Swamp Thing is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. While several incarnations of the character have since debuted, the original was created by writer Len Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson and first appeared in House of Secrets #92 (July 1971). The character found perhaps its greatest popularity during the original 1970s Wein/Wrightson run and in the mid-late 1980s during a highly acclaimed run under Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, and John Totleben.
In each incarnation of the character, the Swamp Thing is often depicted as a swamp monster that resembles an anthropomorphic mound of vegetable matter seeking to protect nature. Known as the Avatar of the Green, Swamp Thing is an the embodiment of the cosmic energies that gives life to all plant life in the known universe (dubbed "The Green") and is considered the champion of the Parliament of Trees, the collective guiding and collective consciousness of all plant life.
The first Swamp Thing was Alexander Olsen, a scientist who was killed by his assistant vying for the affections of his wife. Returning as a swamp creature after his body is dumped, he takes revenge on his killer, but his wife runs off, unable to recognize him. He later becomes a local legend in Louisiana.
The most well-regarded incarnation is the second version, Alec Holland. Once a chemist working on a compound to enable plant growth in hostile environments, Holland is seemingly transformed by his own creation after his death at the hands of criminal elements. In some stories he is a plant creature believing himself to be Alec, possessing his memories, while later stories make him the genuine Alec who transforms into the Swamp Thing. This version is also a reluctant ally of John Constantine and a later member of the Justice League Dark, considered a powerhouse among their ranks.
In 2021, a new incarnation is created as Levi Kamei, a young Indian scientist descended from a tribunal connected to the Kaziranga wetlands, whose power awakens following a tragedy. This version exists concurrently within the mainstream DC Universe alongside Alec and is more prominently a roster member of the Titans.
The character has been adapted from the comics into several forms of media, including feature films, television series, and video games. The character made his live-action debut in the film Swamp Thing (1982), with Dick Durock playing the Swamp Thing, while Ray Wise played Alec Holland. Durock played both Swamp Thing and Holland in the sequel film The Return of Swamp Thing (1989). Durock reprised the role again in the television series Swamp Thing (1990). The Swamp Thing was played by Derek Mears with Andy Bean playing Alec Holland in the television series Swamp Thing (2019). Another live-action film adaptation, titled Swamp Thing, is in development as an installment of the DC Universe (DCU) media franchise.
IGN ranked him 28th in the Top 100 Comic Book Heroes list.
Concept and creation In 1971, DC Comics editor Joe Orlando contacted writer Len Wein for a last-minute eight-page backup story for House of Mystery. Wein came up with the idea for the character while riding a subway in Queens. He later recalled: "I didn't have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as 'that swamp thing I'm working on'. And that's how it got its name!" According to publisher Jenette Kahn, Orlando added the story's twist ending. Bernie Wrightson designed the character's visual image, using a rough sketch by Wein as a guideline. Wrightson completed the eight-page story in one weekend with the assistance of Michael Kaluta (who also modeled for the story's villain) and Jeff Jones, who inked two of the pages.
Wein and Wrightson developed a specific visual style for the stories, including yellow thought balloons and orange speech balloons, since "it was such an extraordinary effort for him to speak...whenever a caption referred to him, it was drippy like a swamp."
Publication history
Volume 1 Len Wein was the writer for the first 13 issues, before David Michelinie and Gerry Conway finished up the series. Burgeoning horror artist Bernie Wrightson drew the first 10 issues of the series, while Nestor Redondo drew a further 13 issues, the last issue being drawn by Fred Carrillo. The original creative team worked closely together; Wrightson recalled that during story conferences, Wein would walk around the office acting out all of the parts. The Swamp Thing fought against evil as he sought the men who murdered his wife and caused his monstrous transformation, as well as searching for a means to transform back into his human form.
The Swamp Thing has since fought many villains. Though they only met twice during the first series, the mad scientist Anton Arcane (with his obsession with gaining immortality) became the Swamp Thing's nemesis, even as the Swamp Thing developed a close bond with Arcane's niece Abigail Arcane. Arcane was aided by his nightmarish army of Un-Men and the Patchwork Man, alias Arcane's brother Gregori Arcane who, after a land mine explosion, was rebuilt as a Frankenstein Monster-type creature by his brother. Also involved in the conflict was the Swamp Thing's close friend-turned-enemy Lt. Matthew Joseph Cable, a federal agent who originally mistakenly believed the Swamp Thing to be responsible for the deaths of Alec and Linda Holland.
As sales figures plummeted towards the end of the series, the writers attempted to revive interest by introducing fantastical creatures, aliens, and even Alec Holland's brother, Edward (a character that was never referred to again by later writers) into the picture.
The last two issues saw the Swamp Thing transformed back into Alec Holland and having to fight one last menace as an ordinary human. The series was cancelled with issue #24 and a blurb for a 25th issue containing an upcoming encounter with Hawkman led nowhere. Alec Holland's transformation back into the Swamp Thing was covered in Challengers of the Unknown #81-87, within which the Swamp Thing is enlisted by the titular team to fight the Lovecraftian cosmic threat M'nagalah, whom the Swamp Thing had encountered during Wein's run.
The Saga of the Swamp Thing and Volume 2
In 1982, DC Comics revived the Swamp Thing series,Manning, Matthew K. "1980s" in Dolan, p. 197: "Swamp Thing returned to the pages of a new ongoing series, written by Martin Pasko and drawn by artist Tom Yeates". attempting to capitalize on the summer 1982 release of the Wes Craven film of the same name. A revival had been planned for 1978, but was a victim of the DC Implosion. The new series, called The Saga of the Swamp Thing, featured an adaptation of the Craven film in its first annual. Now written by Martin Pasko, the book loosely picked up after the Swamp Thing's guest appearances in Challengers of the Unknown #81-87, DC Comics Presents #8, and The Brave and the Bold #176, with the character wandering around the swamps of Louisiana seen as an urban legend and feared by locals. Pasko's main arc depicted the Swamp Thing roaming the globe, trying to stop a young girl (and the possible Anti-Christ) named Karen Clancy from destroying the world.
When Pasko had to give up work on the title due to increasing television commitments, editor Len Wein assigned the title to British writer Alan Moore. When Karen Berger took over as editor, she gave Moore free rein to revamp the title and the character as he saw fit. Moore reconfigured the Swamp Thing's origin to make him a true monster, as opposed to a human transformed into a monster. In his first issue, he swept aside most of the supporting cast that Pasko had introduced in his year-and-a-half run as writer and brought the Sunderland Corporation to the forefront, as they hunted the Swamp Thing down and "killed" him in a hail of bullets. The subsequent investigation revealed that the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland transformed into a plant, but actually a wholly plant-based entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, having somehow absorbed duplicates of Holland's consciousness and memories into himself. He is described as "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland". This is explained as a result of the plant matter of the swamp absorbing Holland's bio-restorative formula, with the Swamp Thing's appearance being the plants' attempt to duplicate Holland's human form. This revelation resulted in the Swamp Thing suffering a temporary mental breakdown and identity crisis, but he re-asserted himself in time to stop the latest scheme of Floronic Man.
Issue #32 was a strange twist of comedy and tragedy, as the Swamp Thing encounters an alien version of Pogo, Walt Kelly's character.
Moore would later reveal, in an attempt to connect the original one-off Swamp Thing story from House of Secrets #92 to the main Swamp Thing canon, that there had been dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Swamp Things since the dawn of humanity, and that all versions of the creature were designated defenders of the Parliament of Trees, an elemental community which rules a dimension known as "the Green" that connects all plant life on Earth. Moore's Swamp Thing broadened the scope of the series to include ecological and spiritual concerns while retaining its horror-fantasy roots. In issue #37, Moore formally introduced the character of John Constantine the Hellblazer as a magician/con artist who would lead the Swamp Thing on the "American Gothic" storyline. Alan Moore also introduced the concept of the DC characters Cain and Abel being the mystical reincarnations of the Biblical Cain and Abel caught in an endless cycle of murder and resurrection.
The Saga of the Swamp Thing was the first mainstream comic book series to completely abandon the Comics Code Authority's approval."Comics Code Rejects Saga of Swamp Thing Story; Swamp Thing Rejects Code", The Comics Journal #93 (September 1984), pp. 12/13.
With issue #65, regular penciler Rick Veitch took over from Moore and began scripting the series, continuing the story in a roughly similar vein for 24 more issues. Veitch's term ended in 1989 due to a widely publicized creative dispute, when DC refused to publish issue #88 because of the use of Jesus Christ as a character, despite having previously approved the script in which the Swamp Thing is a cupbearer who offers Jesus water when he calls for it from the cross."Swamp Thing Cancellation Begets Protest, Media Attention", The Comics Journal #130 (July 1989), pp. 28–29."Rick Veitch Quits Swamp Thing", The Comics Journal #129 (May 1989), pp. 7–11. The series was handed to Doug Wheeler, who made the cup that the Shining Knight believed to be the Holy Grail to be a cup used in a religious ceremony by a Neanderthal tribe that was about to be wiped out by Cro-Magnons, in the published version of issue #88. In issue #90, Wheeler not only reintroduced Matango, a character that Stephen Bissette had introduced in Swamp Thing Annual #4, but he also completed Veitch's story arc that intended to have Abby Holland give birth to the human-plant hybrid elemental Tefe Holland.
After a period of high creative turnover,"Swamp Thing Team Leaves", The Comics Journal #139 (December 1990), p. 16. in 1991 DC sought to revive interest in Swamp Thing by bringing horror writer Nancy A. Collins on board to write the series. Starting with Swamp Thing Annual #6, Collins moved on to write Swamp Thing (vol. 2) #110–138, dramatically overhauling the series by restoring the pre-Alan Moore tone and incorporating a new set of supporting cast members into the book."Nancy Collins: Swamp Thing's New Scripter Speaks", David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview #102 (1991), pp. 4–13. Collins resurrected Anton Arcane, along with the Sunderland Corporation, as foils for the Swamp Thing. Her stories tended to be ecologically based and at one point featured giant killer flowers.