Swamp Thing
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The Swamp Thing is a fictional character created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson for DC Comics, and featured in a long-running horror-fantasy comic book series of the same name. He is a humanoid mass of vegetable matter who fights to protect his swamp home, the environment in general, and humanity, from various supernatural threats. The series was continued by a number of writers, notably Alan Moore, whose reinvention of the character was particularly influential.
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Origin of the Swamp Thing character
Swamp Thing first appeared in House of Secrets #92 (June-July 1971), depicted in this story as Alex Olsen. Near the beginning of the 20th Century, scientist Alex Olsen is caught in a lab explosion set by his co-worker, Damian Ridge, intended to kill him so that Ridge may gain the hand of Olsen's wife Linda. Olsen is changed by the chemicals and the forces within the swamp into a powerful, monstrous Swamp Thing who kills Ridge before the latter can murder Linda. Unable to make Linda realize his true identity, the Swamp Thing sadly shambles back to his boggy home.
After the success of the short story in the House of Secrets comic, the original creators were asked to write an ongoing series, but updating the character to be in the present and to appear more heroic. Swamp Thing #1 (1st series, October-November 1972, by Wein and Wrightson) was then begun, fast-forwarding to the 70s, and relating a completely different origin for the frightfully foliaged character. Scientist Alec Holland, working on a secret restorative formula in the Louisiana swamps that can "make forests out of deserts", is killed by a bomb planted by agents of the mysterious Mr. E, who wants the formula. Splashed with burning chemicals in the massive fire, Holland runs from the lab and falls into the waters of a muck-filled swamp. Some time later, a creature resembling a humanoid plant appears. This creature, called Swamp Thing, was originally conceived as Alec Holland mutated into a vegetable-like being, a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man". Much of his later adventures would involve the Swamp Thing attempting to find a way to become human again.
The major difference between the first and second Swamp Thing is that the latter not only appears more muscular than shambling, but possesses the ability of speech. The speech impediment of Alex Olsen is a major reason why his wife was unable to recognize him.
Swamp Thing in the comics
The Swamp Thing has appeared in four comic book series to date, including several Specials, and has crossed over into other DC titles.
1st Series
Len Wein
The first volume of Swamp Thing lasted from 1972 to 1976 for 24 issues. Swamp Thing fought against the evils surrounding him, and sought a means to return himself to his human form, occasionally encountering the mad Dr. Anton Arcane, his nightmarish Un-Men, the Patchwork Man (a Frankenstein-type assemblage of body parts, revealed to be Arcane's own brother Gregori Arcane), even leaving his swamp long enough to battle Batman in issue #7 in what would be one of the few encounters with a traditional DC superhero for the supernatural star of the comic. Of note is Dr. Anton Arcane, who acted as his nemesis and has been killed several times, appearing in different forms throughout the series (including an old man, a muscular zombie-like creature, a robot-spider-human hybrid, his own nephew-in-law, and a devout Catholic). Supporting characters include Matthew Cable, who pursued Swamp Thing in the early issues believing him to be the murderer of Linda Holland (Alec's wife, who was in fact killed by Mr. E's henchmen), and Abigail "Abby" Arcane, Dr Arcane's niece who possesses long white hair with a black streak.
David Michelinie / Gerry Conway
As sales figures plummeted towards the end of the series, the writers attempted to revive interest by introducing fantasy creatures, sci-fi aliens, and even Alec Holland's brother into the picture. Holland's brother was never brought up again in the series thereafter.
The appearance of Holland's brother toward the end of the series marked a series of plot developments which subsequent writers had difficulty explaining. Issue 23 featured an ageing superhero called Sabre, hellbent on killing Swamp Thing. In the final panel Alec Holland was shown inexplicably returning into human form, with his brother crying, "Alec Holland lives again!". Although Swamp Thing was on the cover of the 24th and final issue, Holland appeared as human throughout the interior story. The cover illustration showed a yellow muscular creature (Thrudvang) beating up Swamp Thing; the interior showed Holland imagining Swamp Thing beating up Thrudvang, in similar positions but with roles reversed. Holland, and his sister-in-law, spent most of the issue running away from Thrudvang.
The events in these issues were not much referenced thereafter, but they were never written out of continuity. In 1977 Alec went on to appear in a 7-issue miniseries of Challengers of the Unknown, which picked up where Swamp Thing's first series ended—Alec was still human and again working for the government. Unfortunately, the effect was not permanent, and he reverted into his Swamp Thing form once more. Deadman, who interracted with Swamp Thing during this encounter, still remembered it when they met again in series 2, proving that the events of series 1 and Challengers had, indeed, happened.
2nd Series
Martin Pasko
On May 1982, DC Comics revived the Swamp Thing series after the mild success of the Wes Craven film of the same name (which is now obscure compared to the comics). The series—renamed Saga of the Swamp Thing, though it later reverted—picked up where Challengers of the Unknown left off (with Swamp Thing being his mossy self once more) and continued the theme of Swamp Thing getting into superhero-like situations and his constant inability to find a cure. The early plot, written by Martin Pasko, had Swamp Thing travelling to many exotic locations, being possessed by demons, and preventing the girl-witch Karen Clancy from destroying the world. For a number of issues, the Phantom Stranger was included at the end as backup stories. On Issue 16, the primary artist, Tom Yeates, was replaced with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, two-third of the creative team in the later Moore era. Bissette and Totleben, who had known Yeates at the Joe Kubert School of Comic Book Art,had been ghosting various pages for Yeates, and were given the assignment on Pasko's recommendation. During this period, Swamp Thing returned to the swamp, meeting Matthew Cable and Abby, who was now Mrs Cable. Cable was revealed to be an alcoholic who achieved the ability to control otherwordly demonic beings, and Anton Arcane returned as a spider-robot-human monster to fight Swamp Thing.
The 1982 annual of Swamp Thing served as the comic book adaptation of the Craven movie.
Alan Moore
On Issue 20, the British comic book writer Alan Moore was brought in to replace Pasko, whose television work was leaving little room in his schedule for comics. Moore, then relatively unknown, had at that time only written several stories for 2000AD, Warrior and Marvel UK. As Swamp Thing was slated for cancellation, the editors were willing to take whatever risks Moore proposed. Moore recognised that an inherent obstacle to writing the character was that the completion of his quest to become human would result in the end of the series.
The risk Moore took was to, in one fell swoop, destroy the entire concept of the Swamp Thing. In #20, Swamp Thing was shot in the head and captured by the malevolent Sunderland corporation. In #21, the now-legendary "The Anatomy Lesson", his body was delivered to minor supervillain Jason "Floronic Man" Woodrue, who had been hired by Sunderland to perform an autopsy.
During the autopsy, Woodrue discovered that the Swamp Thing's physiology was only superficially human, its organs little more than crude, nonfunctional, vegetable-based imitations of their human counterparts, and that there was no way that the Swamp Thing's body could have been derived from a human corpse. This meant the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland, but only thought that it was: Holland had indeed died in the swamp vegetation, and the swamp vegetation had absorbed his mind, knowledge, memories, and skills. Alec Holland would not ever be cured, because there was nothing to cure. Woodrue also concluded that, despite the autopsy, Swamp Thing was still alive, as "you can't kill a vegetable by shooting it through the head".
Not content with retconning the Swamp Thing's origin story, about a year later Moore would reveal that the creature styled after Holland was no ordinary plant, but a plant elemental and representative of all plant life on Earth. This redefinition left the character open to much broader interpretations, giving him the ability to control plants, and to travel through "the Green".
During the Moore era, Swamp Thing went catatonic due to the shock, going deep into "The Green", which is the dimension that connects all plant life together. Woodrue went insane after attempting to connect to The Green through Swamp Thing, and Abby had to revive Swamp Thing in order to stop Woodrue after he killed an entire village. He returned to the swamps (now revealed to be situated in Louisiana), and encountered Jason Blood, The Demon, then gave a final burial for Alec Holland.
Matthew Cable, gravely hurt in the previous storyline, was revealed to have been possessed by Anton Arcane, and Abby had been unwittingly having an incestuous relationship with him. After a fight Cable was thrown into a coma, and Abby's soul delivered to hell. In an issue modelled on Dante's Inferno, Swamp Thing followed Abigail, encountering classic DC characters such as The Spectre, Etrigan, and The Phantom Stranger en route, and eventually rescued her.
The relationship between Swamp Thing and Abby deepened, and in issue #34 ("Rites of Spring") the two confessed that they both have been loving each other since they first met, and "made love" though the hallucinogenic tubers produced by Swamp Thing's body. The controversial relationship between plant and human would culminate in Abby being arrested in Gotham City later for "obscene behaviour", the second encounter between Swamp Thing and Batman. Before that, the "American Gothic" storyline introduced the character John Constantine (later to star in his own comic Hellblazer), where Swamp Thing had to travel to several parts of America, encountering several archetype horror monsters, including werewolves and zombies, but modernized with relevance to current issues. The "American Gothic" storyline ended with a subtle crossover to Crisis on Infinite Earths, where Swamp Thing had to solve the battle between Good and Evil. Here he also met The Parliament of Trees, which was where Earth Elementals like him lay to rest after they have walked the Earth, and it was here Moore solved the continuity problem of the first and second Swamp Thing: the first Swamp Thing, Alex Olsen, was a part of the Parliament.
Although Abby was eventually released (through a loophole Batman pointed out: Superman and Lois Lane were also in a similar alien-human relationship), Swamp Thing was ambushed and his soul sent into space. He would travel to several planets before returning home to exact revenge on his attackers. A particularly popular story in this sequence was issue 56, "My Blue Heaven", an allegory of depression in which Swamp Thing populated a lonely planet with mindless plant replicas of Abby and other reminders of his lost Earth.
Moore's run also included several references to obscure or forgotten comic characters (Phantom Stranger, Cain and Abel, Floronic Man) but none so prominent as in issue 32, when he broke with the serious and moody storyline for a single issue. In the story "Pog," we see Walt Kelly's funny animal comic character Pogo (created in 1943) and all of his woodland friends show up as costumed visitors from another planet, looking for an unspoiled world after their own utopia had been overrun by brutal monkeys. More than a simple homage to Kelly, the story is a commentary on the lost innocence of the old comics, the cruelty of humans (who are referred to as "the loneliest animal of all"), and the destruction of a natural beauty that can never be reclaimed.
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing had a profound effect on mainstream comic books. It was the first horror comic to approach the genre from a literate point of view since EC Comics' horror comics of the 1950s, and broadened the scope of the series to include ecological and spiritual concerns while retaining its horror-fantasy roots. Moore began a trend (most notably continued by Neil Gaiman) of mining the DC Universe's vast collection of minor supernatural characters to create an overall mythology. Characters spun off from Moore's series gave rise to DC's Vertigo comic book line, notably The Sandman, Hellblazer, and The Books of Magic; Vertigo titles were written with adults in mind and often contained material unsuitable for children. Saga of the Swamp Thing was the first mainstream comic book series to completely abandon the Comics Code Authority and write directly for adults.
Rick Veitch
Moore's final issue, #64, was dated September 1987. At that point, regular penciler Rick Veitch began scripting the series as well, continuing the story in a roughly similar vein for 24 more issues. Hellblazer also began then, and the two series had storylines which crossover to each other. In Veitch's stories, the Parliament of Trees, believing Swamp Thing already dead, grew a Sprout to replace him. Unwilling to sacrifice an innocent life, he convinced them that he would take the Sprout as his own child, and impregnated Abby (now his wife) with it by possessing John Constantine's body. Later, during the Invasion event, Swamp Thing was thrown into the past, and went through time trying to return to the present.
Veitch's term ended in a widely publicized creative dispute, when DC refused to publish issue #88 because of the use of Jesus as a character despite having previously approved the script. The move was said to be made due to controversies then arising from the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ. Artist Michael Zulli had already partially completed the art. The move disgusted Veitch and he immediately resigned from writing, as that episode was supposed to be his last. Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano, who were originally slated to be the next writers, sympathetically declined to take up the helm.
Doug Wheeler
From September 1989 to July 1991, Doug Wheeler wrote issues #88-109, a run resented by some fans. He took over near the conclusion of a major story arc begun by Veitch, and he managed to suggest that both Swamp Thing and his soon-to-be-born-daughter were indeed of the spiritual lineage of Christ.
Wheeler saw the birth of the Sprout through to its conclusion. The spirit was born as a human-looking girl, whom Swamp Thing and Abby named Tefé Holland. From there Wheeler went on to depict Hell, the Green, and the Gray (a fungal realm in opposition to the plant-based Green), in striking and often bewildering detail, as Swamp Thing fought to avert a war between the Green and the Gray.
Wheeler had the unfortunate task of writing under the shadow of Moore and Veitch, and also of Neil Gaiman, who had just finished the Swamp Thing Annual and a Black Orchid miniseries. The bright and clean style of Wheeler's regular illustrator Pat Broderick was also a departure from previous popular Swamp Thing artists, although John Totleben continued to contribute painted covers.
Nancy A. Collins
Horror writer Nancy A. Collins began scripting the issues in 1991 with issue #110. She brought a familiarity with the setting of the series in South Louisiana, writing her stories with more focus on fantasy and myths. She introduced the fan favourite character Lady Jane and tied up several loose ends during the Moore era (mostly involving Anton Arcane), and the series regained some of its popularity. The series ended with Abby leaving Swamp Thing after discovering he not only cheated on her, but also created a clone to deceive her. Lady Jane too left, taking Tefé away as Swamp Thing was considered a "bad influence".
Swamp Thing was officially placed in the Vertigo line in Issue 129.
Mark Millar
With issue #140 (March 1994), the title was handed over to Mark Millar, a writer largely unknown in the US at the time. Millar's initial four-issue storyline was co-written with fan favourite Grant Morrison, who by that time had finished writing both Doom Patrol and Animal Man. It depicted a human Alec Holland waking up from "a dream". Although it was later explained how Swamp Thing became human-like, the shock value of this storyline heightened reader interest.
Most of Millar's run is divided into several smaller arcs, in each of which Swamp Thing first learns of the existence of, then becomes the champion of, the Parliaments of the various other elements. In order, these are Stone, Waves, Vapour and Flames. In the final six issues, Swamp Thing, no longer approachable by mortals, is willing to rid the world of humanity in order for the other elements to survive. Passing the final trials, he unites all the elements within his being, achieving global consciousness and, in merging with everything — and everyone — in the world, finds the good and the potential in even his worst enemy. He thus spares humanity and becomes a planet elemental, representing the Earth itself, and joins the Parliament of Worlds, which is made up of all the other "enlightened worlds." (The only others actually named were Mars, who greeted Swamp Thing into their number, and Oa, who, due to its destruction some time before, Mars lamented could not witness Earth's induction.) This was the most significant change made to the character since Moore's reinterpretation.
Millar wrote Swamp Thing until the series ended, with issue #171 (October 1996). His run was more like those of Moore and Veitch than those of his immediate predecessors, especially in its use of guest stars from the wider DC Universe. One of his achievements include the reintroduction of Anton Arcane, resurrected but converted to devout Catholicism, raising the question of whether evil could indeed be changed after all.
3rd Series
Brian K. Vaughan
Written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Giuseppe Camuncoli in 2000-2002, the third series focused on the daughter of the Swamp Thing, Tefé Holland. Even though she was chronologically 13, the events which occurred in the previous run caused her to appear as a teenager. Due to the circumstances when she was conceived (Swamp Thing, possessing John Constantine, was not aware he was given a blood transfusion by a demon), she held power over both plants and flesh. The idea of using a teenage female protagonist was a fresh one. However, the series was preceded by a Vertigo one-shot, Totems, which had made major changes to continuity that Vaughan had to take into account, basically demoting Swamp Thing from the omnipotent status Millar had given him. Tefé's story was discontinued at Issue 20, whereupon after eating from the Tree of Knowledge she saw two visions of possible futures, and chose neither. Vaughan would later write the critically acclaimed Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina.
4th Series
Andy Diggle / Will Pfeifer
The fourth series began in 2004, with rotating writers of Andy Diggle, Will Pfeifer and Joshua Dysart. The series is solicited to Issue 24 as of February 2006. In the current series, Swamp Thing is reverted back to his original "muck monster" status after the first storyline, and he is now attempting to live an "eventless" life in the Louisiana swamps.
Joshua Dysart
Meanwhile a rogue consciousness, calling itself the Holland Mind, is living in the Green. As of issue #15, a botany professor from Alec Holland's past has been summoned to the swamp by strange visions and memories, apparently manipulated by this rogue consciousness. The full purpose for this manipulation remains to be seen.
As of issue #21 Eric Powell (The Goon) will provide covers for the series.
Collections
Image:Swamp Thing Earth to Earth.bookcover.amazon.jpg The Swamp Thing issues have so far been collected in:
- Dark Genesis, 1st series 1-10 (paperback: ISBN 1563890445)
- Saga of the Swamp Thing, 2nd series 21-27 (paperback: ISBN 0930289226)
- Love and Death, 2nd series 28-34 & Annual 2 (paperback: ISBN 0930289544)
- The Curse, 2nd series 35-42 (paperback: ISBN 1563896974)
- A Murder of Crows, 2nd series 43-50 (paperback: ISBN 1563897199)
- Earth to Earth, 2nd series 51-56 (paperback: ISBN 1563898047)
- Reunion, 2nd series 57-64 (paperback: ISBN 1563899752)
- Regenesis, 2nd series 65-70 (paperback: ISBN 1401202675)
- Spontaneous Generation, 2nd series 71-76 (paperback: ISBN 1401207936)
- Bad Seed, 4th series 1-6 (paperback: ISBN 140120421X)
Note that these are listed in the order in which the stories take place, not the order in which the collections were published.
Swamp Thing on film and television
There have been two movies based on Swamp Thing (the first was directed by Wes Craven), and an animated cartoon and a live-action television series. Actor/stuntman Dick Durock played Swamp Thing in both films and the television series. None of these versions were critically or commercially successful.
There were also merchandise items produced in line with the cartoon and the television series, including stickers, a board game, and a green chalk resembling Swamp Thing. (The label of the chalk is especially curious: a text bubble hovers above the little figurine with the words "I'm Chalk!".)
Related creatures
DC Comics rival Marvel Comics had a strikingly similar rival to Swamp Thing in the 1970s with the Steve Gerber-scripted Man-Thing. Due to the close premieres of each comic, it is unlikely that either comic was directly derivative of the other - although in an interview Gerber noted that Wein and Man-Thing creator Gerry Conway were roommates, and had simultaneously came up with similar characters by coincidence. Gerber later asked Wein to describe the premise of Swamp Thing, and rewrote it to be as different from Wein's creation as possible.
The best-known precursor to both characters was the shambling muck-monster The Heap, who first appeared in a 1942 Hillman comic. But the Heap (and consequently, both Swamp Thing and Man-Thing) may owe its existence to a 1940 horror story by Theodore Sturgeon titled "It", in which a shambling monster, made from decaying plant life and a human corpse, creates havoc for a farm household.
The Heap was mentioned by Alan Moore in his introduction of the Parliament of Trees, though never by name.
The Brazilian character "Monstro do Pântano", created by Eugenio Colonnese two years before Swamp Thing, resembles in many ways Wein and Wrightson's creation. "Parliament of the Trees", a Moore-scripted Swamp Thing episode from 1986, includes visual nods towards these other "muck monsters" when various past and present plant/human "tree spirits" assemble together in the Amazon Rainforest.
Long-time DC comics villain Solomon Grundy shares an origin similar to the swamp monsters mentioned above, although his appearance differs greatly. During his run on Swamp Thing, Rich Veitch indicated that Grundy was "meant" to be a plant elemental, but his development was stunted and incomplete.
Parodies and homages
In Dave Sim's Cerebus, starting with issues reprinted near the end of the first collected volume, there is a two-headed creature whose heads are named "Fred" and "Ethel". The appearances of Fred and Ethel are obvious parodies of Swamp Thing and Man-Thing respectively, and Ethel is referred to as a "woman-thing" at least once. Later, near the end of the Church and State storyline, this creature is depicted with a third head, called "The little fellow with the hair", attempting to complete the Ascension and become a messiah-figure; this creature then falls to Earth from a point somewhere near the moon and is later said to have burned up on re-entry and ended up as "a light sprinkling of ash".
Another possible artistic reference to Swamp Thing appears in early editions of the collectable card game Magic: The Gathering; the original artwork for the card Force of Nature, seen in the basic sets up to and including Fourth Edition, greatly resembles Swamp Thing. In the other sets where this card appears, namely Fifth Edition and Ninth Edition, different artwork is used. (Since this is true of many Magic cards starting with the Fifth Edition set, it is unlikely that this was due to the resemblance between the two creatures so much as a simple desire to evolve the look of the game generally.) Another Magic card, Sylvan Library, resembles a cross between Man-Thing and various members of the Parliament of Trees.
See also
External links
- entries in Don Markstein's Toonopedia:
- Roots of the Swamp Thing
- SequArt Swamp Thing article
- Swamp Thing Chronology at DC Cosmic Teams
- Consideration of Moore's tenure on Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing is also a techno song by the British band The Grid.de:Swamp Thing fr:Swamp Thing pt:Monstro do Pântano
