swamp thing

If Ragdoll existed in real life, he probably would look just that creepy.

filed under Categories batman, superman, swamp thing 12 Comments

So hey, the final cover by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes for Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #1 has been revealed with the previously blacked-out figures now not blacked-out, and they are revealed to be…


…John Constantine and Zatanna! Well, I can see why they blacked out Constantine, since he was the big surprise reveal at the end of Brightest Day #24 (er…SPOILER), but not so sure why Zatanna was kept under wraps. Ah, well, I’m sure they had their reasons.

And in DC’s ongoing quest to part me from my money by forcing me…yes, forcing, at gunpoint…to buy two copies of the same damned thing, here’s the limited retailer incentive variant cover by J.G. Jones for said #1:


Well…okay, that’s pretty good. Kinda prefer this one to the regular cover. But it doesn’t matter because I’m getting both, regardless.

That first cover is fairly amusing, though, with dour ol’ Batman, Superman and Zatanna pulling their best sourpuss faces, with John lightin’ up a smoke right there in front of them. Just the idea of Constantine pulling his irreverent “I’m gonna jerk you guys around and you won’t even realize it” routine on DC’s superfellas (and gals) sounds like fun. Let’s hope it is.

This put me in the mind of other times Constantine kinda sorta met Superman and Batman…he’s met Zatanna plenty of times, of course, since she’s a bit easier to fit into Constantine’s milieu. But to squeeze Batman and Superman together with our favorite Hellblazer, one must look back to the mid-1980s and Crisis on Infinite Earths:


That’s from Swamp Thing #46 (March 1986), and I think this is the only time Batman, Superman and Constantine appear together in the same image ’til that cover up above. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

Of course, they’re not really interacting there at all. They just happen to be in the same room during that scene shown in Crisis on Infinite Earths #5, where several dozen characters are gathered together on the Monitor’s satellite. (Constantine doesn’t seem to actually be in that two-page group shot in Crisis #5, though Swamp Thing is. NOTE: I’m also bad at “Where’s Waldo,” so don’t take my word for it.) However, a couple of issues earlier, Constantine and former Doom Patrol associate Mento (whom Constantine is manipulating toward his own ends) run into a familiar Caped Crusader during the early stages of the Crisis:


I don’t know why I find this funny, but after Batman makes his “well, nice to meet you, but I gots things to do, kids” parting remarks, there’s this great panel of Batman running away:


That shot of Batman putting on his “I’m thinking really hard” face is a good one, too.

UNRELATED except for the fact that this is from one of the Swamp Thing comics I was scanning pics from: in #46 we see all the heroes (plus Swampy and John) called together by Alexander Luthor, the son of the Earth-3 Luthor (and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask someone old to explain it to you), and Swamp Thing has this reaction to hearing the name:


Now, I don’t know if this is one of these things I’ve noticed before but it’s been so long since I’ve reread these I’ve forgotten, or that I just picked up on it now, but Swampy’s “premonition” is apparently of his seeming “death” a few months later in #53, in which Lex Luthor (of Earth One, or Post-Crisis Earth, or whatever you want to call it) was involved.

Or possibly the premonition was foreshadowing that, 20 years later in the Infinite Crisis crossover event series, Alexander Luthor would turn into a complete asshole. …Hey, given Alan Moore’s dabbling in the magical realms, I wouldn’t put it past him foreseeing this.

panels from Swamp Thing #44 (January 1986) by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, Ron Randall and John Totleben; and Swamp Thing #46 (March 1986) by Moore, Bissette and Totleben

And now, a sneak peek at Swamp Thing’s new costume.

filed under Categories nancy, sluggo, swamp thing 4 Comments


Oh, okay, not really. Actually, this is a drawing by one of my favorite cartoonists, Scott Saavedra, who was good enough to send the original art my way many years ago. Turns out I never posted it on my site in all this time, and the image doesn’t appear to be up on Scott’s site anymore, so…here you go. Pretty awesome, I think. (It says “Swamp Gas Gun” on the swamp gas gun he’s holding there, in case you can’t make it out.)

In other cool drawin’ news, Ming Doyle, artist of the swell webcomic The Loneliest Astronauts (written by close personal friend Kevin Church), drew this fantastic Nancy and Sluggo sketch that will forever change your perception of the characters. Forever, I say.

“Oh, look, he’s going on about Swamp Thing again.”

filed under Categories swamp thing 15 Comments

(SPOILERS AHOY for Brightest Day #24 in today’s post, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

So in reading about Swamp Thing’s return in Brightest Day #24, you know what bugged me the most? Yeah, that’s right, Swampy’s word balloons:


This is definitely me wearing my fanboy hat, but I much prefer the ol’ jagged-edge orange balloons:


I suppose the green ‘n’ brown colors are more earthy in tone, and at least they’ve kept the ellipses-laden pauses, but it’s gonna a bit before I’m used to it. And on the other hand, they’ve brought Swamp Thing back, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.

It is fun seeing Swamp Thing fully back in the regular superheroic DC Universe again, and I have to admit I had bit of a stupid grin on my face reading the panel where Firestorm, Aquaman et al are (re-)introducing themselves to him. And hey, I just realized, in this issue we finally got our Swamp Thing/Hawkman confrontation promised at the end of Swamp Thing #24 (1976). (As opposed to Swamp Thing just fighting some random Thanagarians, of course.)

Another nice fanboy element for me was seeing the resurrection of Alec Holland in that full-page image, but it does lead into the question of just what is going on with Swamp Thing, here. Okay, I originally had written out a blow-by-blow description of what happened in Brightest Day #24, but let’s keep it simple. It looks like we’ve gone from Swamp Thing being based on a template provided by the deceased Holland’s memories (as retconned by Alan Moore in Saga of the Swamp Thing #21) and have since switched to the revived Alec Holland being absorbed by The Green and actually becoming Swamp Thing (which is basically how it is described in the text itself). Or The Green just up and killed Holland and “reinfected” itself with his memories like last time, which, frankly, seems a bit harsh.

And did I say “simple?” Er, sorry about that.

Regardless, it’s emphasized several times that the White Lantern-revived Alec Holland only has memories up ’til his original murder way back in Swamp Thing #1, so is this revived Swamp Thing basically starting from scratch, with no recollection of all the hoohar that followed his original transformation? Or is there some kind of “back-up” memory in The Green that was fed into Swamp Thing following his revival, which seems likely since he’s whipping out a lot of his Plant Elemental superpowers schtick in this issue. And are we back to the original premise of Alec Holland being a man trapped in a monster’s body, and not just a plant thinking it’s Alec Holland? Are these the kind of things a grown man like me should be obsessing over?

I suspect these are the questions to be answered in the forthcoming Search for Swamp Thing series, which reminds me…there was apparently some consternation regarding what Swamp Thing was getting up to at the end of the issue. In particular, considering what he says here regarding folks who are harming the environment:



…which he seems to do in some executive boardroom, where Swamp Thing appears to be straight-up killing people:


…which alarmed some readers, I noticed, but given the context of its presentation, it’s pretty clear this is just a set-up for future events (i.e. the previously-mentioned Search for Swamp Thing), like the issue’s multiple epilogues preceding this one for other characters in the series. Clearly something is wrong, and even Special Other Guest Star Who We Thought Would Only Appear in The Vertigo Imprint but Here He Is in The DC Universe John Constantine seems to think this wasn’t actually the handiwork of our pal Swamp Thing:



Have I mentioned there were SPOILERS in this post?

There were also some noting that this Constantine looks a lot younger and and lot more…um, thumbed than his Vertigo counterpart, not reflecting his more recent adventures. And you know, that’s okay. If Marvel Comics can have their MAX imprint Punisher and their Marvel Universe Punisher, and never the twain shall meet, then I think we can have Vertigo Constantine (and Swampy) and DCU Constantine (and also Swampy) with their own distinct continuities. Or distinct when convenient, of course.

But all in all, I finally got what I was asking for…a return of Swamp Thing to the regular DC Universe. Hopefully this won’t end up being a case of “being careful what you wish for,” but we’ll see how it goes.

Bring me Swamp Thing figures in tribute…THIS I COMMAND.

filed under Categories cranius, pal plugging, sir-links-a-lot, swamp thing 13 Comments

Well, my plan was to talk a little more about the whole Swamp Thing hoohar on Monday, after folks have had more of a chance to read and process the character’s reemergence in this week’s Brightest Day #24. But, as many of you have emailed, commented, and Tweeted at me about in the last 12 or so hours, there’s some other big Swamp Thing news this week: MATTEL SWAMP THING ACTION FIGURE WITH EXCLUSIVE PACKAGING AND ACCESSORIES available only at this year’s San Diego Comic Con!


OH MAN. And he comes with a case shaped like his head that apparently doubles as a mask:


It seems as if the figure may be available beyond SDCC, but the accessory Un-Men figures are exclusive to this release, such as (what appears to be) Ophidian:


…and of course, the incredible Cranius:


I mean, c’mon, who deserves a Cranius figure more than me? …Well, okay, Wein and Wrightson, but I’m a close third, dammit!

So, since it’s about as likely I’ll be able to travel to Mars as to the San Diego Comic Con, I’m gonna have to plan a way to get my mitts on this thing. Plans probably won’t involve murder and mayhem, but I guarantee nothing.

You can see the whole video presenting this beautiful thing right below:


…or if that doesn’t work, you can look at the video right here.

In other news:

  • So apparently there’s going to be an ongoing subplot in the Superman comics about Supes renouncing his U.S. citizenship, causing people who’ve never read Superman comics to threaten to never read Superman comics. Or something. I guess this is really, really important, somehow.

    Hey, remember that time Superman died and he totally was never going to come back? …Yeah.

  • Andrew has a new Nobody’s Favorites entry featuring one of those characters that everyone’s heard of, but doesn’t make it any less peculiar that the character even existed in the first place.

  • So Kevin Church and Max Riffner contributed a swell four-page story to the Panels for Primates online anthology.

  • When making your Deadpool fan film, be careful with your live ammunition. REMINDER: Deadpool is a professional comic book character and his firearm frivolity should not be attempted at home. (via pal Dorian)

  • Bully, the little bull whom, it seems, is quite stuffed, presents: TALES OF THE SPOILER. Good spoilin’ fun for everyone!

  • Hey, pals Randy and Denise have a new book out: Sketch Card Mania, all about the process in producing those collectible insert cards you find in trading card sets, from two veterans of that industry! Randy and Denise are good people and fun, talented artists, and having seen the book at our shop, I can verify that it looks great. SPECIAL DEAL: if you order from Randy’s site, you will get your copies with original sketches from Randy and Denise.

    Congrats to those two on the release of their book!

  • Oh, I totally forgot to link to this…my latest article for The Content Farm site: How to Sell Your Soul to the Devil. You know, in case you were wondering how to go about that an’ all.

So perhaps you’ve heard that Swamp Thing is in Brightest Day.

filed under Categories swamp thing, this week's comics 12 Comments

So here’s the regular cover for this week’s Brightest Day #24, featuring Swamp Thing as drawn by Gary Frank:


I like the detail of the scarlet snake (I think it’s supposed to be, anyway…I don’t see any red-on-yellow-kill-a-fellow of the coral snake) entwined in Swampy’s shoulder:


And yes, the variant cover, available to retailers in a 1/10 ratio to the regular cover, also featured Swamp Thing (as drawn by Ivan Reis):


Yes, I’m picking up this cover too. I’m buying two copies of the same comic just for the covers, you bastards. Also, is Swamp Thing coughing up the White Lantern rings, or opening his plant-hole wide to receive them? Or maybe they’re just hovering around his face and he’s agape in astonishment. Who knows.

And then there’s the 1/10 variant for the final issue of the Justice League: Generation Lost series, which I swear is mocking me personally:


I mean, just look at this:


Dicks.

…

Yes, I’m getting this cover too. Jerks.

I finally went back to that old post and fixed the contrast on that Adrienne Barbeau pic.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot, swamp thing 3 Comments

  • Since I’m probably never going to get that official Swamp Thing/Man-Thing crossover (though we’ve had some unofficial ones), I’ll have to settle for things like this awesome drawing by Paul Wee.

  • Hey, here’s a fantastic William Stout rendition of Swampy.

  • Can’t help but think I’ve linked this before, but it’s Swamp Thing and MODOK, hangin’ out in the swamp together. (Not to be confused with SWAMPDOK, of course.)

  • Speaking of pal Tom Foxmarnick, who drew that SWAMPDOK image for me, here is another drawing of his presenting yet another Man-Thing/Swamp Thing team-up:


    Click on that image for a much better look. And yes, I know Man-Thing has no mouth, but that little tongue is so cute.

    Tom will be selling prints of artwork just like this at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, so drop on by his table and give him a howdy-do. And some money. For art.

  • So apparently at one time there was a vote for which series was most deserving of being presented in a DC Archives hardcover edition, and coming in at a close second was Swamp Thing. So clearly there’s need of a recount. Anyway, there’s a mock-up on that site of what a Swamp Thing Archives might look like.

  • It’s tough not to love a review of the Swamp Thing movie that includes this line:

    “There’s one naked swamp bathing scene, but you just barely catch a glimpse of anything important.”

    However, sir, I must disagree. That’s naked Adrienne Barbeau you’re speaking of…every bit is important.

    Also, the cartoon at the end of the review is something else.

  • Behold: RETIRED SWAMP THING, courtesy Awesome Hospital‘s Matt Digges.

  • “Swamp Thing could fit 20 riders in its single train.” …You don’t say!

  • …And Tony Isabella tells me this comic strip made him think of me when he saw it, so I shall add him to the list of people that I’ve infected with my particular obsession. And soon, I will call upon all these people to rise up as my personal army to…well, perhaps I’ve said too much.

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

filed under Categories 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.

Sez you.

filed under Categories letters of comment, swamp thing 7 Comments

From the letters column in Challengers of the Unknown #86 (April-May 1978):


The editorial reply:


Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d totally be in favor of an “Adventures of Alec Holland” series. In fact, in a way it looks like we might be getting a little bit of that in next week’s final issue of that one series I don’t want to spoil by mentioning that Swamp Thing may or may not have made an appearance in the previous issue.

We’ve had the occasional Alec Holland adventure in the various Swamp Thing titles, usually when he reverts (or imagines he reverts) to human form, like in the last issue of his original series and the couple of Challengers of the Unknown issues which followed up on those plot threads.

And then there was this, Alec Holland’s one and (I think) only appearance in the DC Animated Universe comics, from Batman Adventures Vol. 2 #16 by Ty Templeton, Rick Burchett and Terry Beatty:


Alas, at no time was there an animated universe Swamp Thing to go with our animated universe Alec Holland, aside from some sneaky cameos in the Justice League cartoons.

As an aside…there sure were a lot of typos in that Challengers letters column. In the scans you can see “there” used in place of “their,” and “permanently” spelled “perminately.” Not shown: “November” spelled “Nobember.” By the way, I was going back through some of my older posts as I was writing this and quickly spotted several typos of my own, so I’m not taking the high road, here.

And if I may quibble a bit with the original letter writer’s point…Holland didn’t spend “his whole life looking like that.” Even in real world time, as opposed to however much time allegedly passed in the comics, Holland had only been Swamp Thing for about six years at that point. So let’s not exaggerate, Guy Who Wrote in to Challengers of the Unknown 30-Plus Years Ago!

The Joker was so excited, he slipped while putting on his lipstick.

filed under Categories swamp thing 10 Comments

DC Comics Presents #50 (October 1982) had a two-page pin-up by Alex Saviuk and Frank Giacoia featuring all of Superman’s guest-stars thus far in the series’ run, and shown here is a detail from that image with Swamp Thing and some of his super-pals:


Speaking of Swamp Thing and his super-pals, one of my readers directed me to this bit of business over at the DC Comics site presenting a Certain Mr. Swamp Creature of Some Renown popping up on the cover of a Certain Year-Long Superhero Event Maxi-Series of Some Notoriety.