OK...Who wins...

Dunno on that one.  The prequel of the thing really through me.  It is supposed to be able to read DNA and duplicate the animal it is in contact with or absorbed?.?.?  What happens when the Xeno dumps a ton of acid on the thing when to tries to absorb it and it melts away?

I know, crazy.  Maybe the Thing could replicate an Alien before its attacked or something.  If it can replicate anything it would be tough to stop

The Thing.

Just touching it gives it the ability to mimic you and as the movie shows it can then blend your body however it pleases. 

The xeno is almost completely physical so there's almost no scenario that it takes the thing out immediately without ever touching it and getting infected.

When you think about it the Thing is the polar opposite of the Black Goo - The Thing becomes anything it touches, whereas the Black Goo makes anything its touches have Xenomorphic traits

One might argue the The Thing might be the perfect organism.  If it could replicate anything...and doesn't die in the process.  Of course it only has so much mass.  It's not like it could become a blue whale or something...I'm way out on a geek limb now ;)

The Thing definitely wins.

The Thing I suppose, but we will never really understand the aliens (even if most stories let themselves get limited by the hive hierarchy from 'Aliens') so I wouldn't discard the possibility of the aliens being inmune to the thing, after all they are alien.

Now between the thing and the black goo, it's impossible to say wich would prevail.

yeah, its a bit of a mind bender I guess.  Maybe we should all get together and write a screenplay for it!

I wondered this question for a long time too.

I would say The Thing except it could only replicate an alien that was completely biological. It couldn't replicate anything inorganic in the Carpenter version at least, which I consider the ultimate version.

The Thing would win ... hands down....

But the Thing vs Black Goo could get interesting ;)

LOL DK

Forgot about that... yes very interesting....

The Thing would lose because we have a Xenomorph with no Teeth lol

id go with the thing. it kills by assimilation and only has touch the xeno really. question, what happens if the thing becomes infected with the black goo???????

This is really a tough one.They both can be easily defeated with fire,but yeah i might go with the thing

the thing can have parts of it chopped off yet those parts become individual creatures themselves so no matter how much the xeno rips into the thing its still in big trouble

yes, fire would seem to be the Achilles heel for both.  But imagine the Thing being part Xenomorph, part Deacon, part Engineer, etc....crazy

I don't think the Xenos are gonna be tricked by the Thing's mimic abilities, and the thing is gonna be immune to impregnation. It's a question of who gets enough biomass to overwhelm the other. If no viable hosts are around, then Thing wins. If there's already a bunch of Xenos when thing shows up, Thing loses.

It's reasonable to assume that the acid blood will wreck Thing biology. Totally a war of attrition.

I'm of the opinion that the black goo came from. The Xenos, not the other way round. The goo would wreck the Thing, though.  It would likely create a pretty horrific cocktail, though.

Double post

Acidic blood should have no effect on the Thing as long as the blood is organic/biological- has DNA to replicate. Aliens can screech all they want- they would lose.

It's important to make Things clear :) I think that the star beasts acid blood would negate the things mimic nature. Even though The Thing is powerful it needs softer natured organisms to survive. Xenos are not human but a much tougher organism to handle. We should not underestimate Xenos intelligence. The Thing would encounter problems with assimilation of Xenomorph due to the beasts nature (black goo included). Also Xenomorph is a Bio Mechanoid and thus could be hard to replicate and if replicated the results could be poor. These two organisms are at the top of the food chain. My top list is as follows:

1. Xenomorph

2. The Thing

3. The Predator

4. Critters :)

As dk pointed out, The Thing can not replicate inorganic tissue. The Xenomorph  (at least in ALIEN) is biomechanical, which would suggest the genetic makeup of the Alien is in fact not 100% organic, at least by our conventional understanding of the term. 

I would propose that The Thing would be unable to replicate and imitate a Xenomorph and so would be forced to fight the Alien in a more straightforward sense, in which case I would give the upper hand to the Xenomorph. The acid blood would make short work of the Thing if it managed to injur the Xenomorph and even if it's burned off parts try to get away I feel like Yue Xenomorph has enough intelligence to deal with those pieces accordingly - likely by trapping them in resin.

ok, here is a thought that might make even more confusing...as if that was possibly.  You may recall in The Thing (original) that the ice it was buried in was at least 100,000 years old.  The researches even suspected that this thing could have replicated an unknown number of other species from other words as well....maybe it could morph into some crazy creature that would whoop up on the xenon....

Xenomorph I mean

@SteveRogers1973 you are probably right that Thing has a critter in the toolbox that will give the Xeno hell, it's just a war of attrition. Who has more meat for the grinder?