Whatever knows fear burns at the touch of the Man-Thing.
Believe it or not, there was a time when movies based on Marvel comics were a crap shoot. Sure, they started out strong with the firstX-Men, Spider-Man and the first two Blade movies. But then, before a certain armored Avenger made his presence felt at the cineplex, things got bumpy.
Daredevil? Not very good.
Hulk? Ang Lee proved he had no idea how to make a comic book movie.
The Punisher? Thomas Jane? John Travolta? Next.
Sure, they rebounded pretty well with X2 which I think still stands as one of their best, but it was followed by things like the firstFantastic Four movie and Elektra.
It was rough going at the House of (Movie) Ideas.
Enter Man-Thing.
What's a Man-Thing you might ask? The simple answer is he's Marvel's answer to DC's Swamp Thing, although, I believe Man-Thing (let's call him Manny from here on out) predates Swamp Thing by a year or two. You want the more complex answer? Read this, then get back to me.
It looked like Marvel was scrapping the bottom of the barrel, almost literally, to bring the muck monster to the big screen. Things didn't work out. The movie was created as a direct to video release. However, as superhero movies took off, the powers that be decided to schedule it for a Halloween release. They wisely reconsidered and moved it back to the straight to video queue.
The movie was eventually picked up by SyFy (then Sci-Fi) as a "Sci-Fi Original" and has gained a bit of a cult following since then.
What does all this mean to you my dear reader(s)?
It means I stumbled across Man-Thing during last Saturday's vegetative monster movie marathon on SyFy and was finally able to record and watch the damned thing.
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