Following the recent patch to MARVEL SNAP, eagle-eyed players noticed a new friend that's hanging around their collection: a pteranodon named Sauron, who shows up if you toggle your view to "Unowned," and looks like this:

Who is this mysterious winged terror that has infiltrated MARVEL SNAP without so much as a line of flavor text? Turns out, this dinosaur is a villain who has a long history with both the X-Men and the internet at large.

Who is Sauron?

The Dark Lord of Mordor, crafter of the One Ring and - hold on, we seem to have gotten our wires crossed. The being known as Sauron is the alter-ego of Dr. Karl Lykos, a scientist and hypnotism enthusiast who got a little too close to the mutant pterodactyls he was studying and got a tiny bit infected, which turned him into an energy vampire (like you do). Whenever he drains energy from a Mutant, Karl turns into a pteranodon who would much rather prefer that people call him Sauron. And yes, the character's name is inspired by the Tolkien villain.

From his first appearance in 1969, Sauron has had a number of run-ins with the X-Men. The outcomes of those fights have ranged from Sauron being presumed dead, to Sauron fleeing to the Savage Land, to Karl being supposedly cured of his energy vampirism (spoiler alert: it doesn't take).

Sauron has ties to a lot of Marvel regulars and MARVEL SNAP familiars. He's fed on the energy of many Mutants, among them Storm, Wolverine, and Havok; while as a resident of the Savage Land he befriended Ka-Zar and company.

So Why Is He a Pteranodon?

In comics lore, it's because of the previously mentioned mutant pterodactyls; but in the real world it's thanks to good old-fashioned censorship.

Most comics readers should be familiar with the Comics Code Authority, which was a fun little exercise in self-censorship by comics publishers that started in 1954 and lasted until the early 21st Century. The deal was, Marvel and other publishers abided by a rigid set of standards that kept their comics from containing anything the general public might find objectionable. In exchange they got a neat stamp on the corner of their covers that told potential readers and parents of potential readers that the comic in question was approved by the Comics Code Authority.

The original plan was for Sauron to be a bat-like creature (like your standard vampire), but wouldn't you know it - the Comics Code Authority wasn't going to approve of an energy vampire who looked and acted like a vampire. So instead, the creators (Roy Thomas and Neal Adams) made their energy vampire a pteranodon (the most bat-like of the dinosaurs) and the Comics Code Authority was totally cool with that, apparently.

Sauron's CCA-approved conversion to dinosaur paved the way for a meme that was nearly fifty years in the making.

Sauron's Fifteen Minutes

Sauron was a regularly recurring villain and showed up several times across the years in X-Men comics, playing his part as a B-List ne'er-do-well. Then, in 2014, he was catapulted to Internet celebrity by Spider-Man and the X-Men, a six-issue limited series penned by Elliott Kalan. The plot of Spider-Man and the X-Men involved Spider-Man taking a job at a school teaching Mutants and getting into kerfuffles with an assortment of X-Men baddies. Good stuff, right?

Sauron showed up early in the series, with the admittedly sick plan of using genetic manipulation to turn regular people into dinosaurs. Of course, Your Friendly Neighborhood Tenure Track Professor wouldn't let that slide, and confronted the doctor-turned-dinosaur. During a battle of wits, Spider-Man pointed out that Sauron's technology could be put to any number of humanitarian uses, to which Sauron fired back that his aims aren't humanitarian, but dinosauritarian, resulting in a panel that quickly made the rounds across the internet:

The One Meme of Sauron (Source)

Thanks to that panel, Sauron's name was etched indelibly across the surface of the World Wide Web. Get it? Because it's "Web," like Spider-Man.

What Does This Have to Do With MARVEL SNAP?

Apparently unsatisfied with his fleeting fame a few years ago, Sauron decided to make an early and unscheduled appearance on every MARVEL SNAP player's Collection page.

You might be wondering: So what? There are a lot of unreleased cards either lurking in the depths of the code or showing up as monochrome silhouettes in each player's Collection. Case in point: Black Panther, the likely Premium Pass card for this coming Season, can currently be seen in silhouette-form:

What makes Sauron stand out? Instead of a silhouette, Sauron is the picture-perfect JPEG of a dinosaur-man with no stats, no card ability, and (to be fair) some pretty basic background art. He sticks out like a sore pteranodon wing-appendage.

Players have asked about Sauron on Discord, receiving some fairly cryptic answers from the team in return:

Quote From Second Dinner

So whats the deal with Sauron?
I assume he is in pool 4 maybe and you guys testing it.

Stephen: Look into my eyes…you did not see this card mutant

Ben Brode: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE PTERANODON BEHIND THE CURTAIN (Source)

What can we surmise about Sauron's future inclusion as a card in MARVEL SNAP? For starters, Sauron shows up in a section of the Collection that implies he will be a 3 Cost card with 3 Power, but that excavation is barely scratching the surface.

If we're going to take a stab at his abilities, there are a plenitude of directions the pteranodon could go in. Sauron, as an Energy vampire, could siphon Power or abilities from other cards; or maybe take a page from Dr. Karl Lykos's prescription pad and use the power of hypnosis to lull another card into a dream state. Perhaps he'll literally drain Energy from one or both players, or use a Discard effect similar to Dracula - a noted vampire himself.

Or he could take a cue from his most famous appearance, and turn people into dinosaurs.

Have your own ideas for what Sauron's ability could be? Have some deep Sauron lore you need to share with the world? Share your thoughts in the comments!