ROTST
Roots of the Swamp Thing, by Len Wein and Bernie wrightson – It’s great to find these vintage comics from the early 1970s collected in hardcover volumes. This one collects the first 13 issues of the comic run, with the “classic” line-up of writer/creator Len Wein and legendary comic book artist Bernie Wrightson. It also includes the eight-page first appearance of the character from issue 92 of House of Secrets (spooooooky!!!). There’s also a nice introduction by Wein, written in 1991, that notes that “a recent check of a computerized information and reference service showed no less than 300 uses of the term ‘Swamp Thing,’ most of them not even related to the character himself.” How quint. Nowadays, you can do a check of a computerized information and reference service called “Google” and discover 4,400,000 references to Swamp Thing.
Oddly, the original story of Swamp Thing was of a scientist called Alex Olsen, his lover Linda, and the villainous Damian, who murders Alex (the usual laboratory explosion/dump-the-body-in-the-swamp-to-create-a-mutated-hybrid-swamp-monster) and marries Linda, only to have revenge exacted on him. Apparently, the story had personal significance to Wrightson, who had just broken up with his girlfriend when he was drawing the adventure, so when the story proved famous enough to produce a series, the creative team balked.
What? Artistic integrity in comics?!?
But a year later, Wein had the brain wave to re-create the origin with a different guy, this time called Alec Holland, and another legend was born. The new Swamp Thing is also a scientist, seemingly a plaything of government agents and mafia thugs who want his research for themselves, and his monster is again born of a chemical explosion and the spirit of the swamp. Throughout the adventures, Swamp Thing mostly battles freaky scientific creations (his nemesis Arcane is a modern-day Dr Frankenstein/modern day Prometheus), evil witches and werewolves, Lovecraftian demons, mutated swamp dwellers, nefarious agents both human and inhuman, and once enters the city to engage in battle with.. the Batman? Sure, why not.
The first adventure is short, being the original origin of Swamp Thing, yer standard melodrama with a dastardly backbiting murdering girlfriend-stealing two-faced jerk (kind of like the story we see in the movie Ghost). Then the second origin, in Swamp Thing #1, shows Alec Holland becoming the Swamp Thing under similar circumstances, but this time the victim of gangster thugs. The second issue moves from the human world to the arcane when Swamp Thing meets the Un-Men, evil creatures manufactured by Dr Arcane in some crazy German Schloss that he’s spirited away to. Arcane swaps bodies with the Swamp Thing, giving him his humanity back, but that doesn’t last long when Dr Holland discovers how Arcane is going to abuse his new powers to destroy innocent people (lots of nutty black magic and evil creation going on here). So he makes a hard decision and goes back to his old body. For the next several issues, Swamp Thing travels back to his swamps from the Alps, passing through Scotland where he meets the desperate (and evil) family of a werewolf (check out the hairy palms).
The interesting dynamic is that Swamp Thing can’t really talk. He’s constantly hunted by his friend Matt Cable, who at first doesn’t know that Swamp Thing is actually Holland – he thinks that Swamp Thing is Holland’s murderer. But he isn’t. Cable picks up the gorgeous Abigail Arcane, the good niece of the evil Dr Arcane, and they travel platonically together. Swamp Thing spends a lot of time saving their lives from dangers brought about by their chase of the Swamp Thing (which coincides with enemies also coming out to engage with Swampy), until they build an unlikely alliance of sorts. In the world of Swamp Thing, often enemies are friends, and friends enemies, like the New Englanders who befriend him with the ulterior motive of sending him into the abandoned mine shaft where the Lovecraftian horror M’Nagalah lives. Then there’s the witch and her brother (mutants?) that he protects from murdering bigots. Some moral ambiguity there, of course, but that’s all good. There’s also the freaky town of automatons, built by a loveable old Bavarian in the forests of New England where he creates a town (sort of an Anti-Arcane); but that little paradise doesn’t last long as the organised criminals clamp down on our lovely little group. Too bad… The return of Arcane, with its tale of black slave ghosts and undead is also pretty damn cool – lots of mis-shapen freaks and weird, steaming swamp battlegrounds. Rahrrr!!! Then there’s the hideous worm creatures who take over the brain of Zachary Nail, who has created a New Eden of sorts… or so he thinks. Turns out the space worms are EVIL! In another very strange episode, Swampy gets involved with the diamond-eyed time traveller, whose hideous fate is… to never be able to die, no matter where he is in time. Finally, the government closes in on Swampy and captures him; by now, though, he’s finally won over Matt Cable and the Swamp Thing is given new freedom. Nice.
The art is spooky, and Wrightson does a great job drawing moods, and grotesque, inhuman creatures. Love it. Give me MORE!!!