Spoilers Warning: Werewolf By Night

Werewolf By Night is Marvel’s latest and spookiest addition to the MCU, but instead of getting just one new Marvel superhero on the big screen, we got three. Werewolf By Night gave us all a big shock when Marvel revealed they would be putting out a very genuine horror film. The trailer released at D23 gave us all quite a fright, but nothing was scarier than the real thing. Fans had theorized that perhaps Werewolf by Night might lead to the Midnight Sons or would somehow connect through more Marvel Comics through Man-Thing. While we all knew Elsa Bloodstone was going to be in the film, nobody guessed she would play such a big role.

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Elsa Bloodstone made the fabric that bound the whole movie together. The magical Bloodstone of her namesake had been in her family for generations and served as the premise for bringing all the movie’s monster hunters together. It seemed that Werewolf by Night, or Jack Russell, was fairly secondary to a story that was mostly about Elsa in the first place.

The power of the Bloodstone weakened Man-Thing and forced Jack to become his werewolf self. In a movie that introduced a whole world of Marvel monsters, this stone seemed to have power over all of them. But the question is: what is the Bloodstone?

The Bloodstone’s History

     Marvel StudiosDisney

Elsa’s father, Ulysses Bloodstone, found the magical object first when a supernatural meteorite fell to Earth thousands of years ago. Though he had died before the beginning of Werewolf by Night, Ulysses was just a caveman when he found the rock. In the comics, the powers of the meteorite were controlled by the Exo-Mind, an ancient entity of great power. The Exo-Mind sends his harbinger to search for a human worthy of wielding what in the comics is called the Bloodgem, but Ulysses found it first.

He fought for the stone and, in the fight, smashed the meteorite, causing a huge explosion. The explosion killed all of Ulysses’ tribe, and a piece of the meteorite embedded itself into his chest. The Bloodgem made him immortal, but he swore revenge on the entity for the destruction it caused.

In the comics, that stone is powered by revenge. The powers it grants its wielder are largely pinned on how great their desire for revenge is. When Ulysses died thousands of years later, it was only because he had finally enacted his revenge on the Bloodstone through a complicated psychic battle, and so it was passed to Elsa. In the MCU’s Werewolf by Night, we understand some subtext about Elsa’s grudge against her father, but we never really get a look at the whole story.

At the end of the movie, Elsa sits in possession of the Bloodstone now that she is finally rid of her father. Verussa, perhaps Ulysses’ last living ally, was killed and thrown into his coffin, symbolically decapitating his corpse. Now that Elsa is free and has the Bloodstone and everything her father owned, what exactly will she do with it? Early in the movie, she says to Verussa that it is none of her business, but what she does with that stone could have a great impact on the MCU.

What Will Elsa Do With the Bloodstone?

     Marvel Comics

Elsa Bloodstone is a prominent monster hunter in Marvel Comics. She uses the Bloodstone’s power to hunt down infernal beasts and occasionally deal with her father’s unfinished business. She’s also met Deadpool a few times. The Bloodstone gives her increased strength, agility, and some light regenerative abilities. She’s immune to vampire bites and, in some of the more recent comics, can use the Bloodstone to shoot energy blasts from her hand.

Her primary purpose as a superhero is quite simply to destroy all monsters and rid the Earth of evil. And while she is perhaps not the most well-known heroin in the Marvel universe, she is a part of some spectacular Marvel events.

Perhaps most notably, Elsa is an original member of the Midnight Sons. As a person who fights monsters and demons, Doctor Strange looked to her as an ally when assembling a team to confront a powerful hellish villain. Her proximity to monsters puts her in an interesting position as the MCU moves to explore more of its darker characters. Everyone is excited about Blade’s upcoming movie. And with the Kraven the Hunter release fast approaching, it’s possible she might make an appearance since she’s fought him before in the comics.

As the MCU expands its multiverse, fans wonder when the franchise might introduce characters like Ghost Rider and Mephisto, which would open the portals of hell onto Earth, undoubtedly giving Elsa a lot of work to do. With shows like House of Harkness and Marvel Zombies coming up, there will be plenty of evil for her to deal with. Elsa Bloodstone, in general, is just a character that will be there every time someone needs to kill a monster or if there is spooky magic that needs to be dealt with.

Rest assured; we’ll see her and the Bloodstone again.