“Dr. Alec Holland had all the answers . . . He was an intelligent man . . . But Alec Holland is dead . . . And in his place stands only a Swamp Thing.”
This collection brings together the very first Swamp Thing story and the original series of stories that became the popular cult classic comic series.
TITLE:
SWAMP THING: DARK GENESIS
WRITER:
by Len Wein
ARTISTS:
by Berni Wrightson (art)
SERIES:
by Swamp Thing #1
Collects Swamp Thing comics vol. 1 #1-10
and House of Secrets vol. 1 #92
PUBLISHER:
Avatar Press
GENRE:
Graphic Novel (collection), Horror, Fantasy, Adventure
DESCRIPTORS:
Magic, Weird Science, Cabals, Revenge Stories, Witches, Flesh Golems, Mad Scientists, Aliens, Werewolves, Ghosts, Lovecraftian Monsters, Alien, Super Heroes
SUMMARY:
In the first story, we get the original Swamp Thing, a short historical horror piece published in The House of Secrets comic book. Initially resisting the call for more stories about the shaggy anti-hero, Wein and Wrightson returned to the swamp for an modern version, a cross between an anti-hero and a muck monster and thus launched the first run of Swamp Thing comics.
Doctors Alec and Linda Holland were very much in love and working on a top secret bio-restorative research for the government when agents of the Conclave blew up their lab with Alec in it. Drenched in bio-restorative chemicals and on fire, Alec jumped into the swamp and days later a swamp encrusted mockery of a man arose — Alec Holland had become the Swamp Thing.
The Swamp Thing gains a measure of revenge against the agents of the Conclave, but he also earned Matt Cable’s endless wrath as he blames the monster for the death of his friends, the Hollands.
From there the Swamp Thing faces numerous trials — a sorcerer named Arcane and his niece Abigail, a flesh golem that was once Abby’s father, a witch hidden in a village, a white werewolf roaming the blizzard in the Scottish Highlands, androids, a god-like monster seeking to return to Earth, a superhero dressed as a bat, an alien and a small army of grotesque creatures made of various human body parts called Un-Men.
APPEAL:
The pacing was moderate to slow as the narrative sometimes became bogged down by purplish prose and annoying turns of phrases. The stories were over-written. Len Wein co-created the Swamp Thing and he deserves a lot of credit for it but his writing style got in the way of my enjoying the stories.
Some interesting characterizations that stay well within the horror genre — the maligned and self-loathing monster, the obsessed man who doesn’t realize he is hunting a friend, a madman who desires immortality and will go to great lengths to get it and the mysterious woman. Yet Wein does his best with the Swamp Thing. The monster is gentle until he flies into a rage and them he is terrible and one worries he will go too far before he calms down. He is nearly mute but capable of though and we get a lot of thought balloons for the muck monster and few for anyone else.
The stories are told 3rd person omniscient. There is far too generous use of captions as the narrative strand. Less prose and more reliance on the art work would have enhanced these stories.
Wein uses several tropes of the horror genre — mad scientists, ghosts, werewolves, flesh golems, witches, Lovecraft monsters and even an alien. Many times the stories are of a monster wandering into a town, setting things right and shambling on.
READALIKES:
Len Wein and Berni Wrightson made an extraordinary leap in creativity in creating the Swamp Thing (Read the introduction for the story behind the creation of Swamp Thing) but Alan Moore took the creation to a whole new level. Check out “Anatomy Lesson” in Swamp Thing: Saga of the Swamp Thing
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