WEREHYENA

Real Name: Possibly Mack Tannen (see comments)

Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Earth-26320) Yainanthrope (see comments)

Occupation: Possibly Nightly news anchor

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: None

Enemies: Nightstalkers (Abigail Whistler, Caulder, Hannibal King)

Known Relatives: (if Mack Tannen) Four wives (presumably divorced or widowed for at least three of those), six or seven children (names and genders unrevealed)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: New York City

First Appearance: (deleted scene) Blade: Trinity DVD (April 26th 2005);
  (on screen and human form) Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (November 24th 2013) (perhaps - see comments)

 

Powers/Abilities: The werehyena possessed enhanced senses, strength, agility and durability, as well as presumably regenerative healing. Like most therianthropes he was probably vulnerable to silver. He also had sharp claws and fangs.

   If he was Mack Tannen, then he was also an experienced and charismatic news presenter.

 

Height: (human) 6'1"; (werehyena) 7'2" (see comments)
Weight: (human) 185 lbs. (by estimation); (werehyena) unrevealed
Eyes: (human) Hazel; (werehyena) Yellow
Hair: (human) Gray; (werehyena) Red-black

 

History:
(Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (fb) - BTS) - At some point under unrevealed circumstances television news presenter Mack Tannen contracted yainanthropy, becoming a werehyena. He understandably kept this a secret.

   During his decades long career he married four times, and had six or seven children, though work gave him little free time to spend with them.

   In 1978 (whether before or after becoming a werebeast is unrevealed) he won an Emmy for Outstanding Feature Story and Outstanding Investigative Journalism.

    


(Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) - In 1979 Mack Tannen was now the most famous nightly news anchor in New York City, and due to soon retire from WBC News, having now presented the evening news for over 35 years. Under unrevealed circumstances (possibly in were-form) he killed four men in Okinawa. Two weeks later he called a meeting with his subordinates, news anchors and married couple Veronica Corningstone and Ron Burgundy, where he ignored personal space issues to examine both of them, and got creepily familiar touching Veronica's face. He then informed her that she was to be promoted and become the first female full time network news anchor. Then he fired Ron, proclaiming him the worst anchorman that Mack had ever seen.

   Several months later multiple rival newsteams met to fight one another in a battle royale. Unwilling to be left out Mack showed up and asked them if they had room in the battle for an old warhorse. Ron told him he was too old for the combat, but Mack cockily stated that when there was an early (full) moon, he almost felt like a stallion. As Ron's ally Champ Kind worriedly inquired if Mack was on their side in the coming conflict, Mack's eyes turned yellow, he began to grow hair all over his body, and his clothes ripped as his muscles expanded. Witnessing the transformation Ron exclaimed out loud that Mack was a werehyena, and MTV Host Wesley Jackson announced he was going to call Michael Jackson, as he'd suddenly thought of a video idea.


(Blade: Trinity deleted scene) - In the early 2000s the Nightstalkers, who formerly hunted vampires until the nosferatu population suffered a major decline due to a virus, turned their attention to other supernatural creatures. They tracked the werehyena to a nightclub/casino in Shanghai, China. Nightstalker Abigail Whistler located him within the club and he transformed to fight her, sending her flying through a paper partition window onto a pool table. Following his opponent through and onto the table, the werehyena was confronted by Abigail and her two comrades, Hannibal King and Caulder, all three with pistols and rifles cocked and ready. As the other club patrons ran screaming, the werehyena snarled menacingly at its foes, who opened fire.

  

Comments: Created by David Goyer. Designed by Spectral Motion, and sculpted, painted and styled by Norman Cabrera. The actor in the suit is uncredited, but my bet would be Brian Steele, a.k.a. CreatureBoy, as he portrays many of the creatures that Spectral Motion creates, including Drake's monstrous form in Blade: Trinity, and he's shown testing how the suit fits when it was partially constructed in an Instagram video posted by Spectral Motion. Originally intended for the  epilogue in Blade: Trinity, the scene was shot but then cut after test audiences disliked it, though it could still be seen on home DVD releases as an extra, and it is included in the novelization. However, since nothing was shot that contradicts this ending, I think it's fine to assume that it still happened, just off camera. It is mentioned in this ending that "all the vampires are gone", a claim that is contradicted by the Blade TV series that followed, but that can presumably be put down to the person speaking being wrong; immediately following the ending of Blade: Trinity a large percentage of vampires did die from the virus that was unleashed, but far from all of them, and the survivors came back in force.

   The suit was re-used and finally seen on the big screen at the end of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, where Mack Tannen, played by Harrison Ford, decides to join in a battle royal between news teams. This time round it was definitely Brian Steele in the costume, as he got credited. As I started writing this profile I suddenly realized that there's nothing afaik that would prevent the Anchorman movies being in Reality-26320, the Blade movies and TV series universe. Obviously that wasn't the intent at the time, and sure, the Anchorman movies are absurdist comedies, but in the comics we've retroactively had different titles originally intended to be unconnected come to share the same universe umpteen times, and have gritty "serious" titles sharing the same realities as ridiculous comedy comics, so the genre and tones being different isn't a deal breaker. Which means that it might be the same character in both movies. As such, the above entry is written with that possibility in mind - though since Anchorman 2 doesn't make it clear which side of the fight he's joining, I'm using that as my excuse to avoid having to list all the different news teams that were about to take part in the allies or enemies lists.

 

   In the movie's deleted scene the encounter takes place in Shanghai (per on screen titles) and in what appears to be a combination nightclub/casino; the doorman that Hannibal King talks to is identified as Dimitri, and there are three Nightstalkers present (Abigail Whistler, Hannibal King and Caulder). In the original script, and the novelization by Natasha Rhodes it is in "the city" in a bar called the Slaughtered Lamb (a nod to An American Werewolf in London), a punk dive in the meatpacking district, the doorman is Lucius and only two Nightstalkers (Abigail and Hannibal). So either the Nightstalkers had two very similar encounters with werebeasts, with Hannibal even recycling some of his jokes, or the novel can't be the same reality as the movie. Nevertheless, given we don't get a good enough look at the werehyena in either appearance to estimate height, I'm going to go with the novel's statement that it was "over seven feet tall."

 

   Is he a werewolf or a werehyena? Despite claims online that this guy is Jack Russell, a.k.a. Werewolf by Night, he's definitely not identified by that name, or indeed any others. David Goyer's script describes him as "A HILL-BILLY HIPSTER WERE-CREATURE," and notes that "King FIRES point-blank into the were-creature" - again, not werewolf - although it does describe the beast as having "canid teeth" - for those who don't know, canid is the clade that includes dogs and wolves, but not hyenas. But is a description of the teeth being dog-like enough to swing things? In Anchorman 2 he's definitely called a werehyena, but (a) I know some people will balk at considering info from that movie as canon, and (b) it was Ron Burgundy who said it and he's a guy who doesn't recognize the name Julius Caesar because he "doesn't follow the NBA," so not what you'd call a reliable source. The deleted scene and Blade: Trinity novelization don't specify - to be exact, Hannibal King says in both "What do you get when you cross a vampire with a werewolf?" but he's setting up a joke, and since nobody thinks the creature that shows up as he's making this joke is either a vampire or vampire-werewolf hybrid, then why assume it is a werewolf either? Possibly the best answer comes from Norman Cabrera, who says on his Instagram that it is a "biker Hyena werewolf"; so definitely Hyena in the mix, and given that a LOT of people inaccurately use "werewolf" to describe any were-creature (and ditto for people using lycanthrope - literally wolf-man - to describe all therianthropes - "wild beast-human"), then I'm willing to go with it being a werehyena, or perhaps a hybrid. Since both lycan and therian are derived from the Greek words for wolf (lykos) and wild beast (therio), I presume that werehyena's official designation should be derived from the same pattern, i.e. the Greek word for hyena - ýaina - should be attached to the Greek word for man - anthropos - to give us something like Yainanthrope.

 

   This profile was completed on 05/11/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary's celebratory event to represent the Blade movies. 

  

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The werehyena has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Blade: Trinity deleted scenes screenshots and behind the scenes photos (werehyena main, headshot and both biker outfit images)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues screen shots and publicity shots (Mack Tannen image, werehyena in ripped suit image)
Deadpool and Wolverine deleted scene screenshot (confirmation that Anchorman is in the MCU multiverse) :P

Appearances:
Blade: Trinity DVD special features (April 26th 2005) - David Goyer (writer, director)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (November 24th 2013) - Will Ferrell (writer), Adam McKay (writer, director)

First Posted: 09/25/2026
Last updated: 05/11/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
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