AMG dropped a surprise preview on us, so here we go with one of the weirdest, wildest characters in all of Marveldom! Behold: the Man-Thing!
Who Is Man-Thing?
Dr. Ted Sallis’s story begins where so many other Marvel characters’ do: trying to recreate Captain America’s super-soldier serum, this time in the Everglades for some reason. (Seriously, just stop- it never works, and it always causes problems…) Bad Guys (™) try to hijack it, and the good doctor injects himself with it in the hope of saving his life. One poorly-timed car crash later, he finds himself transformed by the magical power of the Nexus of Realities that lurks in the center of the swamp into the monstrous Man-Thing, a vaguely sentient creature who instinctively protects the region. There are more twists and turns here, including team-ups with Doctor Strange, Phil Coulson, and Magik, as well as membership in the Legion of Monsters, but let’s get to what you’re all here for: what he brings to Marvel Crisis Protocol!
Man-Thing’s stats are respectable but nothing flashy for a 3 threat character; 6 health is nice, but 3-3-4 defenses aren’t exactly setting the world on fire. That said, there’s more than meets the eye here. His biggest downside is probably his S movement speed, but he is on a medium base and has a range 3 builder attack, which help mitigate the problem a bit.
Speaking of his builder, Man-Thing’s Lashing Tendrils attack is a solid one- 5 physical dice at Range 3, with a hit/wild trigger to Push Size 3 or lower targets towards him. Like Emma Frost (perhaps it is my lot to review exclusively hit/wild trigger models?), this has about a 40% to pop off on a given attack, so it’s not reliable, but it’s not unlikely to happen either, especially if you can attack twice.
Man-Thing’s spender, Emotional Agitation, is pretty spicy. It’s 7 mystic dice at Range 3 for 3 power, already pretty decent, but the real good stuff here is that the attack automatically Poisons and Incinerates the target. This is really good, and will both debilitate enemy models and set up his teammates nicely (though it does have a little bit of anti-synergy with his superpower All Who Know Fear…– see below).
For superpowers- holy hannah, there’s some great stuff here. Guardian of the Nexus of All Realities is an amazing ability, which for 3 power places this character or another allied character within Range 3 of Man-Thing anywhere within Range 3 of their current position. (They can be affected by this only once per turn.) This is straight-up awesome, an absolute game-changing power that has many applications- setting up future activations, rescuing models in danger, or repositioning models your opponent has displaced. This kind of utility makes a model automatically worthy of consideration in list building, potentially even out-of-affiliation, especially on a 3 threat model. The only weakness here is that it’s comparatively expensive and Man-Thing may struggle a little bit to build the power to use it consistently.
All Who Know Fear Burn at the Man-Thing’s Touch is a really cool power- if you attack an enemy, or get attacked, and the attack deals damage, if the enemy is within Range 2, they gain the Incinerate condition. Incinerate is one of the most impactful conditions in the game, dramatically reducing models’ survivability, especially those like Web Warriors who rely on rerollable defense dice, so any ability to put it out is good, especially defensively. This also conveniently shares an “After Resolved” timing window with the Reel In trigger on Lashing Tendrils, so you can choose to resolve them in the order of your choice- meaning that if you pull an enemy model into range 2, they get Incinerated as long as you dealt damage.
Moss and Mud and Swamp is an ability that is tough to numerically quantify, given the swingy nature of Marvel dice. It prevents your opponent from “exploding” their crits against you, and may do nothing (if they don’t roll any) or absolutely save your bacon (when they roll three of them). I think the best way to think about this superpower is that it prevents one of the greatest game-changing possibilities in Marvel: getting “spiked” by a lucky attack roll. However many dice your opponent rolls in an attack is the maximum damage Ted is taking from that attack, which offers him a consistency in his endurance that his 3-3-4 defensive statline doesn’t necessarily indicate.
Oh, and he has six health on his healthy side and Healing Factor (2), so that consistency is even more valuable. He might be amongst the best models in the game to play Instant Recovery, as you can be more confident he’ll actually get a chance to do so. He’s also very difficult to “one shot” by all but the very largest attacks. Immunity to Hex and Stun round out the picture, ensuring he’ll build power consistently (very important for Guardian of the Nexus…) and keep exploding his own crits both defensively and offensively. I suspect Man-Thing is going to be deceptively annoying to put down for a 3-3-4 three threat character!
The only thing that changes on Man-Thing’s injured side is that he goes down one health (to five).
Man-Thing also has a unique Team Tactics Card!
Um…what?
We’ve never seen anything quite like this in Marvel Crisis Protocol before. Now I know, the immediate reaction might be “but it only works 50% of the time, and you don’t have any control over when,” and you’d be right to say that, but also…your opponent doesn’t have any control over it either. This card seriously impacts your opponent’s turn in two ways. First, it might just absolutely ruin their activations. It’s not super likely that Miles Morales will completely fail to escape Man-Thing, with access to two moves and a web-swing (remember, this card only triggers on the first movement each turn), but it’s absolutely possible he might end up being placed in whatever is the very worst possible spot on his first try, which will cost your opponent actions and power to correct (and likely still puts him way closer to your team and thus danger than he would have been). Second, this card is also a tremendous cognitive load on your opponent to have to consider the likelihood that their first movement just doesn’t work and actually might make their situation significantly worse for every single model that activates within Range 3 of Man-Thing. The cumulative effect (and building frustration if they do fail for multiple models) could be back-breaking to a round’s plans. I think this card has real potential, even if there is some risk attached to it (it might just do nothing if you roll badly, but hey, that’s MCP). and expect to see it played as valuable counter-tech against highly mobile teams.
It’s worth noting, if you haven’t, that this power triggers on movement, not advances. Let that sink in for a minute and think about the sheer breadth of what in this game is considered a movement. Pushes, places, etc.- all movement. This card throws a big potential spanner in the works for a lot of teams’ mobility. It even messes with abilities like Black Panther’s Pounce where a character can throw themselves- a throw is a movement. They’ll get the collision, but you can place them afterwards in such a way as to deny the attacks they were hoping to make afterwards; in the case of someone like Black Panther or Gamora, whose builder attacks are Range 2, you might be able to place them where they can’t even attack Man-Thing, either! Just keep in mind it only affects enemy characters- you can’t use Dimensional Quagmire to replace yourself after being thrown.
The playaround to Dimensional Quagmire is probably to just displace or kill Man-Thing, of course, but those are not trivial to do, given his superpower suite. More importantly, doing so might force your opponent to activate in specific ways/orders they don’t want to. Overall, this is a wild tactics card that I’m looking forward to seeing on the table!
Where Does He Fit?
All we know about Man-Thing’s affiliations right now is that he’ll be part of the Midnight Sons. He has worked with Dr. Strange and SHIELD in the past, so SHIELD or Defenders isn’t out of the question, but we’ll have to wait and see. In Midnight Sons, he offers a great 3-threat option who will love Siege of Darkness for another opportunity to incinerate nearby enemies and whose Guardian of the Nexus… superpower will bring some much-needed mobility to some of their powerful beater models who would rather spend activations attacking than moving.
Overall, this is a very exciting character, one with great utility in the 3 threat spot. He seems poised to make an impact on the MCP world soon after his release in January!
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