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Fighting: |
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Rm |
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Mn |
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Fe |
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Ex |
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Am |
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Health: |
139 |
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72 |
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Popularity: |
-10 |
Real Name: Dr. Theodore “Ted” Sallis
Occupation: Former scientist, currently guardian of the nexus of realities
Legal Status: Citizen of the United States (presumed dead)
Identity: The Man-Thing’s existence was publicly known but widely disbelieved. Very few people know that Man-Thing was actually Ted Sallis.
Place of Birth: Omaha, Nebraska
Marital Status: Married
Known Relatives: Ellen (wife)
Base of Operations: The swamp that surrounds the nexus of realities, near Citrusville, Florida
Past Group Affiliations: Occasional ally of the sorcerer Dakihm, Jennifer Kale, and Howard the Duck
Known Powers:
Emotion Detection: Man-Thing has the Monstrous ability to detect the emotions of the various creatures that surround him. Positive emotions such as love, joy, and courage fill him with joy. Negative emotions, such as hate, cause an unpleasant reaction. His most hated emotion is fear, which causes him to attack anyone who is afraid.
Burning Touch: When Man-Thing detects fear, his body excretes a sulfuric acid, which inflict Incredible burns on anyone he touches (“For whosoever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch”).
Vegetable Form: Man-Thing’s body has Monstrous protection against physical attacks. This protection drops by -1cs column shift for every week Man-Thing spends away from his swamp, to a minimum of Remarkable.
Oozing: Man-Thing can breach any barrier with an opening by oozing through it. The smaller the opening, the longer it takes Man-Thing to break through. Referees should use their best judgment to determine how long it takes to get through an opening.
Vulnerability: Man-Thing is dependent on the swamp for his livelihood. He loses -1cs from his Strength, Fighting, and Endurance for every week spent away from it. If his Strength drops to Feeble, he becomes comatose until returned to his normal environment.
Talents:
Sallis has Excellent reason and was an expert biochemist. Man-Thing has no Talents.
Contacts:
Man-Thing has been associated with a number of heroes, including the Thing, Spider-Man, Howard the Duck, the sorcerer Dakihm, Jennifer Kale, and Korrek the Barbarian, as well as the respect ed comic book author Steve Gerber.
Role-Playing Notes:
Man-Thing is a simple-minded creature, motivated by emotion instead of logical thought. He is the guardian of the nexus of realities, but certainly has no knowledge of his role. Man- Thing’s greatest enemies are the demon lord Thog and D’Spayre (whose fear powers can cause Man-Thing to become afraid and, thus, burn himself).
History:
Ted Sallis first came to prominence in government circles as the chief chemist working on Project Sulfur, a U.S. Army research program aimed at developing a means to survive bio-chemical warfare. Sallis developed Serum SO-2, which would have succeeded in immunizing human beings against all toxic bio-chemicals, but the mutagenic effects of the serum would have transformed people into monsters. The serum was never put into production.
After Project Sulfur was shut down, Sallis was reassigned to Project Gladiator, a research program under the auspices of SHIELD, which was aimed at recreating the lost “super- soldier” serum that had spawned Captain America during World War II. Working separately from his colleagues, who included Drs. Wilma Calvin and Barbara Morse (later to be known as Mockingbird), Sallis evidently attempted to use a modified version of his S0-2 formula as the basis for a new Super-Soldier serum. He was close to success when he was betrayed into the hands of the subversive Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) by his wife, Ellen.
Perhaps already suspecting betrayal, Sallis had earlier destroyed his notes. To guarantee that the secret would not fall into AIM’s hands, Sallis injected himself with the only existing sample of his modified Super-Soldier serum, and fled into the nearby swamp. Sallis should have died, but over the course of several hours, mystical forces combined with chemical science to transform him into the monstrous, misshapen creature who would be dubbed “the Man-Thing.” The substance of Sallis’s body was eaten away and replaced by vegetable matter. Though he mimics the form of humanity to a large extent, he can no longer be considered human. Though he retains Ted Sallis’s intellect, he cannot be said to be intelligent in any meaningful sense.
Since the time of his creation, the Man-Thing has served as the guardian of the “nexus of realities. an interdimensional focal point which has manifested itself in the middle of the Man-Thing’s swamp. Though the Man Thing’s adventures have occasionally drawn him away from the swamp, he has always returned, and it is said that he is destined to remain the guardian of the nexus on this plane of existence for as long as the nexus continues to manifest itself in this reality.