File:Thing Vol 1 4 001.jpg

Description
The Thing and Lockjaw teleport from Attilan to a small Southern town known as Rock Hollow. They discover that the residents of Rock Hollow have taken to harassing a poor old woman named Sarah Anne Jackson. Sarah is the mother of a twelve-year-old mutant boy named Lucas. Lucas’s birth coincides with a great economic depression that nearly destroyed the town. As such, the villagers blame the ugly mutant kid. Several of them gather around Sarah’s small shack demanding that she turn Lucas over to them. But the arrival of the Thing and Lockjaw keeps them at bay. The Thing scares them off, and talks to the local sheriff. The sheriff gives him some history on the town and the Jackson family. Sarah is grateful for the Thing’s intervention and provides Lockjaw and he with food and drink. Before long however, the crowd returns. One of them shoots Lockjaw while another throws a brick through the front window, killing Sarah Anne Jackson. Lockjaw teleports into town to warn the Thing. The Thing teleports back to the shack with him, but he is too late to save Sarah’s life. Suddenly, Lucas steps out of the house for the first time in twelve years. His mutant powers have developed and he generates a wave of calm that disperses the crowd. After burying Sarah Anne, the Thing has Lockjaw take Lucas Jackson to his new home – the Great Refuge of Attilan on Earth’s moon. The Thing is seen quoting, “There are no monsters on the moon”. Meanwhile, in the ruins of Liddleville within Doctor Doom's abandoned castle in the Adirondack Mountains, a pile of radioactive clay takes form and remolds itself into a humanoid shape. This is the Puppet Master.