the 2010s and appeared as a three-issue miniseries cover-titled The Infernal Man-Thing (Early Sept.-Oct. 2012). The story was a sequel to Gerber's "Song-Cry of the Living Dead Man" in Man-Thing #12 (Dec. 1974). Author R.L. Stine made his comics debut with a five-issue Man-Thing miniseries in 2017. Fictional character biography Young biochemist Dr. Theodore "Ted" Sallis, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, is working in the Everglades as part of Dr. Wilma Calvin's Project: Gladiator team, which includes Dr. Barbara Morse and her fiancé Dr. Paul Allen, and an assistant named Jim. A Dr. Wendell is later cited as being on the staff after Dr. Calvin is shot. The group is attempting to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum that had created Captain America. Web of Spider-Man vol. 2 #6 revealed that Sallis at one point treated and worked alongside Dr. Curtis Connors shortly after Connors' arm was amputated, driving the research that would eventually transform Connors into the Lizard. Though warned that the technological terrorist group Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) has been operating in the area, Sallis breaches security by bringing with him his lover, Ellen Brandt (referred to here as "Miss Brandt", but later retconned to be his wife). He destroys his notes to his formula, which he has memorized. Later, he is ambushed by two thugs and learns that Brandt has betrayed him. Fleeing with the only sample of his serum, he injects himself with it in hopes of saving himself. However, he crashes his car into the swamp where scientific and, as Man-Thing #1 later explained, magical forces combine to instantly transform him into a slow-moving plant-matter creature with large, solid red eyes. Unable to speak, and with dim memories, he attacks the ambushers and Brandt, burning and scarring part of her face with an acid that he now secretes in the presence of negative emotions. The Man-Thing then wanders away into the swamp. Sallis' mind was apparently extinguished, although on rare occasions he could briefly return to consciousness within his monstrous form, as in Doctor Strange vol. 2 #41 (June 1980), The Defenders #98 (Aug. 1981), and Peter Parker: Spider-Man Annual '99, and even to his human form, as in Adventure into Fear #13 (April 1973), Marvel Two-in-One #1 (Jan. 1974), Marvel Comics Presents #164 (Oct. 1994), and Man-Thing vol. 3 #5 and 7-8 (April 1998, June–July 1998). Under writer Steve Gerber, the Man-Thing encounters the sorceress Jennifer