“Man, I don’t believe this! We were watching out for New York, for Metropolis, for Atlantis . . . But who was watching out for Lacroix Louisiana?”
This collection reprints the beginning of Alan Moore’s classic run on The Saga of the Swamp Thing.
TITLE:
SWAMP THING: SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING
WRITER:
by Alan Moore
ARTISTS:
by Steve Bissette (art)
and John Totleben (art)
SERIES:
by Swamp Thing #1
Collects The Saga of the Swamp Thing comics vol. 1 #21-27
PUBLISHER:
Dc/Vertigo Imprint
GENRE:
Graphic Novel (collection), Horror, Fantasy, Adventure
DESCRIPTORS:
Magic, Weird Science, The Plant Kingdom, War, Super Heroes, Demons, Autism, Identity Crisis, Corruption, Fear, Nightmares
SUMMARY:
General Sunderland calls in Dr. Jason Woodrue — the world’s leading botanist turned human/plant hybrid super villain called the The Floronic Man — to study the body of the dead Swamp Thing. They hope to pry the secrets of Alec Holland’s research from the corpse. What Woodrue finds, however, turns out to be quite astonishing and throws the muck creature in a brand new and horrifying light.
Taking what he has learned, Woodrue revives the Swamp Thing and studies it as it tries to lose itself in the plant consciousness of the Louisiana swamp. Unfortunately that gives Woodrue an opportunity to force his own way in to the consciousness of the green and marshal the world’s plants in a war against mankind.
Still trying to adapt to what he is and is not, the Swamp Thing finds himself championing one of Abby’s autistic patients in a battle against the nightmarish demon called The Monkey King. But things get even more complicated as the battle is joined by another demon called Etrigan who also seeks to banish the Monkey King and will do it by any means necessary, even if he must kill the little boy Paul.
And if they survive that, there is the problem of Matt Cable who is mortally wounded in a car accident and makes an unhealthy pact with a talking housefly.
APPEAL:
The pacing was moderate to fast. The narrative was a bit lean for the time it was originally published (1980s) but very full for current sensibilities and yet Moore always brings a turn of phrase or an idea or a metaphor that stuns me and makes me re-read again and again.
There is some interesting characterization. The Swamp Thing must face existence with new knowledge about his identity and as he learns about himself and grows, we learn about him and see him develop over time. Abby also begins to exhibit growth and come into her own as a character, slowly at first but more quickly later on.
The stories are told 3rd person omniscient. There is a generous use of captions as the narrative strand. Moore relies on the art work to help tell the stories.
Moore uses several tropes of the horror genre — mad scientists, nightmare creatures, demons, and mental abilities that corrupt the owner. But Moore has always been one intrigued by and constantly reshaping ideas in his stories. Things are rarely as they seem and never play out in a cliched way.
READALIKES:
This was the beginning of Alan Moore’s famous run of Swamp Thing issues. He took over the series in the middle of a storyline and deftly used it to launch immediately into his redefinition of the Swamp Thing in “Anatomy Lesson”.
Although story arcs weren’t as prevalent then as they are today, there are two major stories: The Swamp Thing’s life changing discoveries and Woodrue’s war of the green against the humans is one and the saga of the Monkey King is the second.
READALIKES:
If you enjoy The Saga of the Swamp Thing, you’ll want to get ahold of the rest of Alan Moore’s run which is now collected into graphic novels. The next one would be Swamp Thing Vol. 2: Love and Death
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