Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin
Taking the road only moderately traveled since 1969
…to pal Brian for going to that Cincinnati comic convention where there was a mini-reunion of Swamp Thing artists, and getting this comic signed them and sending it my way:
Here is some video from the Swamp Thing reunion panel at that con.
So we were a bit shorthanded at the shop on Tuesday, and thus were forced to call in a member of the Legion of Former Employees…the dreaded Aaron of the Forest Tribe:
Anyway, I probably want to talk more about Swamp Thing — yes, I know, shocking — and some of your comments regarding Monday’s post, but that’ll wait ’til later in the week when I’m not dog-tired. But at the very least, reader Adam was good enough to post a link to Swampy’s cameo in the recent Robot Chicken special. Very short, involves what could only technically be called “a joke,” but has some nice stop-motion animation using that recent Mattel Swamp Thing figure and a Barbie doll or something similar made up to look like Abby. WARNING: May have to watch a 30 second commercial before watching the 4 second clip.
I thought that about Swamp Thing, simply because there wasn’t really too much that directly contradicted anything that had gone before…well, sure, there’s some small measure of retconning, and tying in Arcane to the whole “Rotworld” business, which is all well and good. But it wasn’t like, say, Fury of Firestorm, which explicitly reboots the entire concept of the character, ignoring anything that happened before. It’s more like the Green Lantern books, where, aside from some minor continuity tweaks, they continued on pretty much business-as-usual in this brave new New 52 world.
Well, Swamp Thing #0, part of DC’s Zero Month, where we get a peek at the backstories of their various characters, sorta did away with that preconceived notion of mine. We get an altered version of Swamp Thing’s origin as well as a drastically altered Arcane. Arcane had been tied to the Rotworld concept before, but I figured it was one of those minor “retconnings” I’d mentioned before…that he was still a mad scientist whose search for immortality put him at odds with our mossy hero, but now, in the New 52, we were going to learn the real truth behind all of his previous shenanigans.
Nope (and here comes the SPOILER part)…turns out he’s an evil monster who can disguise himself in the flesh of other humans, has served the Rot for centuries, and hunts and kills Earth elementals like our pal Swampy. Also, he was directly responsible for Alec Holland’s death and (presumably) the rise of the human host-lacking Swamp Thing that we all were familiar with from previous series.
You may be surprised to hear that I’m cool with these changes…Swamp Thing exists under the long shadow of what Alan Moore had done with the character, and the New 52 reboot gives this new creative team the opportunity to retool basic concepts of the series in order to do new and hopefully interesting things. And so far, it has kept my interest. I’m okay with Arcane’s new status quo, making him a sort of “anti-elemental,” and doing away with his horror movie “mad scientist” origins, though…I can imagine the plot permutations possible to keep those original Arcane stories sort-of in continuity. I mean, Abby Arcane has to come from somewhere, right?
Besides, to make a point that has been made many times over…it’s not as if those previous Swamp Thing comics stopped existing or anything. I can always reread those if I want.
A couple of other points: another change that bumps up against my preconceptions of the character is the specific reference to Alec Holland’s death being “five years ago,” which I need to wrap my head around given the kinda real-time progression of Swamp Thing’s previous adventures. I always thought Swamp Thing’s timeline was more along the lines of twenty-something years, which was a problem when there were stronger ties to the regular DC Universe, but less of a problem once it was moved into the DCU-free Vertigo line. Now that it’s back in the DCU as of the New 52 relaunch, “five years” is the new across-the-board paradigm for this Age of Heroes, and I guess Swampy’s got to fit in there somehow.
Another thing is Arcane’s appearance, which originally was the result of being poorly-repaired by his Un-Men following his fall at the end of his debut story. Now, post-New 52, I guessed he always looked like that (or his appearance has a different origin, or the same origin recontextualized, or…well, I certainly nailed that down). Not a complaint or a criticism, just an observation.
One thing I’m sure we can all agree on, however, that of all the details regarding the New 52 version for Swamp Thing, this is the most important thing: Cranius is still around:
So I get an email from Joe, and Joe sez to me, he sez: “there’s a new Swamp Thing toy out” and I sez “okay, well, off I go then, as there’s a Major Toy Store Chain along the path from my home to my place of employment at the Ventura Comic and Cardfight Vanguard Shop and Video Deli and I shall make a stop during my journey to work, oh yes.”
And what is this toy, you dare ask? Well, there are these things called “Squinkies,” it seems, which are little squishy rubbery toys that are indeed very very tiny and perfectly sized for fitting one or four into each nostril, not that I’ve ever done that, nor have I taken pictures of it, but there is a line of DC Comics Squinkies, and you can see Joe’s pics of his own purchases right here.
The deal here is that each package of twelve “Squinkies” includes three that are “blind-packaged,” so you can’t see what they are. Swamp Thing is one of those “blind-packaged” ones, apparently to avoid riots at toy stores as people rushed in and mobbed the aisles trying to get their hands on the latest Swampy item. The blind-packaged Squinkies not randomly packed, and if you were to pick up the package marked “Series 2,” you too could have a wee elemental that looks a little something…like this:
I almost, almost bought Series 1, since there was a little squishy Darkseid in that package, but, you know, it’s already problematic as it is that I purchased the one set.
So anyway, if you’re a Swamp Thing collector and you need one of these, look for the package with a picture of Green Lantern on the backer card in the lower right hand corner…also, note that a couple of other Squinkies in the package are Batman and Aquaman, to help you identify that you’ve got the right set. And when you’re buying your Squinkies, tell ’em Mike sent you…I mean, chances are pretty good they know a Mike, they’ll just assume you mean him.
REMINDER: today is the day that Swamp Thing and Animal Man finally meet (after that sorta fake-out in the Animal Man annual), kicking off that “Rotworld” crossover hoohar in their twelfth issues. …They meet, they fight until they realize they’re on the same side, and then they team up and fly off into space to fight Galactus. It’s totally awesome. (You can see the diptych image from both covers on this page.)
Also out this week is Spawn #222, which will not only kick off a whole new round of people saying “oh, Spawn, that’s still coming out?” but also gives us another Spidey-tweaking cover to join last month’s:
In other news:
So I finally picked up one of those DC Super Pets kids books for myself, and it should probably be obvious why:
It’s a prose book, done in the classic kid book style with many colorful illustrations, giving me flashbacks to my long-ago tenure as a children’s librarian. There’s a section at the front of the book presenting an illustrated dramatis personae of the folks within, informing us that those four animals with Swampy on the cover are in fact his pets, the Down Home Critter gang (Mossy the Skunk, Merle the Possum, Loafers the Basset Hound, and Starlene the Raccoon).
The story involves Solomon Grundy and his own legion of evil pets attempting to raise up the dead pets from all the pet cemeteries around the world as his personal army…pretty gruesome for a kid’s book, I think as an adult in my forties, while realizing from personal library experience that kids would be perfectly okay with this. Anyway, Batman and Ace the Bathound are involved, because why not, and when Swamp Thing takes off with Batman in the Batplane to handle trouble elsewhere in the marshlands:
It’s all cute and funny, with Solomon’s pets being suitably gross, and it’s charmingly illustrated by Art Baltazar, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his work from Tiny Titans or Superman Family. Plus, there are some nice shots of Swamp Thing throughout, including a full page image of him shaking hands with Batman, which is probably the last thing I ever expected to see in a children’s picture book. And at one point, Solomon Grundy stands in a graveyard and commands “rise, zombie pets, rise!” which reminds me of Blackest Night so I’m going to think of this as tie-in, just because.
So the other night I was just goofing around (i.e. “annoying all my followers”) on the Twitter, when I wrote this:
But it was Stephen who brought it all together with this, probably never coming soon from Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures:
“AAAAH! Damn you, Holland! I am defeated by your smouldering sexiness!”
Er, yeah. Anyway, thanks to Stephen for sending this pic my way. You can see more of his work, and other fun goodies, over at his Tumblr.
So Rich dropped this in the comments to yesterday’s post:
“I’m interested in Mike’s reaction to the new Alan Scott GL origin in ‘Earth 2.’”
And I have to admit, the first thing that came to mind was the whole “Alan Scott is gay!” hoohar that was in the media, until I realized that bit of business doesn’t have much to do with the origin really. Then there was the second thing that came to mind, the fate of his loved one which I think everyone with a pulse saw coming from a mile away, but, you know, it’s a superhero origin story, good chance someone’s gotta be the “tragic loss” part of it. But I didn’t get why my thoughts specifically were asked after on this particular topic, until I realized:
“The Green has found its champion. And so I must awaken…in the name of the Grey I must rise.”
And if you recall your Swamp Thing comics of about, oh, 23 years ago, “The Grey” was an alien fungus-type thingie that Swamp Thing fought against, and you can read more about that on this page. I don’t believe there’s any connection between the Grey in Earth 2 and Swampy’s Grey, but there could very well be a minor connection between the expressions of the Green on both Earth 2 and, um, whatever Earth is the current version of Earth we’re dealing with in our post-Flashpoint DC universe. …I’m just going to assume y’all know what I’m talking about when I write all this stuff, because frankly, looking at it as I write it makes me feel like a crazy person.
Anyway, minor connection between the two, right. Well, we’re still dealing with “The Green” and I’m sure no one writing comics, particularly not James Robinson, is unaware of that particular nomenclature being used by Alan Moore to describe Earth’s life force during his Swamp Thing run. So I guess it’s simply an alternate take on the same sort of thing Moore was getting at, down to the Green choosing a champion to fight on its behalf when necessary.
Another small parallel that I’m inferring in this story is that, near the end of Alan Scott’s interaction with this green energy, he asks it
“…The way you speak. Were you…at one time…were you human?”
The question isn’t answered, but one possible interpretation is that whoever was speaking on behalf of the Green there was in fact a previous champion of the Green, who chose his successor in Alan Scott…who may someday also be absorbed into this life force of the planet, until he too reemerges to chose his own successor. It’s kinda sorta similar to previous Swamp Things retiring to the Parliament of Trees, where they guide the Green from sort of behind the scenes, while a more active champion is their avatar in the world.
Again, I’m sounding like a crazy person. I’m just trying to describe the comics, I swear.
Anyway, yeah, Rich, there are some interesting parallels between what’s going on with Alan Scott in Earth 2 and the saga of the Swamp Thing. I don’t think the twain shall ever meet, but I do think Robinson is writing a knowing reinterpretation of what Moore had put down.
Speaking of Swamp Thing, Swamp Mark popped in with some swampy news in yesterday’s comments, noting that in addition to the coming Animal Man crossover, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. will be part of the fun for issues #13-#15. And that there will be a small tie-in with Ravagers #5. So, thanks, Swamp Mark, for letting us know. I realize that, as Swamp Thing’s Best Friend, I probably should be a little more on top of reporting what’s going on in Swamp Thing’s world, especially since we now have an ongoing Swamp Thing series again and I shouldn’t just take it for granted. But, you know, I get distracted easily and sometimes I forget. So you all keep nagging me about keeping up with Swamp Thing news…sure, I might grumble a little, but I know it’s only because you folks care. I hope.
Also, as for my being crazy…at least my pal Tim doesn’t think I am. “Probably sane” is very likely the nicest thing I’ll hear about myself this week. Or month. Or…well, I’d better stop there.
A couple of you expressed difficulty in spotting the overgrown Swamp Thing in that splash page from Saga of the Swamp Thing #22 I posted yesterday:
Anyway, we have some interesting submissions in the “iconic Swamp Thing panel” discussion going on in the comments to yesterday’s post, so feel free to chime in, if you’d like.
In other news:
Okay, that was a lot of links all thrown together there. Lemme try again.
New free webcomic, Signs and Meanings. Church ‘n’ Riffner ‘n’ Hiltbrunner. Go read it.