Origin:

The Man-Thing is a creature created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, and featured in various Marvel Comics titles, the most prominent of which was written by Steve Gerber.

Man-Thing is a large, slow-moving muck-monster with a vaguely humanoid appearance living in the Florida Everglades near the Seminole reservation. Man-Thing debuted a month before a one-shot version of DC Comics' Swamp Thing, in which Alex Olsen was killed by his wife's lover and resurrected as a plant-based monster. Swamp Thing creator Len Wein was Conway's roommate at the time, but they did not discuss their work too much. When the ongoing Swamp Thing, Alec Holland, debuted in November (after Wein had contributed a Man-Thing story of his own), his origin was very similar to Man-Thing's.

Unlike the intelligent Swamp Thing, Man-Thing is a former scientist who became a nearly mindless mass of slime with no particular affinity to any living thing, but who nevertheless often becomes an accidental hero as it stumbles upon various crime and horror scenarios. It is able to sense human emotions, and is enraged by fear and automatically secretes a strong chemical corrosive; anyone feeling fear and clutched by the Man-Thing is prone to be burned (either chemically or mystically), hence the series' tag-line, "Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch." Though fear is understandably most people's response to the creature, typically only villains end up meeting an immolating death at its hands.

Synopsis:

Directed by Brett Leonard, Man-Thing is based on a comic book series of the same name. The Man-Thing himself was once a scientist, but after injecting himself with an untested serum in hopes of preventing it from falling into the wrong hands, he was unfortunately transformed into a mindless swamp beast who fatally burns those within whom he senses fear. The Man-Thing resembles a towering mound of algae and plant life, and lives in the Florida Everglades near a tribe of Seminole Indians.

When one of real-estate tycoon F.A. Schist's crewmen is killed while developing the swamp for commercial use, it's the Seminoles who are blamed, though they know that the real culprit is the Man-Thing, who mirrors the emotion of any human that crosses his path and acts accordingly -- unfortunately, most people subjected to the sight of him react in sheer terror and are unceremoniously set aflame. Man-Thing features performances from Rawiri Paratene, Alex O'Lachlan, Rachel Taylor, Jack Thompson, and William Zappa.

© Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Prequels, Sequels and Follow-ons:

None