Hard to believe, but here we are, with issue #2 of the long-delayed ending to Rick Veitch’s 1980s run of Swamp Thing. It was the previous issue what got all the attention of course, with Special Guest Star Jesus, and the inciting incident as to why the whole thing got canned in the first place.
But there’s still a story to be told beyond that big event, and it’s continued in fine style with new artwork by Tom Mandrake, colored by Trish Mulvihill, and lettered by Todd Klein in original letterer John Constanza’s style. And yes, pal Rich Handley still knocks it out of the park with his 1980s-style editorial page inside the front cover! (Rich has pointed out at least one online commentator was sufficiently convinced his column was in fact from the 1980s and not newly written for this comic. That’s how good a job he’s doing!)
Again, our mossy hero bumps into more DC Universe characters, this time more time travelers, as one of them attempts to rescue Swamp Thing from his uncontrolled journey into the past. Plus, we check in with Abby and her pregnancy in the present day, as further groundwork is laid for the eventual conclusion of this story.
Which has me wondering…way back when, as things went down and Veitch quit the book, he relayed his plans for the final four issues to Comics Buyer’s Guide, which I mostly remember (since I don’t have that copy of the paper anymore, shockingly). Without going into spoilers, I do know that what Veitch had worked out is contrary to what passes for DC’s continuity now in regards to the Swampiverse. I mean, things have been rebooted and retooled enough at DC in recent years that one could easily just say “well, Veitch’s Swamp Thing conclusion is now canon,” though one could point to the Black Label imprint on the cover there and just declare all this “not official.”
One particular point (and this is a slight spoiler, but c’mon, Abby’s pregnant, there’s gonna be a baby) is that Veitch had something specific planned for the child (name and presumably powers) that he kept to himself once DC put the kibosh on his story. In official DC continuity, Abby had a daughter that was named Tefé, who bridged the plant and animal worlds with her own elemental powers and had her own adventures (and even her own series). She is still around as of the recent Swamp Thing series with the new Levi Kamei version of the character.
So I suspect Tefé will remain the default child of Swampy, with whatever Veitch has cookin’ with this “1989” series remaining an alternate version. Ah well. Once it’s all said and done, maybe I can do a side by side comparison of Veitch’s intended ending to this storyline with the one by Doug Wheeler, Tom Yeates, and Pat Broderick that DC published in its stead.
Speaking of Swamp Thing, and when aren’t I, DC also released this week a facsimile edition of Saga of the Swamp Thing #21, the issue in which Swampy learns his true origin, and (spoiler) does away with the previously mostly off-panel menace of General Sunderland. (He does pop up once or twice in earlier issues, but not nearly as craggly and menacing as he does in this comic, drawn by Steve Bissette and John Totleben).
Anyway, if you rememnber this post from, oh, only eight years ago, I griped a bit about how the digital version of this issue left out the “color hold” imagery, where it looked like this:
Instead of like this, how it appeared in the original comic:
Well, I’m pleased to report that the color-hold drawings are back in this new facsimile, appearing as such:
…even if the texture looks a little odd, since the new color printing is flat, not “dotted” like the original and interacting with the linework in the color held bits.
That gives me hope for future reproductions. I’d been told that the person currently in charge of the Swamp Thing restorations for coming reprints is trying to do right by the work, and this is a good start!
Continuing to speak of Swamp Thing, old pal Ben (whom you’ve seen pop up in the comments here on occasion) informed me that he was on Facebook at just the right time, which is how he was able to purchase this illustrated sketch cover direct from Roarin’ Rick Veitch his own self:
Pretty cool. Anyway, if that disappears out of Ben’s house one night, I assure you I have an alibi for the evening.
And speaking of Swamp Thing just one more time, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this variant cover by Bruno Redondo for Justice League Unlimited #19, also out this week:
Nicely done. Bruno can add himself to the list of Redondos who draw a good Swamp Thing. Now Swamp Thing himself isn’t featured in this issue’s story (unless he’s in the background somewhere that I missed), but it’s enough to know that he’s a card-carrying member of the Justice League now. Just as Wein and Wrightson intended.
That Rick Veitch cover up top is lovely. Fun use of the Perez COIE overlapping-Earths motif.
And the Bruno Redondo cover is, as usual, a delight.
Thanks, Mike, for your kind comments about this issue! I know that Rick, Alex, and the rest of the team worked their BUTTS off to get this right, and it shows. There are no words to describe the honor of being involved with this project, and knowing that you are enjoying my 1989 editorials fills me with joy. :)
Seeing that cool Rick Veitch cover with Swampy tumbling through infinite Earths raises a few questions for me.
Was it ever established whether or not there was an Earth-2 Swamp Thing (as Alec Holland or someone else) at any point in DC’s publishing history (either pre-Crisis or post-Crisis or through retroactive history and continuity)? How would Earth-2 Solomon Grundy fit into the equation, considering he is a thing from the swamp?
Was there also an Earth-1 Solomon Grundy pre-Crisis, as I seem to recall Swamp Thing meeting an iteration of Solomon Grundy at least once in DC Comics Presents (or was that supposed to be an Earth-2 Solomon Grundy who had crossed over to Earth-1?)?
If DC ever wanted to create a retroactive continuity Earth-2 Swamp Thing they could always more or less copy the origin of The Heap, from Airboy Comics, as that character is in the public domain. It could be interesting to have an Earth-2 Swamp Thing interact with the All-Star Squadron in story.
Or, what if there were a story where the original-proto Swamp Thing from House of Secrets no. 92, Alec Olsen, encountered Jonah Hex or other DC Western characters (or has DC already published a story along these lines?)?
In fact, how about having various Swamp Things throughout history interacting with various DC characters? From the Swamp Thing in Anthro’s era all the way to the Swamp Thing in Kamandi’s era?
There was an Earth-1 Solomon Grundy. Briefly. The Earth-2 Grundy had crossed over to Earth-1, and he left some of decaying cells behind. The cells ended up growing into a new Earth-1 Solomon Grundy. He was only in a few stories (including interacting with Swamp Thing in that DC Comics Presents story), as Batman ended up destroying the body shortly before Crisis.
The post-Crisis version of Grundy is similar to the Earth-2 version, and DC has connected the post-Crisis Grundy with the Swamp Thing-mythos.
@Chris V
Maybe DC can concoct a hitherto untold Bronze Age story where the Earth-1 and Earth-2 Solomon Grundys go on a rampage against Alan Scott and Hal Jordan which leads to a classic JLA/JSA team up.
Also, everybody know that Solomon Grundy was born on a Monday, but what day was Swamp Thing born on?
And if we got a female Swamp Thing (kind of like a Swamp Thing/Poison Ivy fusion–or maybe it would be a case where Abby became the Swamp Thing?) on that psychedelic ’60s Earth that Grant Morrison created where Sunshine Superman and other characters live, then the George Harrison on that Earth could compose the great song “Swamp Thing in the Way She Moves”….
I’d always wondered why we didn’t just see random characters in Earth-abcde versions. Not the Silver Age ones. I thought Grant Morrison did a decent job with GREEN LANTERN. But young Wayne thought why didn’t the Teen Titans meet another group of Teen Titans? Not the big guys, the other characters.
A little thing, and I know over the years it has been done, but who wouldn’t want to see two Elongated Mans and one Flash? Again, me in 1980.
Sean – I talk about that issue of DCCP here!
And no, there is no Earth-2 Swamp Thing. I believe Bob Rozakis even said as such in one of his “Answer Man” columns.
Swamp Thing met Solomon Grundy at least twice that I can remember off the top of my head. First in that DCCP, and again in one of the early Rick Veitch issues. (I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but those are the main two.)
Oh, and there’s Super Friends #28 where Solomon Grundy and Swamp Thing both appear, but those are actually people in costumes magically turned into the beings they were disguised as, and not “really” them.
@Mikester
Thank you for the clarification and the link to your commentary on the DCCP issue.
@Wayne
Again, if Morrison or anybody at DC wanted to get creative with any hitherto untold tales of the Golden, Silver, and/or Bronze Ages, it seems that there is a wealth of material and characters which could be utilized. I’ve probably mentioned some of these ideas before, but, re: Bronze Age Teen Titans, I would love to see a story where the Teen Titans (not the New Teen Titans) meet the Super Squad (Robin, Power Girl, Star Spangled Kid–and maybe even Earth-2 Speedy and Sandy)from Earth-2 for a Crisis story set during 1976.
What if The Fiddler mucked up things so that the Earth-1 Speedy and Earth-2 Speedy got switched, or Earth-1 Speedy’s band Great Frog got time displaced to 1776 and were accused of being spies for King George III? And then the Super Squad and Teen Titans travelled back in time to the Revolutionary War, and, with Benjamin Franklin’s help, they stop Vandal Savage and Per Degaton from deposing George Washington and creating a fascist state?
Or how about the Bronze Age Teen Titans having an adventure with the Bronze Age Legion. Would Lilith fall for Timber Wolf? Would Speedy be trying to make time with Dream Girl–much to Star Boy’s and Wonder Girl’s dismay?
How about untold tales of more Fawcett and Quality Comics characters from the Golden Age meeting the JSA or All-Star Squadron in the ’40s?
I know The Spirit belongs to the Will Eisner estate, but how about The Spirit meeting Midnight? Or a Golden Age crossover between Plastic Man and Captain Marvel? What if Tawky Tawny teamed up with Detective Chimp? And, as Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew met up with the Just’A Lotta Animals, it stands to reason that on yet another anthropomorphic animal Earth the Just’A Society’A Animals should also exist and could meet the Zoo Crew.
@Sean: you’ve heard me yap about why DC ignores the Quality heroes but for those James Robinson used in STARMAN.
I did mean the Teen Titans from the late 60s. The ideas wouldn’t sell. And my pet idea is for Hal Jordan to be on Earth-2 and see how many Lanterns are the same or different.
And set some in the Golden Age. Why not? I remember CHASE and her dad belonging to The Justice Experience in (for then) the early 70s? Martian Manhunter as The Bronze Wraith.
Get me on the phone with Carmine Infantino. He believes in me.
@ Wayne
Sadly, Carmine Infantino passed away some years ago.
I’m afraid I don’t know who “CHASE” is and I haven’t heard of “The Justice Experience”–I’m assuming these might be characters on other Earths in the Omniverse, or from one of Grant Morrison’s Multiversity series,or else characters from Elseworlds or Imaginary Tales? I know who the Martian Manhunter is, but I haven’t heard of “The Bronze Wraith” before. Feel free to clarify for me what you are writing about, if you feel like it.
As to your Elongated Man idea, it could be cool if on a parallel Earth there was an Elongated Man whose stories were set in the ’30s–Ralph Dibny could look like William Powell, and that Earth’s Sue Dibny could look like Myrna Loy–as I believe that Ralph and Sue were inspired by Nick and Nora Charles in the classic “Thin Man” films.
Ideas can sell if they are handled well and done by fan favorite writers/artists. I guess in the ’60s most editors at DC had their own little fiefdoms, but it does seem odd that the Teen Titans never crossed over with the Legion of Super Heroes back then–or even in the Bronze Age. That could be a fun project for Mike Alred or the Hernandez Bros. to tackle–maybe the Swing with Scooter characters could make a cameo as well?
The Justice Experience was from the John Ostrander Martian Manhunter series. They were a continuity filler to deal with the sliding timeline post-Crisis. Since the JSA were gone after the 1950s, and the Justice League wasn’t founded until (then) the 1980s after the Crisis, it left a hero gap in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The Justice Experience was the ret-con DC superhero team of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Much like the similar Front Line at Marvel, little was heard about the team after their initial creation.
As per the post-Crisis continuity, the Martian Manhunter still debuted as a superhero in the 1950s. The Bronze Wraith was the secret identity Martian Manhunter took up as a member of the Justice Experience.
@Chris V
Thanks for the information. I went to look up “The Justice Experience.” Although I have generally enjoyed work of Ostrander’s which I have read, the whole “Justice Experience” seems a bit goofy to me. But it looks like a Dan Curtis Johnson was the main creator of The Justice Experience. The team name seems silly. And, from looking up the characters, most of them seem goofy as well. Perhaps Song Bird (who looks like a Hawkwoman/Dawnstar knockoff), and The Manx (a Catwoman knockoff) had some potential, but The Acro-Bat(groan!), Mister Action (I’m assuming he’s a Doc Savage/Superman place holder?), and Major Flashback(who looks like a cross between Captain Zammo–from The Super 6 animated cartoons–and a villain that Brother Power the Geek should have fought!) seem dubious at best. And why would J’onn J’onzz become The Bronze Wraith???
I’m not a big fan of all of the retroactive continuity hi-jinks. Now that DC has a multiverse, I think every decade or so they should just say this is a new iteration of The Justice League, but all of those other Justice League iterations dating back to the ’60s still exist on their own Earths, with the proviso that some team members have retired or passed away.
But, even if one wanted to bridge the ever widening gap between the JSA retiring and the JLA not forming until several decades later due to lame retroactive continuity, why not just have a placeholder team for the ’60s comprised of Congo Bill and Congorilla, Mark Merlin/Prince Ra-Man, B’wana Beast, Dolphin, Captain Comet, The Shining Knight, The (cowboy) Vigilante,The Blackhawks, etc. as “The Justice Legion?”
Or they could have used some obscure Quality Comics characters like Wonder Boy, Stormy Foster the Great Defender, Spider Widow, etc.
“The Acro-Bat”
HAHAHAHAHA!!
“And why would J’onn J’onzz become The Bronze Wraith???”
Because it ain’t easy being GREEN!
@ Snark Shark
So should Kermit become the Bronze Toad….?