What Is Marvel’s ‘Man-Thing?’

I wasn’t ready when Marvel whipped it out.

Seriously, it was really shocking. I was at a party the other day, and Marvel showed up towards the end of the night. We were all chilling on the rooftop, just drinking, vibing, and enjoying the fall weather. Then opens the door to the roof entrance and starts yelling “Who wants to see my Man-Thing!?” and every one was really freaked out. Like at first I laughed because I thought Marvel was kidding, but he just kept saying it and he had this weird desperation in his eyes that was honestly really hard to look at.

So he went on this way for like five minutes, just going up to groups of people saying “who wants to see my Man-Thing?” and people started to leave. And it was only like 11:30 at this point, so obviously people were leaving because of him. I didn’t blame them. Marvel was making everyone super uncomfortable. So eventually my friend Tommy came over and was like “Jack, you know Marvel, right?” and I was like, “Yeah, I mean I’m not like a huge fan of Marvel but sure, I’ve known Marvel for a while.” So Tommy was like, “Can you go over there and ask Marvel to stop talking about the ‘Man-Thing’ to everyone? I’ve been planning this party for weeks and it’s really not cool that Marvel is just ruining it like this.” So I’m like “Alright word, I’ll go see what’s good.”

So I go over to Marvel and Marvel is immediately like “Yo, wanna see my ‘Man-Thing’?” and I’m like “no bro, no one wants to see your ‘Man-Thing’. You need to stop bringing it up to people, or else you gotta go home.” And then Marvel got really quiet. Like he just dropped his head and started kinda… quivering. And I was like “dude are you okay?” I get a little closer and I see that Marvel is crying. Then Marvel starts whispering “I told you! I told you! No one loves you. No one will ever love you.”

So at this point I start feeling kinda bad and I figure I might as well take one for the team. So I say “listen Marvel, I know we’re not really that close, but if it’s gonna make you chill the fuck out, you can show me your ‘Man-Thing'” and instantly Marvel perks up and is like “OKAY!” And then he starts reaching into his pants and I’m like “no dude not here!” but it’s too late, he’s already whipped it out.

And it’s really, really weird looking.

Who—and what—is Man-Thing?

First of all, it’s big. Like huge. It’s this hulking green thing that’s looks like it’s covered in… vegetable matter. But it has arms and legs and a face and eyes. Marvel started babbling on about it. Said that it isn’t solid so it can squeeze through any hole. That it’s super strong and basically nothing can harm it. That is can sense the emotions of other people but it obviously wasn’t doing a very good job at sensing my fucking terror and disgust. Marvel said that it can shoot acid. Said that when it senses enough fear it can grow to the size of the Washington Monument or bigger. Marvel even said that it can fly and eventually gains the power to warp reality itself.

And I’m like … “I kinda wanna read this comic.”

And Marvel’s like, “you should!” and then he puts the comic book that was down his pants in my hand. “Man-Thing used to be a man named Theodere Salis, but he was transformed into Man-Thing after his experiments with a super solider serum called SO-2 backfired. He injected it into himself, then he fell into a swamp and came back out the ‘Man-Thing’!”

“Okay, that’s pretty cool,” I said. “But Marvel, why are you so into Man-Thing right now? Why not pick a character that’s a little more … normal? Like Iron Man?”

“Because Iron Man is dead and Man-Thing never dies,” Marvel shot back. “Besides, Man-Thing is gonna be in an upcoming T.V. Special called Werewolf By Night! It’s starring the mega hottie Gael Garcia Bernal. He plays a werewolf who leads a team of monster hunters on a quest to kill a monster. And guess who that monster is?”

I raised an eyebrow “Man … Thing?”

Marvel got right in my face. I smell Pomegranate White Claw on his breath. “YUP. Exact now the Man-Thing is a guy named Ulysses Bloodstone, the dad of one of the main characters. He was a monster hunter once too, but somehow he got transformed into the Man-Thing and I need to know how it happened.”

“Wait, I thought that Theodore Salis was the Man-Thing?”

Marvel’s eyes got huge. “HE IS. See, that’s the thing about Man-Thing. There are actually multiple Man-Things. Man-Thing is really a sort of species of creature. Anybody who gets injected with SO-2 becomes a Man-Thing. You could say Theodore Salis is the most important Man-Thing, though. He guards the Nexus of All Realities.”

I almost choked on my drink. “Wait, what? I thought he was just an acid shooting swamp guy that likes to empathize with people?”

“Hardly!” says Marvel, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Remember how I said he can also warp reality? Well, he got that ability from his serum as well! See, Salis’s first efforts to make the serum failed, so he made a bargain with the demonic ruler of Limbo to enhance his serum with magical powers so it would work! When he became the Man-Thing, he also got magical, reality altering powers! And the swamp that he fell into contained The Nexus of All Realities!”

I back away a little, “so wait, the portal to all other realities is in a random swamp that this Theodore Salis guy just happened to fall into?”

Marvel nodded, his eye twitching a little.

“That’s kinda cool,” I said. “Kinda weird, but kinda cool. But listen, Marvel, next time you gotta take a page out of Man-Thing’s book and use some empathy skills to read the room. You were kind of freaking people out earlier. You go around trying to show everyone your ‘Man-Thing’ and people are gonna get the wrong idea.”

Then Marvel kinda blushed and said sorry, and I was like, “it’s cool, c’mon, let’s get a drink.”

And just before we were gonna go back to the rest of the party I ask, “so why do you keep that comic in your pants anyway?” and Marvel looked me right in the eye and said “so people are ready for when I do this!”

And then he whipped out his dick.

(Featured image: Sci-Fi Pictures)