Exclusive: Man-Thing Project In Development At Marvel

By Doug Norrie | 15 seconds ago


With the Marvel Cinematic Universe now mining almost every piece of their comic book catalog, it stands to reason we will get movies and series about characters who exist decidedly off the beaten path from the groups we have seen up until now. Giant Freakin Robot has the exclusive from a trusted and proven source that another one of these will soon get a movie or series treatment. According to our source, a Man-Thing project is currently in development set to explore the swampy origins of a very different kind of character. 

There are precious few details around what this Man-Thing solo project would look like or whether it would even exist within the bounds of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It stands to reason that to start, it would be its own story simply because it is such a different one than we are seeing within the universe now. Man-Thing starts off as Dr. Ted Sallis, a researcher working in the Florida Everglades on a chemical similar to the serum that Steve Rogers injected to become Captain America. As is the case with most comic book origins, something goes wrong and Sallis is transformed. 

Man-Thing is a swamp monster through and through with the green, mossy overcoats that are intertwined with other protrusions giving him a camouflaged and predominantly horrible veneer. He can channel energy from the swamp and has become more monster than human after the initial transformation. In this way, he is almost like a Hulk-Figure that is all id and no ego. Even this is probably putting it finitely, the dude is just a monster who mostly acts for the side of good, but has very little in the way of processing power. Whether Marvel stuck along those lines or tried to tie in the former scientist as part of the story remains to be seen. 


Man-Thing isn’t to be confused with Swamp Thing though you would be forgiven if you thought they were the same character. Both were released on the comic book pages in the early 1970s, actually hitting shelves within a year of each other. There was talk at the time of Marvel seeking action against DC for possible copyright infringement because of the overlap, seeing as how Marvel technically had Man-Thing first. But in the end they let it be and the characters went on their swampy ways. 

Unlike other Marvel projects and characters, Man-Thing is a bit more confined to a specific region, needing and wanting to live in the swamp. So in this way, the stories would need to come to him. That is how it worked in the comic book pages for sure. There was one other attempt at a Man-Thing story in live-action form back in 2005. On a $30 million budget, it was a massive flop both at the box office and critically. 

Here is to hoping this next Man-Thing project gets a better shot all around in what could be a different look than what we are used to seeing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is still very much in the planning stages, but we could start getting more news as the details of a Man-Thing solo project are ironed out.