The Thing (John Carpenter’s)

The Thing is a shapeshifting alien species from an unknown planet in which it crashed to earth via UFO. The Thing primarily can be found in Antarctica due to it being the coldest place on the planet since the Thing loves cold since it can simply freeze up and get active again when unfrozen. The Thing can morph into anything. The Thing appears in Molly: Defenders of the Publicverse as one of many obstacles the team has to get by before facing against the girl Pinky. With R.J. MacReady (the hero/alien slayer, who was one of the men at the Antarctic Research Program) at hand, he is no stranger when he battles the Thing. He helps recruit members and with his trusty flamethrower (and some dynamite), he is ready. The Thing was largely the inspiration for Migi’s species, the Parasytes. Some of the main differences between the 2 species is that Parasytes can produce body blades and the Thing has not been seen with any. No good members of the Thing have been seen unalike Migi’s kind which include herself, Jaw (from Uda) and in the end Reiko Tamura. and lastly, Parasytes do not come in UFOs but rather green tennis ball spiked virus-looking pods.

John Carpenter’s The Thing is the only version (and the best) that has the Thing this way. In Howard Hawk’s 1951 film, it is rather just a walking individual who already sort of looks alien rather than a shapeshifter capable of taking you over and it does not appear to do so.

A Dog Thing resembling Suki (but it isn’t) appears and tries to fool Molly, but MacReady at the last second stepped in to save her after The Thing tried to attack her.

Molly has staticky PTSD and is cringey over other dogs after this incident and it takes awhile for her to recover and realize what the Thing is.