swamp thing – Page 16 – Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin

AS FORETOLD BY PROPHECY…

November 9, 2012 filed under swamp thing 9 Comments

…or, more specifically, reader Jeff R.’s prophecy, and discussed on this site again a couple of months ago, it has been announced that Hellblazer will indeed wrap up its run under the Vertigo banner with issue #300, and be followed by a new, ongoing series in the regular DC Universe.

And, well, that’s that. Not sure how I feel about it, but I’ll certainly check out the new series when it starts up. Hey, Justice League Dark featuring Constantine turned out to be pretty good, maybe this new series will, too.

Speaking of Justice League Dark, it was announced a few days back that director Guillermo del Toro is expressing interest in making a movie featuring DC’s horror ‘n’ supernatural characters, such as the aforementioned Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Deadman, and, yes, Swamp Thing. This is very much in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” category, but like I said before, del Toro’s plant-monster in Hellboy II reminded me very much of Swamp Thing, so I’d like to see what he’d do with the real thing. …Yes, I said “real thing.” Don’t tell me Swamp Thing’s not real.

And, speaking of using the “and speaking of” transition again…now, I’m enjoying the Swamp Thing comic. Honest, I am. But the Swamp Thing fanboy that lurks deep within me…well, sorta deep…okay, pretty much surface level…still objects to the thorough retooling of Swamp Thing’s continuity for the New 52 initiative. I mean, I get it, it’s a way of keeping the character fresh and fitting into this new timeline and trying to get new readers into it without feeling like they have to know that last few decades’ worth of continuity…but maybe they could have done that without contradicting everything that’s gone before. But you know, whatever, I’ll live. And all those old pre-New 52 comics are still there in my boxes for me to reread.

And on the other hand, the New 52 Swamp Thing got to shout “Superboy! We are not enemies!” in the latest issue, and frankly, that makes it all worth it.

I still look forward to the All-Star Batman cartoon.

October 6, 2012 filed under batman, cartoons, swamp thing 10 Comments

A few folks have emailed me about this over the last week or two, and now that I’ve finally watched DC’s latest direct-to-DVD cartoon, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part One, I can finally comment on Swamp Thing’s cameo:

Here’s another look at the rack, with the camera pulled back a bit so you can more clearly see that the proprietor of this shop needs to maintain the timeliness of this stock a little better:

I mean, that Swamp Thing came out in ’88, Crisis on Infinite Earths came out in 1985, etc. Someone doesn’t believe in “back issue bins.”

A couple of other notes about this DVD (or, rather, the Blu-ray, which had the special features I’m about to comment upon):

1. In one special feature, they flash a number of “groundbreaking” or “important” comics on screen, and apparently included this one as part of their “one of these things is not like the others” game.

2. The Bob Kane documentary lists Kane’s birth year as 1915, notes that Kane was asked to develop a new superhero in the wake of Superman’s initial success in 1938, and also mentions (a couple of times!) that Kane created Batman when he was 18. …The numbers ain’t addin’ up, there. I get that there was probably some fudging of dates here and there over the years for a number of reasons, but it seems funny that these “facts” were included in this documentary without comment when a moment of math reveals some issues.

At least Bill Finger got a mention, however. And it was nice to hear about Kane’s reaction when he first saw the crowds waiting for the first Tim Burton Batman movie.

3. The actual cartoon itself was pretty good…yeah, I know, why get the cartoon when most of us already have the original comics memorized. But I liked seeing how they adapted it, and I enjoyed the voice work…though what I am sure is the real highlight of the performances, Michael Emerson as the Joker, is yet to come in Part Two.

4. Though members of the Mutant Gang repeatedly say “nasty,” at no time, as far I noticed, do any of them say “balls nasty,” which is a damned shame, what that is. Almost a deal breaker.

Special thanks…

October 3, 2012 filed under swamp thing 4 Comments

…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:

That would be Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch, and Tom Yeates. Awesome. Thanks, Brian!

Here is some video from the Swamp Thing reunion panel at that con.

His is a hairy and wild-eyed people.

September 12, 2012 filed under employee aaron, swamp thing 5 Comments

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:

…pictured here wielding his clan’s traditional weapon of Spawn posters.

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 might spoil a bit of Swamp Thing #0 in this post.

October 1, 2012September 10, 2012 filed under cranius, swamp thing 35 Comments

So I went into this New 52 Era of Swamp Thing under the presumption that, well, everything that had gone before, all that Vertigo stuff and Challengers of the Unknown team-ups and Alec’s brother Edward and so on, was still part of the Swamp Thing back story. Okay, maybe not Edward, but what I figured was going to happen was that, as part of this new direction, the focus would be more on “moving ahead” and not so much “worryin’ about all that old stuff.” You know, not going too out of the way to just throw out all those old stories, but, hey, we’ve got new stories to tell, let’s all just jump in with this fresh start and let’s go, gang!

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 remember friends…even if you’re put out by Swamp Thing’s recent changes, at the very least the return of Cranius offers us all some hope.

“I had the strangest dream, as if I’d posted about POGs on my weblog for an entire week.”

August 13, 2012August 13, 2012 filed under swamp thing 10 Comments

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:

Here’s the little guy next to somethin’ to give you a sense of scale:

The other two “blind” Squinkies in the Series 2 package are Kamandi and Sinestro, the latter of which actually looks a little like a bee from the back, or maybe a member of Stryper, what with the yellow and black costume he’s wearing.

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.

Frankly, that’s just teasing the few folks still holding out hope for a Spawn/Spider-Man crossover.

August 1, 2012 filed under sir-links-a-lot, swamp thing, this week's comics 8 Comments

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:

Specifically, Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #316, respectively. …I don’t know, I kinda think these are funny, especially with that “SPAWN IS AMAZING” cover coming out the same week as The Amazing Spider-Man movie.

In other news:

Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull That Researches Comics Like Ten Little Stuffed Bulls, amazes again with this tribute to a specific characteristic of the work of Adam Hughes.

Alan David Doane’s Comic Book Galaxy (for which I wrote a comics retailing column during one of its previous iterations) has returned as a daily link-blog complied by Doane, who provides his own unique viewpoint to the material presented.

For some very odd reason, even after seeing that stupid ad on the backs of comics for decades, I never put that ad together with the DC Comics mini-series until pal Andrew’s latest Nobody’s Favorites entry.

Music cues from the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, for all your jazzy superhero music needs. (Be sure to read this historical overview of Spidey’s ’60s soundtracks.) (via Cartoon Brew)

Daniel “Copernicus Jones” Butler draws Best Batman.

I can never get enough Flop. Never.

Please let there be one of these about John Constantine’s pet tarantula.

July 30, 2012 filed under batman, swamp thing 7 Comments

So I finally picked up one of those DC Super Pets kids books for myself, and it should probably be obvious why:

Yup, it’s because I loves me some opossums. Also, Swamp Thing is in this book.

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:

…that leaves the Down Home Critter Gang to deal with the menace for the majority of the story.

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.