the issue—his version of The Thing, only in a warm climate with a female scientist as the protagonist. It’s mostly a talking heads book, with the tensions rising among the people…

  • The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear 1 (July 1992)

    It didn’t occur to me until I read the letters page… but here you’ve got a comic book with grotesque graphic violence and still the %@!!$ for curse words. Kind of funny. Anyway, Arcudi doesn’t do bad with a Thing series. He moves the action to some remote Argentinean peninsula and provides a whole new…

  • The Thing from Another World 2 (January 1992)

    I think Pfarrer really likes The Thing, the movie I mean. It wasn’t as clear the first issue, but this one, it really feels like Pfarrer is trying to make a sequel to something he likes. Maybe because he brings back the Keith David character, Childs. Sadly, Pfarrer doesn’t seem to get how to write…

  • The Thing from Another World 1 (December 1991)

    Do how does Dark Horse handle a sequel to a film unable to have a sequel? Lamely. Chuck Pfarrer’s writing is weak all around. Some of it isn’t his fault. Making Kurt Russell’s character talk to himself more than Peter Parker is a necessity. What if a reader hasn’t seen the movie? Too bad it’s…