Description[]
The Thing vs. The Blob. Which man-eating monstrosity will themselves become a gruesome meal?
Introduction[]
Wiz: The Thing, which isn't human...yet.
Boomstick: The Blob, the terror without shape.
Wiz: Monsters from the genre of horror are known for their unique biology and forms, and these two have the former in abundance and none of the latter. At least, not traditionally.
Boomstick: Because if they want the last one, they need some unwilling fuel from some unwitting humans. He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick.
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armour and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle!
The Thing[]
Wiz: Based in Antarctica, commonly considered to be the very edge of the world, the last thing an American research centre expected was a couple of odds visitors.
Boomstick: One was an absolutely adorable and friendly husky, and the other was a not-adorable, gun-toting Norwegian, sprouting nonsense trapped behind the language barrier. One brief shootout later, the Americans only had to accommodate the Husky.
Wiz: Eager for answers to the startling event, helicopter pilot MacReady and doctor Copper tracked down the Norwegian base to find an odd scene of carnage, chief among it a corpse with no earthly business even existing. But as it turns out, they'd had no need to leave their base for answers, because the culprit of the massacre soon revealed itself.
Boomstick: With the husky revealing it's face could be peeled like a goddamn banana!
Wiz: Because it was no husky at all. And it wasn't just a thing either. It was the Thing. Because honestly, what else could you have titled something like...that!?
- Background
- Extraterrestrial alien
- Age: 100,000> years
- Based on the novel Who Goes There?
- Utilizes paranoia and mistrust
- Sings in classical jazz
- Was given a POV story by Peter Watts
Boomstick: A nightmare, that's what!
Wiz: Thousands of years ago, an UFO crash landed in what would become Antarctica, its inhabitant going into a deep slumber thanks to the ice and sub-zero temperatures. Whether the Thing on board was the pilot, prisoner or passenger, what could be told was that it was extremely dangerous.
Boomstick: That's obvious, just look at it! It's like three inside-out bodies were placed on top of each other, put in a massive microwave and bombarded with radiation for several hours.
Wiz: Oh, the appearance of the Thing was the least terrifying feature about it in fact, because the true horror of this lifeform lay within its very genetic makeup. You see, it wasn't simply out to kill other organisms. No. It intended to assimilate them, cell by cell, turning them into brand new Things. Should a single cell of the Thing manage to infiltrate your body, it will slowly change each individual cell into a mirror image of itself, until the entire organism has been completely transformed.
Boomstick: So it's not simply a matter of kill-and-replace. You could be replaced over time yet remain in full view of your friends.
- Biology
- Longevity and survivability
- Assimilates other organisms
- Self sentient cells
- Regeneration
- Shapeshifting
- Appendage generation
- Fang and claw generation
- Corrosive bile
Wiz: Exactly. And the kicker is, those who have been assimilated may not even aware of it! Not until the true Thing within them decides to take action. Which it can with literally any part of itself, since every one of its cells is in fact alive. Not just in the "collective" manner, I mean each one of them can move, think and react on their own merit. Whilst cells will obey a singular hive-mind of sorts when they're all connected or in close proximity, if they separate they become their own independent being.
Popup: The Thing is unable to replicate artificial features, such as tattoos or metal fillings.
Boomstick: Which they are perfectly happy to do if the bigger part of itself is in a sticky situation. Because they can control each cell of themselves, this pretty much makes them shapeshifters. They can sprout spider legs, additional arms, turn tongues into whips, increase their sizes with enough biomass, and grow fanged maws wherever they want.
Wiz: Even keeping your distance isn't a guaranteed means of staying safe, because they can harpoon or entangle you with tentacles and even shoot out acidic bile.
Boomstick: And when you are too close to be snagged, they can merge with you right off the bat or trap you inside of themselves to spit out a brand new young, which is really a Thing!
Wiz: And whatever they can assimilate, it would appear they gain the abilities and even skills of that organism. For example, and fairly low-key, they can become a fish and survive under the ocean. And more worryingly, they appear to take on the knowledge of whatever human they assimilate in order to act like them if they decide on a straight-up overtaking, based on guilty look Palmer-Thing flashes before being exposed.
Boomstick: And worst, it's really damn hard to kill any of these Things. A single cell is enough for them to stay alive until they eventually get themselves a new body. Pelting it with bullets does nothing since it will just regenerate from the harm, so in order to destroy a Thing, you see a whole lot of firepower. Literally. Blowing or burning it up is the only way for sure to kill a Thing. Unless you have some other way of slaying it on the molecular level.
Wiz: Well, you could just use acid for that, since it also destroys things to the molecular degree.
Boomstick: Prove it. DUMMI!
DUMMI: Get it over with then.
(Splash, hiss)
DUMMI: Goodbyeeeeee....
Boomstick: Hmm, not a single speck left. Molecular destruction proven!
- Feats
- Cells take over others within seconds
- Smashed down a wall and through solid ice
- Grew large enough to overshadow an aircraft hanger
- Sowed mistrust towards MacReady and Garry
- Built a new spaceship
- Would have assimilated all life on Earth within three years
Wiz: In strategy, the Thing's great ability is to sow paranoia and mistrust between those it targets, a natural skill considering its shapeshifting and assimilation. But even more than that, it knows how to make suspects fly under the radar. For example, it didn't assimilate Garry, leader of the American Outpost, since he would logically be the only one who could get to blood vital for a test to determine the Thing's identity.
Boomstick: And more subtly, he didn't take over the chef, which makes sense because Nauls is surrounded by hot equipment, the Thing's Kryptonite. Not just good at hiding, but making sure it stayed hidden. Unless there's heat involved of course, because that will make even the tiniest bit of the Thing freak.
Wiz: The Thing has demonstrated it doesn't just have survival instincts either, it's genuinely intelligent. So much so, it was able to construct a new ship out of whatever it could find at the outpost.
Popup: In the comics, a Thing is seem comfortable wielding a flamethrower in spite of fire beings its main weakness.
Boomstick: The Thing would stop at nothing to escape the base and assimilate the rest of the world. Which, according to the old-timey video game style computer, would take just under three years. The average for a course at British universities.
Wiz: Even when the imposter among humans has been flushed out, even that's not a guarantee to best the Thing. In additional media, such as video games or comics, it even takes the place of one of two survivors, MacReady and Childs, going on to cause chaos many places all over the world. Just as its beaten back, it always finds a way to keep surviving. This, coupled with its shapeshifting prowess, leads credence to the old saying; no matter how bad Things are, they could always been worse.
The Blob[]
Wiz: Something had just arrived in a sleepy town of Pennsylvania, or in Arborville, California thanks to the remake. A meteor, which crash landed just on its outskirts. Perfect for anyone to stumble across and witness what would emerge to sow terror and chaos. Something...which had no shape.
Boomstick: The first unfortunate old bean to stumble upon it was an old bean, a wandering vagabond who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or it was Old Man Barney in the original.
Wiz: To be fair, there isn't much of a distinction between the original and remake, aside from spectacle and location changes. And a slight change in origin.
Boomstick: Spoilers! Which are kept in the dark by even the trailers, since we're left wondering just exactly what the monster this time around looks like. But it turns out to have been a wasted effort because there is no real way to define it. It's indescribable, it's indestructible, nothing can stop it. It's...da Blob! I mean The Blob.
Wiz: For simplicities' sake, let's stick with the remake when going over our titular monster. It's only fair, since it's earned the status of being one of the few passable horror remakes.
- Background
- Alien in the original, human experiment in remake
- Inspired the Simpsons Cranberry Blob and Goosebumps's Blob
- Capable of using ambush tactics
- It creeps and leaps and glides and slides.
- Weakness: The Cold
Boomstick: Agreed. Well, Crazies and Evil Dead did a pretty good job as well, but this isn't about them, it's about the Terror with no Shape. When Old Man Whatever's body was brought to the hospital, it's staff where surprised to discover than the Blob had eaten away at practically his entire body, before it then set its sight on the staff and then the entire town. And with one intent; to eat.
Wiz: The Blob has been classified as being amoeba-like in composition, meaning we need to explain the nature of the Blob with science.
Boomstick: Nuh!
Wiz: Looking at real-life Amoeba, it appears they do line up pretty well with the concept of the Blob. Amoeba are single-celled organisms which are capable of moving by themselves using what is in essence shape-changing. Their pseudopods are automatic extensions of themselves which are used to pull themselves along, and are often vital in the process the Blob is most infamous for.
Boomstick: You mean eating someone alive with their sheer mass?
Wiz: Yes I do Boomstick, yes I do.
- Biology
- Digestion of matter
- Wall crawling
- Shapeshifting
- Surprisingly fast
- Absorbs biomass to grow
- Tentacle generation
- Near-invulnerability
Boomstick: Good, because that's like the Blob's whole thing. Once it gets a hold of you, scream while you still have the space, because it will get all over you and start dissolving your body into a hearty meal.
Wiz: This is a process known as Phagocytosis, where the pseudopods encircle something to be digested and make a small chamber known as Phagosome.
Boomstick: Only you can ruin the idea of living acid Wiz!
Wiz: It's what science does. And naturally, this digestion process serves a clear purpose. To let the Blob grow.
Boomstick: For every living thing the Blob eats, it grows in size. Originally, it had to be fairly stealthy about who it targeted, but once it had gotten enough quick meals, it could soon simply steamroll over you.
Wiz: Which brings me to the point of the Blob's intelligence, as it clearly has an agenda behind its desire to eat. Even if it were just its instincts driving it to eat, the Blob demonstrates it knows how to stay out of sight and how to camouflage itself with the bodies of those it is in the process of eating.
Boomstick: Perfect for a douchebag trying to continue a date without their date's permission. The unique form of the Blob, which is to say its lack of one, also lets it shape-change. It can become limber enough to travel through a pipe or flattening itself out to wrap around its prey. It can even grow tentacles, perfect for ensnaring helpless passerby's.
Wiz: Even when swollen to a massive size, it can stick to other surfaces without any issue, only dropping down when it wishes to. And when it does move, it moves with surprising speed, able to take people by surprise and drawn them in before they know what's happening. Like it did in a theater, which provided it so much nourishment it started to grow and grow.
Boomstick: You know what that reminds me of?
Wiz: Any of the molds growing in your house, like the fifty-foot toadstool which sings "Angel with a Shotgun"?
Boomstick: Hey, Harry is a very close family friend, who knows how to hit those high notes. I'm talking about how the Blob is often viewed as a metaphor for the threat of communism, when it consumes and assimilates others into itself!
Wiz: Oh. Well, I knew that too, because it's a bit more apparent in the remake where the Blob isn't an alien, it's an attempt at making a weapon during the Cold War.
Boomstick: AKA, the height of Communism-phobia. And boy did their experiments go horribly right.
- Feats
- Consumed an entire theater of patrons
- Grew large enough to fracture the pavement
- Blocked the stream of a flamethrower
- Snapped a person in half
- Can digest even cars
- Digested 35 people
Wiz: At the height of its feeding spree, the Blob grew large enough to rival the scale of a movie theater and strong enough to crack the street.
Boomstick: It can pick up people no problem, can yank a person through a window with enough force to snap their spine and even drag one poor soul straight down a drain-pipe, compacting him with the process.
Wiz: An attempted suicide bombing didn't so much as tickle it. And whilst it might seem that a flamethrower would be perfect for dealing with it, the Blob quickly proved that strategy ineffective.
Boomstick: By plugging it up cartoon style and letting the soldier wielding it get immolated by his own ammunition! Damn, Blob doesn't pay around. But since fire wouldn't cut it, then the opposite fortunately would.
Wiz: Using the element of cold via liquid nitrogen, the humans were able to contain the Blob, ceasing its rampage. But even as its remains are stored away in the town cold house, or even Antarctica, there remains the fear it will rise again. Fears which are entirely valid, considering a newly formed doomsday cult has itself a tiny speck of the Blob ready to be unleashed. So humanity will hold its breath, until there's no more room to breath.
Interlude[]
Wiz: Alright the combatants are set, time to end this debate once and for all.
Boomstick: It's time for a Death Battle!
The Battle[]
Setting: City Streets at Night during the end of Winter
A quartet of soldiers in hazmat uniforms bearing flamethrowers patrol the otherwise abandoned streets, standing tense.
Soldier 1: Where did it go?
Soldier 2: It has to be close by. Couldn't just vanish.
Soldier 3: Uh, guys...
Soldier 2: What?
Soldier 3: Aren't there meant to be just three of us?
The three soldiers froze and turned their attention to the fourth bringing up the rear, taking a few steps backwards in alarm.
Soldier 4: Wait, no! I was always with you guys! You didn't read the brief?
Soldier 2: Really? Then what's your-
His attention was suddenly drawn by Soldier 1 suddenly convulsing.
Soldier 2: Hey, what's wrong?
He approached his comrade who suddenly collapsed into him. Out of Soldier 1's back burst the Blob, which engulfed the head of Soldier 2 before he could scream in alarm.
Soldier 4: Oh shit!
He lifted his flamethrower up but before he could fire it, Soldier 3 shoved his hand through his hazmat mask and forced his fingers into his face. Soldier 4's screams died as Soldier 3 used his Thing nature to merge with him, creating a two-torso monstrosity wielding two flamethrowers. The Blob, having digested both soldiers and grown larger, turned its attention towards the Soldier-Thing, which let out an inhuman wail.
FIGHT!
Even as its body convulsed unnaturally, the Thing aimed both flamethrowers at the Blob and fired a stream from both, coating it in the burning fluid. The flames were quenched as the Blob continued forwards, and a second blast of the weapons did nothing either. By the time the Thing attempted a third blast, the Blob suddenly lunged forwards and smothered the end of one flamethrower. The resulting blockage resulted in the flame and oil backing up in the weapon and the tanks on the corresponding torso exploded. As the torso burned, the other one shrieked like a bird and tore itself away, saving itself from complete immolation. The Blob surged forwards before it could react in time and the lower half of the Soldier-Thing was engulfed, and was quickly digested away, leaving the upper half to tip backwards.
The upper half crashed into its back and thus the cannisters of its flamethrower struck the ground, the resulting force making it ignite. The fiery blast sent the Thing crashing through the windows of a shop and landing among the tables and chairs. As the body burned, the head pulled itself to freedom, sprouting legs in the process as it noticed survivors huddling behind the counter and beneath the furniture, utterly petrified. Soon, the Blob had moved itself through the smashed window, automatically heading for the cowering people, the Thing nowhere in sight. Nevertheless, it started to pounce on the humans, dissolving them in record time in search of its foe. It ended up reaching the back of the room, where a young woman was cowering. In spite of her pleas, the Blob engulfed her.
It was too busy doing so to notice that a survivor was sneaking out of cover from behind the counter, making a break for the window. He suddenly stopped mid-run however and his body convulsed, his back breaking open to reveal a fanged maw and his arms becoming tentacles. The Thing charged at the Blob as it digested the woman, sinking its teeth into its surface. It quickly found this was a bad idea as the teeth started to dissolve and it pulled back, abandoning the teeth to their fate. The Blob took notice and swung out a large portion of itself like a club which sheared away the left-side tentacles of the Thing, which were quickly regrown. The Thing drew backwards on its new limbs, pursued by the Blob. It was now whipping out tentacles to try and snare the Thing, prompting it to sprout out more around its back-mouth. The rival tendrils entangled each other, the Thing's tearing at the Blob's and the Blob's dissolving the Thing's. Where the Thing's tentacles had been dissolved two things either happened; they regrew or if they had been cleaved by the acidic limbs, squirmed away like snakes.
The Thing continued to back away during this dual, until it reached the window and willingly fell backwards, using tentacles to catch and support itself to move away like a crab. It jumped backwards as the Blob came out the shop after it, avoiding the grasp of two large limbs. The regrown thickened tentacles of the Thing slashed at the Blob's form with blades of bone. Any openings they made closed up instantly yet behind the Blob, the severed tendrils of the Thing merged together into a new Thing. The Tentacle-Thing, looking like a fleshy bee-hive, rose up and fired a stream of acid at the Blob. It proved ineffective, the acid rolling off the Blob's surface to burn on the ground, but this is where it proved to have an effect.
The acid burned the pavement and from the hole made cracks spread out, enhanced by the Blob's sheer weight and soon the whole ground beneath it collapsed. The Blob was sent tumbling into the sewers below, vanishing thanks to the shadows. The two Things approached the edges of the hole, looking for their opponent whilst growling softly. A symphony of squeaks sounded and suddenly a grotesque mass of melted rats where thrown out of the hole to land on the Acid-Spitting-Thing. It was instantly smothered before the ground below it was uptorn by the Blob smashing a limb upwards. It and the rat-body-net where digested as the rest of the Blob followed its limb out and stuck to the side of the buildings, leaving the ground to continue crumbling. With a gurgling sound, it propelled itself from the side of the building to the one on the other side of the street, crawling across it towards the remaining Thing. This prompted the alien to scuttle away, ducking down an alley and coming on the other side of the buildings. The Blob emerged over the top of the buildings, its tentacles reaching out to try and snare the Thing, which jumped onto the side of the opposing buildings. Hanging to it like a spider, the Thing avoided the swipes of the Blob's tentacles as it lashed out with them, eventually jumping down onto the street to run down it. The Blob foiled this however by dropping its entire bulk to the ground, sending out a shockwave which made the Thing stumble. In the time it brought it, the Blob inexplicably leapt into the air and came down on it.
Through the Blob's transparent body, the Thing was dissolved away into nothingness as it struggled, the Blob shivering with satisfaction. But behind itself it noticed a legion of what appeared to be humans marching towards it. Somewhere in the bodies of each human was a severed Thing tentacle from the prior parts of the fight, and now all the humans were convulsing as their bodies lost their shape. Slowly but surely, they all fused together until they stood as a massive spider-like monstrosity featuring maws and eyes all over its uneven spherical body.
It galloped down the street and collided with the Blob, spawning numerous thick tentacles to wrap around its foe. Immediately the sound of hissing could be heard as the flesh of the Thing started to burn away. Regardless, it spawned more tentacles from itself to keep the Blob encased.
On a microscopic level, the Thing's cells wormed their way against the Blob's surface, even as they burned away upon succeeding. Bit-by-bit, more Thing cells pushed their way into the Blob by the thousands, each one getting a little bit deeper before vanishing. As this happened, other Thing cells made their way around the surface of the Blob itself.
Back on the normal scope of the fight, the Blob was losing mass as it tried to keep the Blob contained, until its mass of ensnaring tentacles finally burned away. The Blob reared up and engulfed it with a forwards lung. Like before, the process of the Thing's dissolving was visible through its transparent body and the Blob shook with imminent victory.
The digestion of the Thing came to a sudden stop however and over the Blob's body, seams opened up to reveal limbs and tentacles common to the Blob's forms and victims. The Thing within the Blob made its way through the acidic body of the Blob, which was now its to control, to stick out the top of the infected body like a commanding point. A roar from mouths all over the Blob-Thing roared out across the city.
KO!
Outcome[]
Boomstick: Now the Blob looks as horrific and sad as its namesake, the Blobfish.
Wiz: To say this matchup tested us to find the outcome is a frankly massive understatement. In fact, we had to dive deeply into the realm of science to understand just how this battle could reasonably go.
Boomstick: You might think this battle might have come down to "oh the Blob can just kill the Thing by touching it". Well, whilst that was definitely a problem for the Thing, it wasn't so hard to say it could deal with it to a degree.
Wiz: The fact that has to be kept in mind is that the Blob is a single-celled organism, so it's not so much made of acid more than its a natural attempt at feeding, just a rather extreme version. And the way it feeds is by enveloping a consumable in its body and digesting it there. And the Thing cells are capable of independent movement in the case of avoiding threats, it's likely they can draw themselves back to avoid the danger. Like they did in the blood test.
Boomstick: I mean, when you consider that even after being put to the torch, the Two-Faced-Thing still had enough cellular activity to infect someone else, even it weaknesses of molecularly-harmful substances aren't always a guarantee for one reason or another.
Wiz: Still, a more prevalent question was if the Thing had the ability to assimilate the Blob and surprisingly, the evidence is there to support the idea it could.
Boomstick: And it's scientific of course. Urgh. Okay, so to explain as simply as we can, bacteria are single celled organisms like amoebas, both types of organisms that the Blob has been compared to. There exists bacteria in the human body, which is used for digestion, and the Thing perfectly assimilates all part of the human body. Which would include this bacteria. Hell, the entire deal of the Thing is to assimilate cells, so a single-celled organism would be no exception.
Wiz: In the Thing prequel, when analysing the Thing cells taking over human ones, they don't exactly begin within an internal invasion so to speak, starting the assimilation from the outside of the cells and making the rest of it there's. This all means the Thing should be perfectly capable of assimilating the Blob.
Boomstick: Plus, the Thing could also dissolve its prey by spewing acidic vile, so it could naturally become resistant to means of being digested. So long as it could actually get around the entire Blob first, cause to be fair, a single point of entry would likely be digested away.
Wiz: Correct. So another important question was if the Thing could get enough mass to be big enough engulf the Blob compared to the Blob being too big to assimilate. Well, let's compare how many humans it took the Blob to digest to grow big enough to rival the size of a movie theater and how many humans the Thing had assimilated prior to growing large enough to rival an airplane hanger, with both structures of similar size. The latter happened in a sequel comic.
Boomstick: Turns out, the remaining infected soldiers by this point only numbered 5, and the Blob needed 8 people in both the original and remake to get as big as it did.
Wiz: This means in the likelihood the two fought after assimilating or digestion several other organisms, the Thing would need to have done less to have more over its foe.
Boomstick: And whilst not to say the Blob is completely brain-dead, it mainly operates on a predator's wavelength. Possibly a sadistic predator but the Thing is comparatively more clever. It understands the nuances of human activity, knows how to sow a long game and intelligent enough to build a working spaceship.
Wiz: The Blob may have been more deadly on paper but the Thing's assimilation-based biology, intelligence and a comparatively less need for sustenance made it the better hell on earth.
Boomstick: The sad Thing was, Blob rule just wasn't in effect. Blob Almighty, son of a John Carpenter.
Wiz: The winner is the Thing.
Next Time[]
Mega Man
Skylanders
Trivia[]
- Connections: Both are shapeshifting entities from space (the Thing is an alien whilst the Blob is either an alien as well or an experiment mutated in space by radiation) which hunt, assimilate and devour humans with their unique biology after arriving from space, both bearing names which reflect their lack of a solid form or identity. Both also have a habit of hiding in plain sight or misdirecting with human disguises via the ones they have, or are in the process of, killing. Both also utilize acid in some manner, are weak to the cold, which has led to their imprisonment at some point, particular in Antarctica, and are essentially living cells. Coincidentally, both share their names with super-strong Marvel characters.
- Animation Style: Hand-drawn.
- OST Idea: "Mankind has a Shape", based on and inverting the taglines of the combatant's respective movies to reflect how both are formless shapeshifting human killers.