Sunday, August 10, 2003
Vertigo have finally released the last part in their collection of Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. For something that was released some twenty years ago to start the so called British 'invasion' of American comics, it's amazing first how well it's aged and secondly how in this age of rather sanitised horror how shocking some of it was. If Frederick Wertham was alarmed by the comic books of the 1950s, what would he have made of Swamp Thing #46 with mutilated babies, flesh stripped from the bodies of the living and cannibalism?
In around three and a half years at the start of the eighties Alan Moore took a fading horror comic that had limped along for years and which it seemed was doomed to failure. The Saga of the Swamp Thing was the story of scientist Alec Holland, killed by gangsters out to steal his experimental plant-restoration formula, he found himself resurrected as a creature made of plants from the swamp his lab was located in. Just another monster character, no-one thought he was going to last much longer when Moore took over.
The most important thing that's changed about Batman since he was created was the size of his bat-ears. Superman, though still faster than a speeding cliche, is not as mighty now as he was fifty years ago. Moore changed everything about Swamp Thing short of getting rid of Holland. No, in fact, that was the first thing he did. He started with issue #20, which never gets collected because he was finishing off a story written by someone else. But at the end of that issue Swamp Thing is killed. Issue #21, which starts all collections, including these ones, has his corpse being dissected and studied. But here the first change that Moore decided upon is made. Every writer up to that point had assumed that Holland was in there somewhere, Moore changes that. Swamp Thing discovers as we do that he is not Holland in a plant body, but a plant body that thinks it's Alec Holland. It can't regain it's humanity because it never had it. Naturally Swamp Thing is a bit upset by this.
But as Moore takes him and us off into a wild ride around the universe of DC comics, meeting Superman and Batman and other creatures like the mysterious Stranger, Deadman, the rhyming demon Etrigan and London sorceror John Constantine he constantly continues to change the character. As Swamp Thing comes to realise that his existance is a matter of will then the exercise of willpower can alter him in more profound ways. As we approach issue fifty Swamp Thing becomes involved in a battle that has lasted longer than the universe itself, but it's Moore's genius that he's then able to go beyond that and top it with a simple story about the heart of this plant man.
For years only available in cheap black and white form, it's only in the last year that Vertigo have released these collections as they were originally seen. The artwork and colour does occasionally seem to lack inspiration, mainly because of the increase in paper quality between then and now, but the psychedelic world of the mindspace of plants, the wastes of Hell and a giant Swamp Thing made of redwoods stalking the streets of Gotham City overcome these limitations to seriously impress.
If you've never read a comic before in your life this is probably not the best place to start, as some characters may seem unitelligeable without a knowledge of the DC comics world. But Swamp Thing is horrifying, exciting, mysterious and ultimately uplifting, and well worth anyone's time. And when you've finished, there's Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell and Promethea, highlights from an astounding career of someone who is probably the best comic writer ever.
In around three and a half years at the start of the eighties Alan Moore took a fading horror comic that had limped along for years and which it seemed was doomed to failure. The Saga of the Swamp Thing was the story of scientist Alec Holland, killed by gangsters out to steal his experimental plant-restoration formula, he found himself resurrected as a creature made of plants from the swamp his lab was located in. Just another monster character, no-one thought he was going to last much longer when Moore took over.
The most important thing that's changed about Batman since he was created was the size of his bat-ears. Superman, though still faster than a speeding cliche, is not as mighty now as he was fifty years ago. Moore changed everything about Swamp Thing short of getting rid of Holland. No, in fact, that was the first thing he did. He started with issue #20, which never gets collected because he was finishing off a story written by someone else. But at the end of that issue Swamp Thing is killed. Issue #21, which starts all collections, including these ones, has his corpse being dissected and studied. But here the first change that Moore decided upon is made. Every writer up to that point had assumed that Holland was in there somewhere, Moore changes that. Swamp Thing discovers as we do that he is not Holland in a plant body, but a plant body that thinks it's Alec Holland. It can't regain it's humanity because it never had it. Naturally Swamp Thing is a bit upset by this.
But as Moore takes him and us off into a wild ride around the universe of DC comics, meeting Superman and Batman and other creatures like the mysterious Stranger, Deadman, the rhyming demon Etrigan and London sorceror John Constantine he constantly continues to change the character. As Swamp Thing comes to realise that his existance is a matter of will then the exercise of willpower can alter him in more profound ways. As we approach issue fifty Swamp Thing becomes involved in a battle that has lasted longer than the universe itself, but it's Moore's genius that he's then able to go beyond that and top it with a simple story about the heart of this plant man.
For years only available in cheap black and white form, it's only in the last year that Vertigo have released these collections as they were originally seen. The artwork and colour does occasionally seem to lack inspiration, mainly because of the increase in paper quality between then and now, but the psychedelic world of the mindspace of plants, the wastes of Hell and a giant Swamp Thing made of redwoods stalking the streets of Gotham City overcome these limitations to seriously impress.
If you've never read a comic before in your life this is probably not the best place to start, as some characters may seem unitelligeable without a knowledge of the DC comics world. But Swamp Thing is horrifying, exciting, mysterious and ultimately uplifting, and well worth anyone's time. And when you've finished, there's Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell and Promethea, highlights from an astounding career of someone who is probably the best comic writer ever.
