The muck-encrusted monstrosity known as Swamp Thing has been a B-List but still popular, if cult-classic hero, in the pantheon of DC Comics characters since his original inception during the Bronze Age of comic book publishing.
Originally conceived within the pages of the monthly anthology House of Secrets (issue #92) in 1971 by writer Len Wein and illustrator Bernie Wrightson, Swamp Thing has shown immense longevity over the decades, even if his pop culture spotlight has been somewhat intermittent. Sill, like the green of nature after a winter threw, he always seems to spring up for old fans while creating new ones in the process.
Perhaps the main reason for his popular durability is that Swamp Thing is able to traverse both genres and artistic focus ,even though the character has always been firmly rooted in terror. He’s regularly been a tool of shock horror, dark demonology, mature and socially conscious or environmental storytelling, and even far-flung science fiction adventures.
Of course, there’s also been plenty of the far less interesting straight-up superhero tales over the years.
In 1982, timed with the upcoming release of the Wes Craven-directed Swamp Thing film, writer Martin Pasko and artist Thomas Yates began a revival of the character with a new monthly Saga of the Swamp Thing comic book series.
Following a storyline from the previous issue, “A Town Has Turned To Blood” (Saga of the Swamp Thing #3) sees Swamp Thing travelling via boxcar across the United States with a mute but telekinetically-powered girl, finding themselves in the town of Rosewood, Illinois. In a fast-paced plot, the two companions are immediately set upon by nihilistic teenage punk vampires. It’s interesting to note that Pasko and Yates brought this particular aesthetic to readers a half decade before the trope would land in larger popular culture circles with now-classic rock-and-roll themed vampire films like the 1987 theatre releases of The Lost Boys and Near Dark.
It’s a particular popular aesthetic that has survived to this day. There’s a thread to pull there, to be sure, but that’s best suited for another time and another column.
In economically deprived Rosewood, Swamp Thing discovers that the punk vampires have effectively taken over the whole town, cutting it off from the outside world and turning its inhabitants into the undead. Only a small band of rag-tag freedom fighters remain and together with the heroic monster, they’re able to rid the town of the vampire scourge by destroying the nearby dam. The resulting rushing water destroys the undead horde while simultaneously flooding the town and turning the valley into a deep lake, covering the evil forever.
The interesting but fairly straight-forward vampire story from Saga of the Swamp Thing #3 is a one-and-done tale with character subplots that would intensify and resolve over the next dozen or so issues of the series. Those actions in Rosewood, however, would have complex ramifications years later as British scribe Alan Moore picked up some narrative threads and turned it into a larger, darker tale of existential dread during his run on the title.
Moore saw an evolution to the age-old vampire mythos, turning the classically fanged and blood-drinking undead monsters into something new while utilizing the innovative creation as a plot point in a larger, more terrifying tapestry.
Although writer Moore and artists Stan Woch, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben continued the horrendous fate of Rosewood as a two-part tale in Swamp Thing #38 (“Still Waters) and Swamp Thing #39 (“Fish Story”), the transformation from tried-and-true vampire tale to something altogether novel actually began in Swamp Thing #37. This was the first appearance of one of the greatest character creations in the last fifty years with John Constatnine, the English-born, silk-cut smoking, trenchcoat wearing, dark arts chancer. He entices Swamp Thing with promises of knowledge and power, so long as he journeys to Rosewood, the small town just outside Chicago. After Constatine mysteriously departs, Swamp Thing nervously utters “Rosewood…I know the name…from somewhere.”
And so do fervent readers, but it takes some time to go through the recesses of the mind and the back issues of the comic book series.
The next issue comes fast enough. And we learn that the monstrosities that were thought to have been swept away and destroyed by the flood from issue #3 are, in fact, much alive, changed and thriving.
The vampiric creatures have grown accustomed to their watery habitat and have built themselves a nest in the ruins of Rosewood, deep under the seemingly tranquil lake. From there, they have grown their numbers, taking wayward victims form the surface and feeding them to their Queen Mother, an obese physogastric entity whose sole purpose is to lay thousands of eggs and begin an even newer race of vampire, bent on domination of the surface world.
With Constantine’s aid, Swamp Thing aims to destroy the rising mid-west terror and locks himself into life-or-death combat with a creature that is more than a vampire ever could be. Inspired by folklore, oceanography and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, Rosewood sees the birth of a blood-thirsty beast. It encompasses the historic vampire as both a predatory denizen of the deep and a cosmic horror. By the end of the second part of the tale, the heroic muck-monster learns new abilities and is able to dispatch the novel, but horrific, mockery of life.
The victory, however is pyrrhic.
Constantine tells Swamp Thing that the telling of the tale, the folklore itself, is the ultimate weapon. That as people believe in vampires just a little bit more, that those “who are planning something very big…need the right sort of atmosphere to make it happen.”
And, in the pages of the monthly Swamp Thing, under Moore, Bissette and Totleben, that atmosphere is growing. Titled “American Gothic”, the three creators have turned a singular and easy, early 1980s vampire story into the inciting incident for a years-long epic journey through existential horror.
It would become an all-time horror classic built on Americana, religion, belief and the pantheon of DC Comics heroes and villains. It would be a terrifying narrative that would change the shape and scope of all comic books to come as well as the industry itself and would make for required reading any night of the week, let alone All Hallow’s Eve.
You can read issues of Saga of the Swamp Thing and Swamp Thing, specifically issues 3, 37, 38 and 39 as well as the American Gothic storyline, in a number of trade paperback and hardcover compilations, including omnibus and absolute editions, available through DC Comics.