Werewolf by Night’s Swamp Thing is actually Man-Thing, a different thing

Marvel’s Halloween particular, Werewolf by Night time, brings new flavors to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s the Hammer Horror of all of it, and the stark black and white colours, and naturally, the titular werewolf.

However there’s one other monster making his debut in Werewolf by Night time, with one of the notorious names in Marvel Comics historical past: Man-Factor. And the hour-long particular doesn’t even do him the courtesy of calling him by his identify!

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Werewolf by Night on Disney Plus.]

Picture: Marvel Studios

Werewolf by Night time calls collectively a cadre of elite monster hunters in a aggressive hunt to determine who will take up the coveted Bloodstone, which has some form of energy that forces monsters to disclose themselves. The story will get twistier than there, however suffice to say, the mysterious monster on the coronary heart of the problem is an enormous, craggy swamp creature named Ted, with the facility to incinerate along with his contact.

However in Marvel Comics, Ted goes by one other identify.

That’s Man-Factor, not Swamp Factor

Picture: Marvel Studios

Created in 1971 by writers Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and Gerry Conway, and artist Grey Morrow, Man-Factor was once Dr. Ted Sallis, a scientist who — like each different scientist within the Marvel Comics universe — was making an attempt to reengineer Steve Rogers’ super-soldier serum. Fleeing much less scrupulous mad scientists with the one proof of his serum, Sallis injected himself with the chemical simply earlier than crashing his automotive right into a magical swamp. There, he mixed forces with the natural materials and was remodeled into the massive, inexperienced, mush-faced swamp monster he’s as we speak.

Wait a minute, you’re asking, isn’t that precisely the identical as Swamp Factor, the DC Comics character? The reply is, sure. On the time the that author Len Wein was developing with Swamp Factor, his roommate Gerry Conway had put Man-Factor on the web page over a 12 months earlier. No accusations of plagiarism had been ever made — although they’ve a shared origin and look, the 2 characters diverged fairly precipitously from there. Swamp Factor was finally retconned to be an elemental pressure of nature who solely thought it had as soon as been a human scientist, and Man-Factor was all the time extra of a cult fave than a finest vendor at Marvel. Authorized motion by no means materialized.

One other fairly massive distinction between Man-Factor and Swamp Factor is the previous’s signature superpower: Lighting individuals on freakin’ fireplace. Because the tagline of later Man-Factor tales would put it, “No matter is aware of concern burns on the Man-Factor’s contact!” Man-Factor may not be capable of speak, however he’s nonetheless a really empathetic monster who can sense robust feelings. He turns into agitated by detrimental ones, and burns his opponents with chemical-mystical fireplace.

And sure, all people simply is aware of him as Man-Factor! Not Ted!

Heheh, Man-Factor is form of… uh… form of a humorous identify, isn’t it?

Picture: Mike Ploog/Marvel Comics

Sure. And that’s what makes it nice.