A vestige of Man-Thing, the swamp monster known as Boy-Thing is as strong as the planet itself and protective of his partner, Blade the Vampire Hunter.
Like Father, Like Son
As the Shadow Colonel, Dracula’s son Xarus traveled to the Florida Everglades to seek the muck-monster Ted Sallis, AKA Man-Thing, and upon finding him attacked to gain a piece of the creature. Though taken by force, that piece retains a semblance of sentience and when placed upon Xarus’ shoulder becomes known as Boy-Thing.
Plant Powers
Boy-Thing presumably possesses all the natural powers and abilities of its parent Man-Thing, but predominantly produces a seemingly unlimited amount of wooden stakes from its body, and also can expand its form to cover an adult human in a kind of armor casing. This armor can withstand a large degree of punishment, and also allows the wearer communications and life-support.
Boy-Thing does not speak, per se, but can communicate to those beings able to pick up on empathic waves. In this way, the creature expresses its feelings and desires to an extent.
In the Garden
Having not existed long as a separate entity from Man-Thing, Boy-Thing has not yet formed many alliances or earned many enemies. Although, the vampiric Shadow Colonel forces it into servitude and as such, Boy-Thing shows disdain toward other vampires and a willingness to aid in their destruction. Boy-Thing does form a kind of bond with the vampire hunter Eric Brooks, AKA Blade, which results in a formidable team-effort between them in dangerous situations. Presumably, the creature’s desire to help extends to Blade’s teammates, the Avengers.
A Boy and his Blade
Boy-Thing accompanied the Shadow Colonel as a slave on several excursions across the globe, notably to Romania, Avengers Mountain, and Madripoor. During these missions, his master forced him to produce wooden stakes to be used against other vampires during the species’ so-called civil war.
Blade the Vampire Hunter caught up to the Colonel finally and engaged him in combat. When he ripped off his opponent’s arm, Blade gained Boy-Thing in the act and swiftly utilized the small creature’s help to decapitate the Shadow Colonel. After that, the two formed a fast bond and Boy-Thing seemed content to produce plant-based weaponry for his new master to fight vampires.
Recently, Blade and the Avengers traveled to a prison galaxy in deep space to investigate the coming of a new Starbrand. When the vampire hunter experienced great pain from a bombardment of sunlight from the many stars arrayed all around him, Boy-Thing formed itself into a living armored shell to allow Blade to move about and battle opponents.
