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Episode Studies by Clayton Barr

enik1138
at popapostle-dot-com
"For Better or Worse"
The Thing from Another World: Eternal Vows #3 (Dark Horse)
Written by David de Vries
Pencils by Paul Gulacy
Inks by Dan Davis
Cover by Paul Gulacy

 

Jennifer makes a rash move that dooms Wallace Harbour.

 

Story Summary

 

MacReady and Rowan have tested the crew of the Gettysburg and its catch and found them all negative. But they still need to track down Jennifer, whom MacReady knows must be infected because she appeared during Holt's death-throw transformations (at the end of "In Sickness or in Health"). They find her in her apartment and MacReady tries to torch her with his flamethrower, but she escapes out a window. MacReady gives chase and Jennifer infects another man along the way to delay MacReady.

 

Jennifer runs to her place of work and there infects her coworker Sharon. Soon Sharon grabs and infects a store patron and Jennifer realizes it was a mistake to infect additional people, just as Powell has been trying to warn her in her head.

 

As night falls, Jennifer sets fire to the docks in hopes of destroying the remaining Things while she escapes out to sea.

 

MacReady and Rowan head to the docks and are soon under assault by large numbers of people that have already been assimilated by Jennifer's "rogue" conversions. Rowan decides to sacrifice himself to keep the Things at bay while MacReady swims out to the departing Gettysburg.

 

CONCLUDED IN THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD: ETERNAL VOWS #4

 

Didja Notice?

 

As has been the case in all the Dark Horse sequels of The Thing, the assimilation of Julian on page 8 takes place much too quickly in comparison to the estimated 1 hour needed...and without the mess! MacReady's explanation of the ease of infection to Rowan on page 11 is also incorrect, again suggesting that infection takes mere seconds.

 

The street scene on panel 1 of page 10 is a repeat (though differently colored) of the one in "From This Day Forth" on page 17, panel 1.

 

The customer at the Wallace Jean Emporium on page 12 seems to refer to his overalls as "yakkas". I suppose this must be a local term for the clothing item. Possibly it is related to the Australian Aboriginal term "yakka" meaning "work".

 

The internal dialog between Powell and Jennifer suggests they are different from other Things in their desire to survive without competition from others of their kind. Is it possible that because these two humans were passionately in love with each other when they were turned that their personalities have become dominant over that of the Thing, causing them to behave so much differently than the Things we've seen previously? That may be the point of the marriage liturgy titles of each issue of Eternal Vows as well. 

 

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