Man-Thing In The MCU: Putting More Pieces Together

About a year ago I put together the pieces of the possibility of Man-Thing’s presence in the MCU. With the release of the Thor: Ragnarok trailer has come a whole new piece to add to the puzzle. Man-Thing, bless his swampy cotton socks, may be about to make his MCU debut in the flesh. In the trailer, we see a shot of a ship flying toward the Grandmaster’s arena / tower. Upon that tower are several large statues of different character’s heads. Among them are the likes of Bi-Beast, Ares, possibly Fin Fang Foom, Beta Ray Bill, and of course, perched at the very top, we see Man-Thing.

I didn’t spot this particular Easter egg myself, that honour can go to Anthony McQueen, who pointed it out on the Marvel Cinematic Universe facebook page. While all those other characters are interesting Easter eggs, Man-Thing is pretty much the only definite recurring one. If that is Fin Fang Foom on the bottom, then of course there was the Adi Granov artwork of him in Iron Man, but that was very much just an Easter egg. Man-Thing is one of those characters that has been alluded to across the MCU’s different media. There have been references to his existence in both movies and TV shows. But what might his depiction on Grandmaster’s tower mean? Before we answer that, if you haven’t already, check out the original Man-Thing in the MCU theory right here.

So, what do we know about Man-Thing? If his character hasn’t been drastically altered in the MCU then he’s still the guardian of the Nexus of All Reality, he’s still a prominent supernatural entity, and he’s got the ability to burn anything that feels afraid. We know for certain that the Nexus of All Reality exists in the MCU, as it was written on Selvig’s blackboard in Thor: The Dark World. What we know about Sakaar is that it’s a junk planet where things from all over the universe just find their way there through portals. Given that the Hulk has ended up there, having just flown off into space, it’s a likely possibility that Man-Thing has been to Sakaar at some point, having accessed the planet through the Nexus. The likelihood then is that Man-Thing was a fighter in the Grandmaster’s arena. In the comics, Grandmaster runs fights like the Contest of Champions, where heroes and villains alike duke it out to prove their strengh. Man-Thing, along with the other characters whose likenesses are featured on Grandmaster’s tower, are likely past victors of such contests.

However what must also be taken into account is the fact that this film is taking inspiration from Planet Hulk. In that particular story, fighters like Hulk were forced to wear devices which confined them to the arena. It’s possible that this is the case in Thor: Ragnarok, and if it is, then those characters on the tower may not be past champions, but current popular fighters. Furthermore, if that’s the case, then they may actually feature in the movie. It might be in as little a capacity as a bar scene or maybe even just glimpsing them fight in the arena. We know that Miek and Korg from the Planet Hulk story arc are going to be in the movie, and given that they’re gladiators, we can’t rule out that we’ll see a scene with multiple gladiator characters. Among them may be Man-Thing, or even more exciting a possibility, Beta Ray Bill.

Regardless, there’s even more reference to Man-Thing in the MCU now than there was before, so I can’t just write this off as a basic Easter egg. But what do you think? D’you reckon we’ll actually see Man-Thing in the flesh or d’you think he’ll be left a disembodied metallic head on a tower?