Swamp Thing #60-64

Swamp Thing #60-64

Originally released in 1987

Written by Alan Moore (#60-61, 63), Rick Veitch (#62)

Art by John Totleben (#60), Rick Veitch (#61-64), Steve Bissette (#64), Tom Yeats (#64)

I was nearing the end anyway, so I wanted to make sure that I'd finish up Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run before the end of the year. (I only just noticed that the title of the comic changed from "The Saga of the Swamp Thing" to just "Swamp Thing" starting in issue 31, which shows how much I've been paying attention to details like that)  The Swamp Thing is still making a trek across the stars, trying to find a way to return to Earth and undo what the shady government officials did to him.

Unfortunately, these latest jumps are less pleasant than the ones that he had before.  Issue 60 feels experimental, mostly feeling like prose - it focuses on the internal monologue of a sentient machine-like planet that Swamp Thing arrives on. Starved for companionship, it wants to keep Swamp Thing all to itself, with the story eventually making it clear that the planet's violating him, draining his reproductive material, and discarding his lifeless body once he's of no further use.  It's a strange and unpleasant experience for both Swamp Thing and the audience, and it's disturbing to read.

He doesn't fare much better on the next world, even if it's what he was aiming for in the first place. Adam Strange told him about a world of sentient plants where Swamp Thing can hopefully restore his connection to the Earth and make his way back there.  Unfortunately, something that neither of them considered is that Swamp Thing's body is made out of plants, so having him go to a world of sentient plants might have some horrifying consequences.

The narration gradually builds up Swamp Thing as this monstrous otherworldly presence traveling invisibly across the stars, as it establishes the day-to-day lives of the world's inhabitants and its Green Lantern, who has fallen into depression after the death of his mentor.  Swamp Thing manifests himself on the world, realizing just a little too late that his attempts at forming a new body could prove to be problematic.

The end result would be like if a creature that could make its body out of any meat manifested itself on Earth - a horrifying massive amalgamation of the planet's life forms.  Only the intervention of the planet's Green Lantern allows the people that make up Swamp Thing's body to be saved, and even then, he's paralyzed with indecision at first, unable to figure out how to stop the rampaging monster without killing the people that make up its body.

Even stepping into more familiar corners of the DC universe causes problems for Swamp Thing - in this case, the realm of the New Gods, specifically the Source Wall that separates the mystical Source from everything else.

Metron's chair is damaged, but combining what he learned on the plant world with information from a Mother Box, Swamp Thing learns how to make it through the Source Wall, serving as a vehicle for Metron to do so as well.  Even even learns the answer to the Ultimate Question, though at the cost of his sanity. (He could have read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to learn that while staying sane - it's 42)

Metron, at least, recalls enough to be aware that the Source is life - all life, in every corner of the multiverse, whether it's past, present, or future.  Witnessing billions, trillions, an uncountable number of perspectives in the blink of an eye proves to almost be too much for Metron.

As it turns out, Metron has been telling his story to Darkseid (seemingly in exchange for the element that makes Metron's chair work), who is amused by it - as it turns out, Metron was mistaken, and this overwhelming amount of information wasn't the Source at all.

As the Mother Box restores Swamp Thing's sanity (removing his memories of what he saw to drive him mad to begin with) and Darkseid plans to use the information that was stored in Swamp Thing's removed memories in his quest to find the Anti-Life Equation, Swamp Thing returns to Earth.

Before he reunites with Abby, however, he has some business to take care of. Specifically, reminding some D.D.I. employees why trying to kill a being who's connected to every form of plant life on the planet (or, as it turns out, the universe) is an extremely bad idea.

Whether it's through a bouquet of roses, a peach tree, or lettuce from a sandwich, Swamp Thing methodically kills everyone responsible for the assassination attempt on him (everyone in the D.D.I., anyway - Lex Luthor isn't targeted) before reuniting with Abby, who had been mourning both Swamp Thing and her comatose husband Matt Cable up until this point. Seeing Swamp Thing appear around her causes a marked change in her appearanceas she brightens up immensely.

Issue 64 is the final one of Alan Moore's run, serving as an epilogue to this saga, with Swamp Thing and Abby finally reunited and taking this time to relax as a sense of what passes for normalcy returns to their lives. It's hard to believe that fourteen issues - over a year's worth of stories - have passed since Constantine's work with Swamp Thing came to fruition and the chain of events that led to Swamp Thing being stuck on other worlds kicked off.

Throughout this, Swamp Thing reflects on his journeys through the cosmos, particularly his time on the world of Rann.  He ended a famine there, brought life to a world damaged by nuclear fire - what's stopping him from doing something similar on Earth?

However, after reflecting on humanity, and the action (or inaction) of the Parliament of Trees (since any one of them could have done something similar when they were active, and yet they obviously chose not to), he ultimately decides to leave humanity to its own devices, knowing that if he revealed that he could end famine, it would just cause people to abuse the planet more knowing that Swamp Thing would be there to bring the world back from the brink.

While Swamp Thing's series continues beyond this point, and as is the nature of comic books, his story would continue even if his series ended here, Alan Moore does a good job at giving his final Swamp Thing issue a storybook-like "happily ever after" quality to it, with the horrors and the danger being treated as though it's coming to an end. Even minor characters get a happy ending, overcoming their traumas or finding ways to help others.

The artists working on this issue in particular (Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, and Tom Yeats) do a great job at showing the beauty and variety of plant life after the past several issues have shown the horror that can spring from it.

After reading this, my first reaction is that it might have unseated Watchmen as my favourite Alan Moore story that I've read.  Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run is unsettling, profound, and touching at various points. I knew very little about the character prior to starting this blog, so I'm impressed at how much Swamp Thing grew on me.