The Saga of the Swamp Thing #41-48

The Saga of the Swamp Thing #41-48

Originally released in 1985

Written by Alan Moore

Art by Steve Bissette (#41-42, 44, 46), Stan Woch (#43, 45, 47), Ron Randall (#44), John Totleben (#48)

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run continues to be one of the more surreal and unsettling comics that I've read for this blog, making it perfect to read near Halloween.  These issues start off with a story about a period piece soap opera being filmed at the remains of a plantation in Louisiana, only for the actors to be possessed by the ghosts of those who lived there and start acting uncharacteristically. (such as the lead actress, who's a raging bigot, falling in love with the actor who's playing a slave that the plantation owner's wife had fallen in love with when she was alive)

The narration is chilling enough, creating pictures of buried corpses still possessing consciousness and drawing breath, and the images add to that, seeing skeletons sleeping restlessly beneath the earth.  Moore's writing does a good job with ending many of the stories on a chilling note, leaving it open that the supernatural threats that Swamp Thing deals with might not be done yet even after Swamp Thing has seemingly dealt with the problem.

Abby Arcane, Swamp Thing's wife, acts as a go-between for him, serving as a more inconspicuous set of eyes and ears when a seven or eight foot tall swamp man won't fit in.  However, she's growing increasingly concerned as Swamp Thing develops his powers, worrying that his physical body isn't his "real" body and, in effect, she's just holding on to his jacket.

Swamp Thing does try to make the relationship work, though, even visiting Abby in her own apartment rather than making her trek out to the swamps.  However, her apartment isn't exactly built for someone made out of wet and muddy plants and other material.

Following tips from John Constantine, Swamp Thing travels across the country, solving supernatural problems where they rise up.  One issue, where Swamp Thing doesn't appear until the last few pages, involves a haunted house, built by the family of a gun-maker and haunted by all of the victims of his family's guns.

The house was built randomly, expanding in bizarre ways (one door leads to a brick wall, while a third floor door leads outside with no balcony or anything - just open air). The tone of this issue varies wildly, from silly to horrifying, though the creepiest part is saved for the end.

Another issue has a hippie finding a fruit that was left behind by Swamp Thing.  A friend of his comes to him, begging for something to ease his wife's pain as she's dying from cancer, while a drug addict wants anything that he can get high from - as the hippie is trying to cleanse himself, all he can give them is the fruit.  Its effects vary wildly depending on the moral character of whoever eats it - the wife experiences the wonder of the plant world that Swamp Thing is connected to and dies peacefully, while the addict feels all of Swamp Thing's pain and suffering and winds up running out into traffic.

It's a fun little side story showing what can be done in the comic even if Swamp Thing's role in it is tangential at best. The work that I've read from Alan Moore has been self-contained and limited to a set number of issues, so these experimental issues make for an interesting change.

Throughout all of this, Constantine is dealing with some sort of Crisis on Infinite Earths.  As the story involves the death and rebirth of the multiverse, naturally, every ongoing comic at the time got dragged into it, including Swamp Thing.  In a bit of leaning on the fourth wall by Moore, Swamp Thing questions what this has to do with his personal quest and what he has to do with this crisis when he has no idea who anyone there is; even in the earliest days of big events in comics, there was a sense of annoyance about them interrupting story arcs.

Constantine reveals to Swamp Thing that he and a group of his allies have been tracking down a group of male witches from South America who plan to use the Crisis to their advantage.  Their ultimate goal is to destroy Heaven, and while Constantine could use Swamp Thing's help to stop them, he's a man of his word, telling Swamp Thing the location of a place called the Parliament of Trees where he can get the knowledge that he needs.

Swamp Thing isn't the first being like him, and he and his fellow plant elementals are basically indestructible.  The Parliament of Trees consists of all of the past beings like him who effectively retired, separating themselves from the rest of the world.

As he travels through their memories, he sees visions about how they were all created through a similar set of circumstances (dying by fire and being reborn as a plant creature).  From the montage that we see of former plant elementals, there even seems to be Man-Thing from Marvel in the bottom right of one panel.

They don't give him clear answers to his questions, though he does get ideas on how to use his powers to the fullest potential - controlling insects through scents, taking non-humanoid forms, time travel... Unable to get any more information from them, he sets off with Constantine.

Meanwhile, a sleazy photographer catches Abby's intimate goodbye with Swamp Thing on film, trying to sell the pictures to the highest bidder. This comes back to haunt her, leading to her being arrested and treated like a sex offender.

Meanwhile, the plan to stop the male witches doesn't work out as Constantine had hoped - they had anticipated Swamp Thing's involvement and removed all plants from their sanctum, giving him nothing to grow from.  Constantine is captured, and when Swamp Thing arrives, he's treated to one of the stranger sentences that I can recall reading:

Forced to choose between stopping the villain's plans or saving Constantine from dying, Swamp Thing chooses to save Constantine.  It's unclear what the fallout will be as the bird spreads its message, but this series has been one of the highlights of my time with this blog, and I'm likely going to keep going with it within the next week or so.