SAINTE-CLOUD

Real Name: Unrevealed, possibly Sainte-Cloud

Identity/Class: Human

Occupation: Poet

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Ted Sallis (later the Man-Thing), Sheboygan (her dog), Jeremy

Enemies: Charlie/Chuck and his uncle

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: East Village, New York

First Appearance: Man-Thing I#15 (March, 1975)

Powers/Abilities: Sainte-Cloud is a free spirit, with some skill in poetry and guitar playing.

History: (Man-Thing I#15 (fb)) - In Greenwich Village, Sainte-Cloud met Ted Sallis when she asked him for spare change. Intrigued by the young free spirit, he gave her some change, with which she bought coffee for the both of them, and they shared their woes with each other. Specifically, Sallis told her of his moral dilemma over his research (though he didn't tell her details, he was worried about the SO-2 chemical, which would make mankind resistant to pollution, but would also cause a large amount of mutation). Afterwards, he allowed her to sleep on the couch of his apartment.

(Man-Thing I#15 (fb)) - Moved by his conversations with Sainte-Cloud, Sallis told her that he spoke out against the project (Project Sulfur), and then he proposed to her. However, she felt they were too different to make it, and left him laying on a hill in Central Park.

(Man-Thing I#15 (fb) - BTS) - Sainte-Cloud moved to a small apartment in the East Village, where she intermittently dated a guy named Chuck, though she eventually broke it off with him. She later began dating a blind man, Jeremy.

(Man-Thing I#15 (fb) - BTS) - Chuckconvinced his uncle, the candle-maker of Grennard Candleworks, to fashion a candle in the form of the Man-Thing, inspired by the creature's recent rampage through Manhattan (@ Giant-Size Man-Thing#2). Charlie knew that Sainte-Cloud would want such an odd candle, and he had the candle-maker mix an hallucinogen with the wax, so that Sainte-Cloud would suffer delusions, from which he could rescue her, intending to ingratiate himself to her.
    Chuckthen told Sainte-Cloud about the the candle ship.

(Man-Thing I#15) - From the Grennard Candleworks, Sainte-Cloud purchased the Man-Thing candle. Seeking something to inspire her meditations for her poetry, she was drawn to the hideous form of the creature. She did not know that the Man-Thing was her old friend Ted Sallis. Returning to her apartment, she prepared to meditate on the candle, ignoring the warnings of her blind friend Jeremy, who insisted there was something evil about the candle. Lighting the candle, Sainte-Cloud had a flashback to her meeting of Ted Sallis, but then the flashback went awry as the Man-Thing seemingly appeared and attacked her. As the Man-Thing grabbed her terrified form, she burnt her wrist on the candle and was shocked back to reality.
    She invited Jeremy over to help her regain her composure, but the candle continued to burn, affecting both of them. Jeremy seemingly regained his sight, while Sainte-Cloud flashed back to the day she had last seen Sallis. Again the flashback warped, and she seemed to be transported to a swamp, where the Man-Thing spoke to her in the voice of Sallis. Jeremy then appeared to her, offering to show her the way out, but actually was leading her to an open window. Chuck then came to the apartment, stopping them from falling out the window. Chuck revealed that the candle had contained an hallucinogen, leading to a fight with Jeremy, whose hallucination of sight quickly faded. However, Chuck was affected by the drug as well, and when Jeremy followed the sound of his voice and tackled him, he appeared to fall at the feet of the Man-Thing, who touched and burned his terrified face. In reality, it was the candle which had burned his face, as his fall had splashed him with hot wax. The candle now out, Sainte-Cloud and Jeremy called an ambulance for Chuck, while Sainte-Cloud picked up the candle and thought more about Ted Sallis.

Comments: Created by Steve Gerber and Rico Rival.

    Odd, surreal, little story.

    All the dates given in this comic are topical. They would be in reference to 1971, the year the Man-Thing was created. I.e. the date of 1967 would mean that the events took place 4 years before Sallis became the Man-Thing. However, I'm not certain that even that information would be correct, given the numerous ret-cons, etc. in the Man-Thing's history. According to Man-Thing I#15, the last time Sallis saw Sainte-Cloud was September, 3-4 years before his mutation.

    Sainte-Cloud would seem an unlikely name for a girl born in the fifties or forties, as the original story would require. However, given the sliding time scale, she would have been born decades later, her parents could have been hippies, and Sainte-Cloud might be her realm name.
Or they could have been beatniks, who were around in the 1950's.
--Per Degaton

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

 

images:
Man-Thing I#15, p1
    p10, panel 3 (candle)
    p26, panel 4 (face)

Last updated: 01/18/05

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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