For the last few weeks, Goosebumps author R.L. Stine has been teasing a new comic book project for Marvel (so much so that we even speculated on which it might be!). Today, it’s official: Stine is writing a new Man-Thing miniseries. In hindsight, we really should have seen it coming. After all, Stine loves to play with fear in his stories, and “whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch!”
While the late Steve Gerber’s run on Man-Thing is considered to be the definitive take on the character, he was actually created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and artist Gray Morrow in 1971. The Man-Thing was actually Dr. Ted Sallis, a scientist who was working on an attempt to recreate Captain America’s Super-Soldier Serum. He was horribly mutated after injecting himself with the serum while attempting to flee a terrorist attack. Two of the preview pages from Stine’s new Man-Thing series appear to depict the car accident that caused Sallis to crash into a swamp and emerge as the Man-Thing.
That page was drawn by German Peralta, who will be joining Stine on the five-issue miniseries. Additionally, Stine will be writing backup stories for the series, which will have a new artist with each issue. In the first issue, Daniel Warren Johnson will be the artist for that backup tale.
As for the primary story of the miniseries, it will revolve around Ted’s attempt to escape his fate as the Man-Thing “once and for all.” But it won’t be that easy, as Marvel promises that “ancient and mysterious danger” is going to force Ted to choose between his monstrous form and the life he so desperately wants to reclaim.
You can see the rest of the preview art in the gallery below. And we wouldn’t be too shocked if Stine’s new take on Man-Thing was eventually used by Marvel TV or Marvel Studios to revive the character in live-action. If nothing else, Stine’s work on this series should bring a lot of his fans from Goosebumps and Fear Street.
Man-Thing #1 will be released in March 2017.
Are you excited to read Stine’s Man-Thing comic? Embrace your fears in the comment section below!
Images: Marvel Comics
