Back in November, ridiculously prolific Goosebumps author R.L. Stine announced that he’d started working on a new comic book series for Marvel, but that he wasn’t allowed to reveal any details on the title or characters he’d be working with. Now, news has broken about which comic book creation will feel Stine’s ghoulish touch: the monstrous Man-Thing.
Besides being the basis for some top-notch internet puerility, Marvel’s fear-hating swamp-dweller seems like a good fit for Stine’s creepy crawly sensibility, especially given how many swamp monsters and other old-school horror creations cropped up in Goosebumps. (Plus, both series have plenty of throwbacks to old ’50s horror comics, with all their mean-spirited endings and supernatural vengeance.)
That being said, it sounds like Stine will mix up the Man-Thing’s normal M.O.—which usually involves barely sentient wanderings into weird situations, becoming enraged by people feeling fear, and then burning them with his powerful touch—by imbuing the character with intelligence and a sarcastic sense of humor. The series will debut next March, with Man-Thing—depicted by cover artist Tyler Crook and artists German Peralta and Daniel Johnson—heading to Hollywood to figure out why nobody’s made a movie about him yet.
[via io9]
[Note: io9, like The A.V. Club, is owned by Univision Communications.]