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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

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of iHeartRadio.

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Hi, my Name is Robert Lammin. This is the

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Monster Fact, a short form series

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from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in non

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mythical creatures, ideas and

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monsters in time. Let

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us return to the pages of Marvel Comics

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to consider a true monster. Man

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Thing. It's not to be confused with DC's

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swamp Thing, but he stands

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as something of his spiritual twin

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sibling, So both man

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Thing and swamp Thing are hybrid

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swamp based humanoids created

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through an explosive collision of

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humanity, mad science and

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swamp water. Both characters

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hit the comics for the first time in

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nineteen seventy one. However,

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most commentators seem to see it merely

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as coincidence and point to very

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differences in the characters. Plus

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Marvel's walking swamp creature the

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Heap, predates both of them,

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dating back to the early nineteen forties, as

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does the muck Monster It from

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Street and Smith Comics.

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Still, these various swamp beings

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become linked. They have a kinship,

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and you'll even find a panel in Alan Moore's

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swamp Thing run visually

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suggesting kinship between swamp

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Thing, man Thing, the Heap, and others.

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But I've already talked about swamp Thing on

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the Monster fact, so let's get serious about

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man Thing. As pointed

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out by Kelly Knox in the book Monsters

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Creatures of the Marvel Universe, man

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Thing started off with a human scientist

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named Ted Sallus. Now,

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like a lot of Marvel comic books, scientists,

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Ted worked on super soldier serums,

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at least until enemies tried to take it

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from him. Ted then injected

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himself with the serum and accidentally

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wrecked his car in the Everglades and

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was also exposed to extra dimensional

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forces in the process. So what emerged

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from the swamp was neither man nor

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Thing, but man Thing, a

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humanoid swamp creature that would become

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the guardian of the Nexus of Reality,

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where science and magic converge.

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Man Thing boasts incredible strength

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and can throw down with the toughest of physical

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opponents, but some of his most impressive

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powers are due to his empathy. Man

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Thing is so empathic that negative

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emotions in others can cause him physical

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pain and distress, especially

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when he senses fear. This

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will also cause him to lash out violently

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at individuals in the throes of fear and

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lay his burning hands upon them.

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Man Thing's burning hands are

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fascinating superpower, brought to

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life most wonderfully in the twenty

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twenty two MCU Werewolf

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by Night special, which captures

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it as a kind of holy fire that

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incinerates Ted's victims. On

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one level, this seems to be just another version

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of various magical tales in which creatures

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feed off of fear or sense fear

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in others, as if it is an actual

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energy or a quantifiable

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substance. Man Thing's

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abilities, however, are frequently

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explained in terms of chemistry.

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NOx attributes his burning touch to

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chemicals in man Thing's body and

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sumeric and wallace in marvel anatomy.

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The authors here presume that this chemical secretion

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is something akin to sulphuric acid, that

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it's excreted through man Thing's pores.

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I suppose we might compare this ability to the

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self defensive secretions of various

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natural world organisms, and given

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man things plant based physiology,

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we have to acknowledge that certain plants do secrete

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acidic substances through their roots,

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in some cases to dissolve rocky soil,

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and in other cases to eradicate competition.

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But what about this notion that a monster like

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man, thing, or even a natural world organism

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can quote sense fear. It's

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a common trope, but is there anything

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to it. Certainly there is no true

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sixth sense for fear in which humans

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or other animals can tap into

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an otherwise invisible video

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game fear meter. Fear,

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like other human defined emotional states,

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is hard to quantify in animals and

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subject to human testing bias, as

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Ralph Adolf's discussed in the twenty

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thirteen Current Biology article The Biology

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of Fear. Some argue that

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fear is a mere psychological

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construct and something we can't apply

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to animals as we cannot truly

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know their minds. On the other

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hand, neuroimaging in rodents would seem to

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reveal a clear fear network in

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their brains. Ad also

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stressed a distinction to be

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made between the conscious human

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feeling of being afraid and

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fear as a functional state of

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an organism. This state

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exists in relation to fear inducing

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stimuli, which for humans at least can

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be in the present past or in imagined

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future, and induces fearful

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behavior. Fear in both

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cognition and behavior is largely

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adaptive, and it is because fear

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can help us survive, though

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of course, all of this can become maladaptive

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as well. Now, man things relation

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to fear is interesting in light of all of this. He

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acutely fears the effects

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of another organism's fear, but

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the source of his own emotional distress

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in this scenario is not the fear inducing

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stimuli that caused the original distress,

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but the distressed organism itself,

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which he may then incinerate with his burning

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hands due to a fear response

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chemical secretion in his own

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body. So there's a lot to unpact

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there. But hey, still a pretty

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great swamp monster and I'm

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always down for a cool swamp monster.

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Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster

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Fact each week. As always, you can email

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us at contact at stuff Toble your Mind

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dot com.

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