In a special Halloween comic one-shot that tells terrifying tales featuring Marvel Comics’ greatest heroes, the most horrifying version of Captain America is introduced and takes his place as Marvel’s only other ‘Thing.’ Ben Grimm aka the Thing has been a staple Marvel character since his debut in the first issue of Fantastic Four. While his superhero moniker has always been a bit harsh, Captain America’s alternate nightmare-inducing form truly lives up to the title as Steve Rogers becomes merged with a version of another famous ‘Thing’ in popular fiction.
In the Avengers: Halloween Special story titled “The Thing From Another Time” by Jen and Sylvia Soska, Jonas Scharf, and Jordan Boyd, Tony Stark hires Deadpool and Colossus to help him retrieve the frozen body of Captain America. When they arrive at Steve Rogers’ location via helicopter, they find that he has been completely thawed out and is standing, ready for anyone who dares approach him. Then, Deadpool pushes Colossus out of the helicopter. Colossus, now face to face with Captain America is ready to take him by force if necessary. Without hesitation, Captain America hurls his shield through Colossus’ face, killing him instantly. While that was a truly gruesome scene, Iron Man and Deadpool had barely scratched the surface of the horrors that would soon ensue.
The reason Captain America was awake instead of frozen as he was in the main Marvel Comics timeline is because his body was already discovered by an alien creature who crash landed on Earth before Marvel’s heroes could get a hold of him. That extraterrestrial was seemingly the same species of alien as the one who terrorized a team of scientists and survivalists in John Carpenter’s The Thing film. After Captain America kills Colossus, Deadpool runs after him after Cap retreats inside a nearby base. Deadpool quickly becomes assimilated by Captain America’s the Thing and Iron Man kills what Deadpool became by burning him with his flamethrower, proving even further that this alien is the same species as the one from the John Carpenter film. In a final tribute to the film The Thing, Captain America and Iron Man find themselves at a standstill with Cap asking Iron Man, “What should we do now?” to which Iron Man replies, “Why don’t we just wait here for a while? See what happens.” This is nearly the exact same dialogue spoken by Kurt Russell and Keith David’s characters in the film.
The inclusion of The Thing’s horror movie monster in this Marvel Comics Halloween one-shot proves its popularity. Arguably the only other character who is more popular and is known as the Thing is the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm. With this fun alternate-universe Marvel comic, both ‘Things’ now exist within the Marvel Universe meaning they could potentially meet and become one grotesquely monstrous beast. While highly unlikely due to the Elseworld nature of this storyline, two of fiction’s most popular ‘Things’ becoming one just became a terrifying possibility.
Captain America’s version of the Thing couldn’t be more different from Ben Grimm, though that moniker is shared by both the horror movie monster and the Fantastic Four member. For that reason alone, Captain America earns his place as Marvel Comics’ only other ‘Thing,’ though his version is unarguably way more horrifying.
