Saga of the Swamp Thing, Book One

written by Alan Moore
art by Stephen Bissette and John Totleben
(additional art and inks by Dan Day and Rick Veitch)

Alan Moore picks up his legendary run on Swamp Thing with his titular hero in the middle of an existential crisis and propels him straight into an identity crisis.  "Loose Ends," collected for the first time in trade format, is—as its title suggests—Moore's chance to wrap up the plot threads and secondary characters started by preceding writer Martin Pasko.  It confirms the death of Arcane immediately before it kills off its title character in a barrage of bullets fired by Sunderland's mercenary army.  But it's Moore's next move that entirely changes the game for Swamp Thing with the legendary issue "The Anatomy Lesson."

It's not often one gets an autopsy of a central character, but that's exactly what "The Anatomy Lesson" is.  Shady tycoon Sunderland brings in one of DC's lesser known characters Dr. Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, to perform the autopsy on the former Alec Holland.  In the course of his research Woodrue discovers that Swamp Thing isn't Alec Holland.  In fact, he never was.  Instead, he's plant life stimulated by Holland's bio-restorative formula to absorb the memories of the former scientist.  Remembering his human body and thinking itself Holland, this plant life approximates a familiar human anatomy out of plant stuff and thereby creates Swamp Thing.  In his sinister revenge on the bullying businessman, Woodrue allows Swamp Thing to thaw, discover the truth about himself, and get his own vengeance against Sunderland.

Woodrue, in turn, becomes Moore's first real threat for the Swamp Thing, who, after learning he was never human, retreats to the swamp and falls into a more vegetative state, abandoning the red world for a green one.  Woodrue fancies himself an avenger for Earth's plant life, a self-righteous and super-powered eco-terrorist with a flair for torture.  But Woodrue's assault on humankind (and, more specifically, Abigail) awakens Swamp Thing, draws him out and shows him just what kind of hero he can be.  As Green Arrow wisely remarks, "We were watching out for New York, for Metropolis, for Atlantis...but who was watching out for Lacroix, Louisiana?" (Saga of the Swamp Thing, Book One: 113 [24: 3]).  It is, and really has always been, a gap in superhero comics, the small town.  They may come from rural towns or be raised on farms, but superheroes have a tendency to gravitate to the cities.  All crises happen in the world's (or worlds') metropolises, but Moore has given us a hero for everyone else.  As Superman acknowledges when he and Green Lantern collect a disgraced and abandoned Woodrue for Arkham, "Let's just be grateful that there's something watching out...for the places no one watches out for" (132 [24: 22]).

Woodrue, however important in igniting Swamp Thing's superhero career and bringing him back out of his plant-like forgetfulness, and the Justice League, however famous (and, here, a little clueless), fall short of this first collection's finest guest appearance:  Jason Blood.  And Moore certainly knows how to write his entrance:  "The hotel was not the best, but it was the most atmospheric.  The devil checked in at noon" (136 [25: 2]).

The three-issue arc beginning with "The Sleep of Reason..."—one whose titles allude to Goya's etching "El sueño de la razón produce monstruos," Agee's screenplay for Night of the Hunter, and one of Etrigan's finest (and most ominous) rhymes respectively—also settles Swamp Thing into the tone that it would maintain throughout most of Alan Moore's run.  It's a Southern gothic horror that capitalizes on the unique flavor of the Louisiana bayou and its French Caribbean associations with magic and voodoo.  As Abigail begins her new job at a home for autistic children, she discovers that its being preyed upon by a homicidal monkey demon that feeds on fear and was summoned out of a Ouija board.  And it takes a combination of she, Swamp Thing, Blood's alter-ego demon Etrigan, and Paul, the young boy whose parents summoned and were killed by the fear monkey, to take it down.

It also begins in earnest the romance between Swamp Thing and Abby Cable, perhaps the finest love story the medium has yet to deliver.  Though still married to Matt Cable, often drunk and increasingly misogynistic, Abigail and Swamp Thing show growing fascination with one another, and though their care for one another was evident earlier in her persistence in finding him in the swamp and in his return to consciousness to save her from danger, they touch flirtatiously, he pulling her under the water—"playing Creature of the Black Lagoon" as she puts it—and she noticing the seasonal changes in his "skin" tone.

Collects Saga of the Swamp Thing #20-27:  "Loose Ends," "The Anatomy Lesson," "Swamped," "Another Green World," "Roots," "The Sleep of Reason...," "...A Time of Running...," and "...By Demons Driven!"

ISBN:  978-1401220822