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SEQUENTIAL CULTURE #25 8 May 04 |
The DC Canon, Part 6: Alan
Moore’s Swamp Thing |
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JULIAN DARIUS |
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THE DC CANON Read Part 1: Batman. Read Part 2: Superman. Read Part 3: Kingdom Come. Read Part 4: The Justice
League. Read Part 5: Superman: Red Son. You are reading Part 6: Moore’s Swamp Thing. Read Part 7: Neil Gaiman’s The
Sandman. Read Part 8: Vertigo, Part 1. Read Part 9: Vertigo, Part 2. Read Part 10: Vertigo, Part
3. |
DC Comics’ super-heroes star in a plethora
of ongoing series, mini-series, specials, original graphic novels of various
sizes, and collections every month.
Characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are more iconic
than any other super-heroes around.
Yet for all of their sales, some have not explored the best that these
icons have to offer. This, then, acts as a guide for those new
to DC’s characters, for those who may be missing a classic of one of them,
and for those who simply wish to argue what merits such concern. Lists of such a nature are always a matter
of some debate and always involve some subjectivity. They are, nonetheless, not without their
purposes of stirring thought, guiding future reading, and solidifying the
canon. Take this one as you will. Vertigo |
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The “Vertigo” contingent of DC’s canon is shockingly strong, even
if it rests a bit towards the margin of that universe. |
The Vertigo imprint, launched in January
1993, has seen a number of classics that belong in the DC canon. While Vertigo has increasingly published
creator-owned material, material not part of the DC Universe’s continuity,
its earliest years were dominated by DC Universe material. Moreover, when one includes a part of
Vertigo its antecedents at DC -- such as Alan Moore’s seminal Swamp Thing --
that naturally all occurred within the DC Universe, the “Vertigo” contingent
of DC’s canon is shockingly strong, even if it rests a bit towards the margin
of that universe. THE BEST OF THESE is Alan Moore’s Swamp
Thing, the run that led DC to embrace mature readers books and thus
rather single-handedly created Vertigo.
Moore, who had previously only written British comics, at first did
not believe the call giving him the American title. Swamp Thing, then titled Saga of the Swamp Thing,
was floundering. It was, at the time,
loosely a horror comic starring a character who had once been scientist Alec
Holland but who had been transformed through an interrupted experiment into a
muck-encrusted monster (-- not unlike Marvel Comics’ Thing, the member of the
Fantastic Four, recast in a horror mode).
Moore took over and not only changed the title but changed the
industry. |
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#21 -- the classic “The Anatomy Lesson” -- would change Swamp
Thing forever. It was a retcon, a revelation
that, like the best of revelations, felt obvious as if we ought to have
guessed it all along. |
Moore’s first issue -- #20 -- wrapped up
the plot threads left by the previous writer. Most remarkably, it also saw Swamp Thing die. #21 -- the classic “The Anatomy Lesson” --
would change Swamp Thing forever.
With Swamp Thing’s body held by the corrupt Sunderland corporation,
dissection begins -- leading to the revelation that Swamp Thing was not Alec
Holland transformed at all but something else, a creature who thought
he was Alec Holland. It was a retcon,
a revelation that, like the best of revelations, felt obvious as if we ought
to have guessed it all along. It
deconstructed Swamp Thing’s origin only to put it together again, making
something greater. Swamp Thing
revived and, his very identity shattered by this revelation, killed
Sunderland. (This might remind us of
the end of Moore’s first book of Miracleman.) The sympathetic protagonist of the title
had become a murderer as well as -- biologically -- a truly inhuman monster. |
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Moore’s characterization of the Justice League in #24
(cover-dated May 1984) would become a touchstone for the deconstructionist
super-heroics that followed. |
The first third of Moore’s run, following this
issue, featured miscellaneous stories that saw Swamp Thing interact with
other DC characters. Moore’s
characterization of the Justice League in #24 (cover-dated May 1984) would
become a touchstone for the deconstructionist super-heroics that followed. Superman chillingly offered to count the
number of molecules in the atmosphere, rendering this figure of godlike power
impossibly distant. The way in which
such heroes reinforce the status quo, failing to address threats not up to
their level, was also addressed and would become a major theme in
super-heroics over the next twenty years. These stories further changed the status
quo for the title’s protagonist.
Swamp Thing buried the body of Alec Holland, who we knew to be a
separate character. Abigail Arcane, a
character that predated Moore’s taking over the title, became Swamp Thing’s
girlfriend, which had overtones of human-vegetable sex that strained the mind
more than bestiality. In #34, they
had sex through her ingestion of a hallucinogenic tuber from his body --
while the framing narrative was right-side-up, the hallucinations ran
sideways on the page, and the narrative transitioned smoothly between the
two. |
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Moore was doing the ambitious work of reconciling these disparate
and unconnected and sometimes contradictory characters -- Moore did nothing
less than begin to cement DC’s supernatural characters into a consistent
mythology. |
Perhaps most memorably was the Arcane
trilogy that ran from #29-31: it made
arch-enemy Anton Arcane a truly horrific and savage foe, a step far beyond
his earlier appearances. Moreover,
the trilogy ended with the death of not only Anton Arcane but of his niece
Abby: Swamp Thing had defeated his
foe only to discover that that foe’s hostage -- Swamp Thing’s human love --
was already dead. The annual that
followed saw Swamp Thing journey through Heaven and Hell in search of Abby’s
soul, meeting virtually every supernatural DC character along the way. Moore was doing the ambitious work of
reconciling these disparate, unconnected, and sometimes contradictory
characters -- and doing so in a title only tangentially concerned with those
characters. In the process of
returning Abby to life, Moore did nothing less than begin to cement DC’s
supernatural characters into a consistent mythology. It was during these issues that DC, seeing
what it had, dropped from the title’s cover the box showing approval by
Comics Code Authority -- the self-censoring body established to keep comics
safe for kids. DC replaced this with
“Sophisticated Suspense,” running above the title’s logo, signaling readers
as to the content. At the time, this
was an unprecedented move. It would
lead in time to the label “Suggested for Mature Readers” -- the titles
carrying this label would form the basis of the Vertigo imprint at its
launch. |
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Swamp Thing met underwater vampires in a brilliant take on those
seminal creatures of horror. One
story dealt with menstruation, another with slavery and the existential
horror of death. |
The second third of Moore’s run -- issues
#35-50 -- explored the nature of evil itself and redefined Swamp Thing yet
again. His body destroyed, Swamp
Thing found that he had the ability to transfer his consciousness and grow
another body out of vegetable matter.
The mage John Constantine (who would go on to star in Hellblazer)
made his first appearance in #37 and would guide Swamp Thing through his
storyline of personal discovery.
Swamp Thing met underwater vampires in a brilliant take on those
seminal creatures of horror. One
story dealt with menstruation, another with slavery and the existential
horror of death. At last, in #47,
Swamp Thing met the Parliament of Trees, past Earth Elementals whose
consciousness was considerably less human than Swamp Thing himself, the
present Earth Elemental. The
storyline concluded with John Constantine and DC’s magical characters dealing
with Armageddon as Heaven itself became jeopardized. Moore later regretted the overly pat
conclusion, although it made the philosophically important statement that
good and evil, Heaven and Hell, are simply body sides of the same coin,
mutually dependent along the lines of postmodern theory. Moore’s final third began with Swamp Thing
attacking Gotham City, enwrapping it in vines and the like, in order to
reclaim Abby, who had been arrested on charges of sexual perversion. The story memorably featured Batman and
concluded -- in #53 -- with Swamp Thing seemingly being destroyed in Gotham
City. The next two issues did not
feature the title’s protagonist -- a move that was revolutionary at the time
-- and instead focused on Abby Arcane.
With #56 (the classic “My Blue Heaven”), Swamp Thing’s odyssey through
outer space began. Disrupted from
transporting his consciousness on Earth, Swamp Thing had launched himself
into space, allowing for a series of stories featuring various DC space
characters. #60 (cover-dated May
1987) was the first to partake of DC’s “new format,” featuring better
printing and paper stock for DC’s best titles in a time when most comics were
still printed on newsprint. Swamp
Thing returned to Earth and reunited with his human love, and Moore left the
title with #64. |
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Moore’s Swamp Thing cannot be praised enough for giving
comics a truly literary voice. |
Beyond the plot and characterization
described above, which would influence comics profoundly, Moore’s Swamp
Thing cannot be praised enough for giving comics a truly literary
voice. Moore filled his work with
aggressive metaphors, used different narrative structures, and generally
dazzled readers with his prose.
Stories ended with a line or an image from the opening, creating a
satisfying circular structure.
Stories had framing sequences, the main tale told through flashbacks
or in the imagination of a narrator.
But most of all, Moore gave comics an intelligence: it wasn’t just that he wasn’t afraid of
big words; it was that his lines were possessed by a literary grace. To be sure, all of this had
precedent. Will Eisner’s The
Spirit featured stories in which the protagonist barely appeared, but
that was an eight-page feature. It
was Moore’s work on a mainstream title, albeit the neglected title Swamp
Thing, that brought these aspects more than any other work into the
mainstream consciousness of comic book creators and readers. Moore publicly regretted, not long after
his run, the pretentiousness of such literary designs and his repetition, in
particular, of circular structure.
But these were the thoughts of a successful artist attempting to stay new: whatever critical overtones we may add in
retrospect, the literary intelligence of Moore’s work on the title was the
single most important work that made comics unafraid of literary
experiment. Every time a Superman or Batman
story barely features its main character and tries to craft a psychologically
compelling tale of human longing, we have to some degree Alan Moore to thank. |
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To Be Continued The
next Sequential Culture will appear in two weeks -- on Friday, 21
May. Then, Julian Darius will
continue The DC Canon by examining the classics of DC’s Vertigo
imprint. |
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Read more about Alan Moore's Swamp Thing on Sequart.com. |
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