Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinAlone, unmourned, and unloved since 1969

Under normal circumstances, admitting that you’ve held onto, but not looked at, a magazine for thirty years could be considered a problem.

§ April 24th, 2011 § Filed under swamp thing § 5 Comments

So a Swamp Thing fan did a bit of an info dump regarding the character in my comments section from a couple of days ago, which…you know, you can probably just email those to me, that’d be fine, honest! If I act on any of your suggestions, I’ll give you credit, I promise! But he did remind me of a Swamp Thing appearance I’d totally forgotten about…one I did buy off the stands when it came out, so I have it in my collection, but I probably haven’t cracked open the cover of the thing since originally reading it around 30 years ago.

It’s DC Comics Presents #38 (October 1981), and, like issue #50 of the series, featured a two-page pin-up (by George Perez) of all the characters Superman had teamed up with in the previous issues. Including, of course, our favorite swamp creature:

Yeah, I know it looks like the Flash is hanging on Swampy’s arm like a prom date, or that he’s on the verge of plowing through Swamp Thing’s body at superspeed. Also, I’m reasonably certain this is the only time Swamp Thing and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny ever appeared in the same image together. Unless Hoppy’s in that two-page crowd scene in Crisis on Infinite Earths #5, and I’m too lazy to go check.

Speaking of which, I think Swampy’s appearances in those couple of issues of Crisis are, along with this pin-up, the only times George Perez drew Swamp Thing. Well, that were published, anyway…for all I know, at conventions, when he isn’t being asked to draw topless Starfire, maybe he’s doing dozens of Swamp Thing commissions. Or maybe commissions of Swamp Thing with topless Starfire.

…

I would like to apologize in advance to Mr. Perez for the commission requests he’s about to receive.