What is the Bloodstone? Werewolf by Night, the new horror movie special based in the MCU directed by Michael Giacchino, brings in a whole new aesthetic and setting for the franchise. Borrowing from classic Universal monster movies, we follow a selection of hunters who wanted to be the next wielders off the mysterious Bloodstone, currently held by one Ulysses Bloodstone.
The Bloodstone patriarch is dying, and someone has to carry on his work. Could that be the namesake character, or perhaps estranged Elsa? Or Man-Thing? This object is highly coveted, and only the strongest and smartest will come away with the prize.
But what is the Bloodstone in the Marvel series special? Is it much different from the comics? Why does everyone want it so much? There’s a history to be uncovered, and thankfully the comics can give us the answers. This is no Infinity Stone, but it can still alter the paradigm of the universe, and we can tell you exactly how.
What is the Bloodstone?
The Bloodstone is an ancient gem that landed on Earth thousands of years ago. It was created by the Exo-Mind, a race of beings that wanted to conquer the known universe. They needed to find a host, and were on that mission when they got into a scuffle with a human being.
That human was Ulysses Bloodstone, or him as a hunter during the Stone Age at least. He stumbled onto and fought the Exo-Mind for the bright red stone, and in the fight, the rock exploded into several pieces. Much of Ulysses’ tribe were killed, but he was imbued with a fragment that gave him superhuman powers and immortality.
He spends the rest of his life simultaneously looking for revenge on the rest of the Exo-Mind, and finding others who have pieces of the Bloodstone to stop them using it for harm. This takes many thousands of years, and eventually he’s succeeded by his daughter, Elsa Bloodstone.
What can the Bloodstone do?
In the comics, the Bloodstone makes you stronger, faster, gives you higher resistance to the elements, special cognitive abilities like ESP, and an immortality. Werewolf by Night on Disney Plus only really goes into the immortality part, as Ulysses, whose body has started to decay because he’s so old, decides to have a group of hunters compete to be his successor.
Later in the special, the Bloodstone is seen as having the power to disrupt other monsters. You can use it to force a transformation, or subdue and control a beast if needed. The limitations of the object are ill-defined thus far, though it seems to broadly have the same origin.
Elsa Bloodstone is the one who ends up holding it. She’s not a fan of her dad, so we’ll have to wait and see what she gets up to with all that power. You can check out our list of the best fantasy series for some ideas.