The Thing: The Northman Nightmare - Atop the Fourth Wall

[Music] hello and welcome to atop the fourth wall where bad comics burn from 2012 to 2014 the horror franchise we celebrated in October was John Carpenter's The Thing considered either a remake of the thing from another world or just another adaptation of the short story who goes there the comics were bad but a lot better than the Silent Hill ones for those of you unfamiliar with the movie it's about a group of researchers in Antarctica who are being attacked by an alien shapeshifter that can absorb people into it even one stray cell is enough to slowly be consumed by it and since it can imitate a person perfectly no one is sure who is or isn't infected with it the primary failing of the thin comics was the shift from a movie about paranoia and slow building horror into more of an action piece unlike the Silent Hill comics where it felt like the creative team barely knew anything about it the thin comics feel more like they only watch the movie once or twice they remember details but some things about it don't hold up the more you think about it the first two miniseries were not good but had some interesting ideas while the final one eternal vows just is bad and bizarre the aliens behavior isn't consistent with the movie and instead ends up being something more generic and goofy especially as it seems to fall in love with a woman infected with it oh and I also covered an adaptation of who goes there that introduced us to the original form of the thing a green googly eyed Muppet thing my title card artist turned him into a chibi monster named thing Tucker the thing is a franchise that really should not be a franchise a sequel or two maybe if it was handled well but continuing the story like this you know that just had diminishing returns however there was room for a prequel which happened in 2011 the prequel is not that great the filmmakers tried and there was plenty of studio interference seriously putting CGI over the practical effects what the hell is wrong with you but it just was not as good still with major releases like that there tends to be tie-in material and thus comes this comic the thing the Northmen nightmare interestingly this is the only comic in the franchise that actually only has the thing in its name as opposed to the thing from another world done so because of fear of brand confusion with the Fantastic Four character the comic was released in three parts digitally for free by Dark Horse and it's another prequel sort of it's billed as a prequel to the 2011 film but that is stupid and I'll get into why that is in a minute unless of course you watched my review of the thing from another world questionable research where I already talked a little about this in which case you know the reason why that is stupid or you've read the comic yourself already but who the hell reads comic books am i right so like with Silent Hill hunger will this comic finally explain aspects of the story that were previously unknown to us will this comic retro actively affect how one reads the other thing miniseries that I had covered before haha nope let's dig into the thing the Northmen nightmare [Music] imagine [Music] coming [Music] the covers okay featuring a Viking half transformed into the thing I especially love that he's still holding his axe because it's not the giant mouth extending down his torso that we should be afraid of guys it's that big battle axe there I admit I probably shouldn't even care about the cover since well distributed digitally for free and it's not like the cover is what'll get people interested in it but as a cover it's decent we open in Greenland 11:21 ad and instantly the entire idea of this being a prequel falls apart the thing landed on the friggin opposite end of the planet Antarctica and it was made very clear that if it ever left Antarctica the world was doomed so yeah the world is doomed I don't even get why they bothered to advertise it as a prequel when you could have just said it was an alternate universe story again it was given out for free it's not like they had a lot of money riding on people getting a copy Greenland of all the lands they conquered the icy mass to the north proved to be one of the Vikings greatest challenges they never learned to turn into the skid unlike many of the lands they explored and settled it was not the indigenous people who were the greatest threat it was actually the IRS the enemy was the land itself quickly men attack the dirt with your swords the Viking ship is trapped in the ice and their leader rod Maher says that they can walk the rest of the way one of his crew wonders if walking on the ice is a good idea if we wait hard the ice will crush our vessel on foot is best and immediately one of their party falls into a hole in the ice okay to be fair horde Gary's been trying to undermine my command decisions this whole trip I'm pretty sure he's faking that porn tries to grab hold of him and bring him out of the icy water but something with tentacles seizes the guy and drags him down more rod Maher pulls horde back up his hand now critically freezing yes it seems the gods answered me I don't think Gary appreciates that the gods have terrible aim worried about the cold temperature spreading they tie off his hand and lop it off of the rest you know in retrospect we probably shouldn't have had Bruce Campbell plan our health care system souvenir old friend are you going to eat that I will wear it as an amulet for the gods and our enemies to see the old enemies I wear my own hand as a necklace why did you lose it in battle no my hand was really cold so he cut it off is that wound cauterized or treated at all for infection be afraid of me that hand has been decomposing for days and it's hanging right under your face how do you stand the smell as they walk off apparently just shrugging off losing a guy and a hand a tentacle creature comes up from the ice to watch them on the way they provide exposition they're heading to a village led by a man named Bjorn they've lost contact with the village and have come to investigate the own Grimshaw is a great man there must be a good reason they have not sent a ship for so long oh they would have but all the skilled captains keep getting their hands chopped off instead of buying some mittens as they begin their Trek they notice a hillside has evidence of a massive battle that took place recently or at least that the ground is scorched and full of dead plants stay alert there's more here than meets the eye okay a new one to add to the list transformers vs. the thing examining the corpses in the battlefield they see signs of people merged with animals like a skull of a merged ox and human this skull is neither man nor animal Manimal upon seeing how many of the corpses were burned horde suggests that the fire could have fused an animal and human together we've been on many fiery battlefields and I have never once seen one bone melded to another as a result although there was that one time we saw bone melded with vegetable that was pretty weird they move on eventually arriving at the village and find the city gates open there's no one around and no evidence that a battering ram had forced the gates open whatever happened here happened within these walls aerial bombing within the city or ruins and piles of dead bodies to them twisted and fused with animals like the bones they found however the first part ends with the arrival of a few women covered in sheets well I say part but this is all in one download so that little to be continued right there is really kind of unnecessary the men ask what happened with the lead woman saying that their own forces turned and attacked them where is beyond the village leader he he was the first to attack I mean you kind of expect politicians to turn on their own citizens but not quite so directly horde accuses the woman astrid of lying but rod Maher wants to hear more bjorn was off in the Grand Hall with TOFA when we heard screams when we ran to see bjorn was there covered with blood but the woman was gone he turned on us in retrospect they were be hurting a live stage version of Kerrie she said a massacre followed and that she hid but then a man comes running out of a building screaming saying that she and her friends committed the massacre they restrained the man named Finn as rod Maher questions him are you trying to tell me that beyond Grimshaw and his entire army were murdered by five unarmed women is that what you're telling me Finn I mean women being afforded similar social standing has men in Viking society is that what you expect me to believe and honestly if they're not holding weapons now clearly they weren't holding weapons before I joke but rod Maher actually doesn't trust either side ordering both him and the women put into a hut together for the time being Ben refuses to spend any time along with them and runs off forcing horde to put an axe in his back rod Maher also asks horde to let him seal his wound properly with heat and iron no need already it heals man I miss the days when you could chop off your hand with an unsterilized axe in the middle of a snowy wasteland in Greenland and then be just right and ready to go into combat the next day we're just too lazy these days rod Maher takes the first watch wanting the men to get some sleep after the long journey but they rotate watching the hut and shifts during another shift one guard falls asleep near a campfire the other getting lured away by a woman and the hut the next morning they wake up the sleeping guard and wonder where his partner went off to not spotting him in the hut rodham our orders a search as well as for some of the men to start burning the bodies in the village the women are brought out to be questioned but when he sees them rod Maher is confused since there are now six women in the group before they can question that the body of Finn is put on the fire and it transforms into the thing decapitating one guide to end part two he's not alone in that as the final part begins with another decapitation two guys getting impaled and yet another guy getting sliced in half rod Murali is the remaining forces realizing that they shouldn't try to fight it just keep it contained in the fire the women managed to escape but horde tosses his axe adass tried to try to stop her he misses but cuts off part of her hair in the process on a hunch rod Maher lights the hair on fire and naturally it's the thing the hair lives by Odin's beard rod MA we're in a chapter of ouzo machi pour two points out that it's as if every part of the thing is alive then every part of it shall die bring me the finest hairdressers in all the land they set the village on fire and hunt after the thing spotting astrid near that battlefield we saw before half transformed into the thing for some reason she ducked into a hole near the side of the hill for whatever reason they decided to chase a herd of musk oxen into the hole their stampede unearthing what was hidden inside it a crashed alien saucer or maybe it was taking off out of the hole it's unclear because for whatever reason the weight of the oxen causes the ship to crash and explode apparently along with the thing the aliens were transporting a full cargo bay of nitroglycerin and oily rags the thing still alive and made up of merged people attacks the Vikings who fight it off as best as they can keeping it in the blaze it kills a few laps horde across the face but they're able to keep it inside the fire until it burns to death and so our comic ends with Rod Mar and horde enjoying a fire together while the remaining men sleep considering how they'll have to survive for at least half a year before another ship comes looking for them however rod Marr notices that horde is rubbing his hands together as in plural I wonder what they will find when they get here but hey at least nobody will be infected with the thing high five this comic is decent okay but not great well it's certainly not a prequel I wouldn't call it bad for what it is it's an enjoyable little done in one honestly its biggest problem is that it's so short the focus is wisely kept to just rod Mar and horde as named characters there's not really much in the way of characterization or an arc Rod Marr is depicted as a wise leader able to notice problems and devise decent solutions based on the information he has although that's undermined a bit when his first order we see ends with someone getting dropped into the water while horde is shown as tough and fiercely loyal however since it's only 24 pages long there isn't a lot of room to explore the paranoia that comes from the situation and it's a good set up are the women the thing or is it just as they said with their leader infected first and leading to a slaughter there's room to develop this stuff the twist with Horde at the end is good but kind of unnecessary since we already showed earlier that the thing was living in the ice cold water and that it could already spread could have ended with the two saying thank God it's over and the world is safe and then show the thing in the water floating off since by now the reader is forgotten about the monster earlier established especially since that same version of the monster doesn't come back later in the story still the twist with the hand was nicely set up and we can assume he was either infected while trying to save the guy in the water and not realizing he was infected until later what would the it's healing already foreshadowing or when the thing hit him during the final fight overall it's not a bad story at all just not as good as it could have been next time we end our look at Halloween's past with a follow-up to a review from last year at another slugfest between horror stars [Music] [Music] you said he was the most perfect clone you would ever seen with that just some boasting on your part well that's the other thing that doesn't make any sense about all this I wasn't lying before there are telltale genetic signs that something is a clone and the clone I created had those the one that I examined did not those can't just be removed so the guy who showed up at the house might not even be the clone you created I don't think so but on the other hand it's not like you've got a bunch of copies of yourself running around so who else could it be all I know is I'm starting to sympathize with him when it comes to lost memories [Music] look at this stuff relics and trophies that I should feel a connection to but it's just junk to me [Music] Aaron says it doesn't matter who I am just as long as I try to live my own life my own life a life without a real name without a real history wearing someone else's face I don't even like this face if what Lee was lying and I am a clone that I'm just a copy duplicate no better than some machine that was mass-produced with a thousand more life like I remember losing my hand no just just a memory a memory that's not mine it can't be I can't trust who I am yet trust anything that I remember if I wanted to I could just walk around here pretending to be Linkara because all I am is a copy of him made in his image it hi I remember I remember I remember I remember I remember [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Linkara-AtopTheFourthWall

Views: 38,910

Rating: 4.9738407 out of 5

Keywords: at4w, linkara, atop the fourth wall, comic, comics, the thing, john carpenter, the thing from another world, the thing: the northman nightmare, dark horse comics

Id: BDyQsl8iNZk

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 08 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MovieWizard]

Anybody want to talk about that ending?