After dissecting the corpse of the Swamp Thing, Dr. Jason Woodrue was left baffled by what he discovered. Useless organs comprised of vegetation, a skeleton of wood, muscles composed from plant fiber, and flesh made from weeds all formed the swamp creature, but no sign of authentic human origins existed—except for mortal consciousness. “We were wrong,” explained Dr. Woodrue to his corrupt industrial benefactor, Mr. Sunderland. “We thought the Swamp Thing was Alec Holland, somehow transformed into a plant. It wasn’t. It was a plant that thought it was Alec Holland; a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland.”
Swamp Thing, a DC Comics title and character created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson in 1972, originally focused on the story of Alec Holland, a botanist who performed experiments on vegetation in the swamps of Louisiana. A subsequent explosion killed his wife and left him a burning ruin, racing into the sweltering waters of the surrounding swamp to extinguish himself. The conflagrated chemicals mutated his body, turning him into a creature of flora. Bent on avenging his wife while finding a method of transforming his body back into flesh and blood, the newly born Swamp Thing set out on his quest.
As the first series of Swamp Thing neared its completion in 1976, the title’s sales suffered greatly and was in desperate need of creative resuscitation, or else it was going to be canceled. Writers and artists were moved on and off the book until DC’s editorial board decided in 1984 to give the series one more chance. Taking a gamble on Alan Moore, a fairly obscure writer at the time, DC gave the writer authority to do whatever he needed in order to revive the comic book.
The risk turned into Moore’s break into the American comic book industry; he took the dying fantasy-horror story and conjured a new creative spirit into it. He didn’t waste any time, as his first issue was entitled “The Anatomy Lesson,” a story that completely altered the origins of Swamp Thing through retroactive continuity. Moore reintroduced Dr. Woodrue, also known as the crazed Floronic Man, as the scientist released from prison to personally figure out the anatomical secrets of Swamp Thing after it was shot in the head by Sunderland’s forces and stored in a cryogenic freezer.
After finding himself baffled by Swamp Thing’s anatomy and coming across an article on planarian worms in a scientific volume, Woodrue had a breakthrough that Swamp Thing was not, nor ever was, Alec Holland. Upon Holland’s death, the dead scientist’s consciousness seeped into the very swamp itself, birthing a creature that desperately imitated the life of a real man, possessing all of the knowledge, memories, and personality traits of Holland. And since Swamp Thing wasn’t a mutated mortal man, it could not be killed as a mortal man, such as a bullet in the head. The creature eventually escaped from its frozen prison, discovered its true origins and identity in Woodrue’s notes, and killed Sunderland out of vengeance.
The first volume of Moore’s run is captured in the trade paperback, Saga of the Swamp Thing, which will carry away its readers to join the creature on its journeys and adventures. A battle with the Floronic Man erupts after the mad scientist successfully siphons Swamp Thing’s naturalistic powers in an attempt to dominate the world. Moore also reintroduces Matt and Abby Cable, close friends of the deceased Hollands and of Swamp Thing himself. Readers will learn further into the story that the married life of Matt and Abby is rapidly deteriorating, pushing Abby to find comfort in the swamps as well as in her new job as an assistant at a school for autistic children, which eventually falls into supernatural jeopardy. And in a bid to save his crumbling marriage, Matt confronts a doomed fate after making a pact with an old horror.
The first seven issues captured in Saga of the Swamp Thing offers its readership a lush, promising, and mature adventure into the heart of true horror comics. Moore’s savvy as a storyteller in unparalleled, with art from Stephen Bissette and John Totleben that offers a classic eerie feel. A mandatory read for anyone that enjoys the work of Moore, the chilling thrill of a horror story, or simply a deliciously bizarre character, Saga of the Swamp Thing will not disappoint. Everyone and anyone will ultimately empathize with Swamp Thing, a sympathetic monster once considered a man, but who was truly a “ghost dressed in weeds.”
This comic book review originally appeared on Comic News on 18 December 2008.
