…I discovered that things don’t make any more sense this time around than before, as least as it pertains to the transition from Brightest Day to that Search for Swamp Thing series.

In brief: at the end of Brightest Day, Alec Holland is resurrected by the White Lantern’s power to become the new Swamp Thing, defeating and supplanting the old Swamp Thing whose nature had been corrupted by the evil force that was behind the whole “Blackest Night” hoohar. After evil is defeated and Swamp Thing gives everyone the ol’ “I’m back to fight for the Green” speech, we get a cliffhanger where Swamp Thing is shown killing a bunch of dudes who are responsible for harm being done to the environment. And then John Constantine shows up to express his disbelief that Swamp Thing was actually responsible for all this.

Okay. Well then, it seems like we need a mini-series or something to shed some light, right? Said mini, Search for Swamp Thing, shows that 1) Holland had been split from the Green again, and no longer Swamp Thing, though if there’s an explanation for it, none seems apparent, and 2) the Green is trying to create a new avatar by using Constantine, as he was Swampy’s buddy and apparently that’s close enough for horseshoes.

When all is said and done in this mini, there is still no explanation for Holland being split from Swamp Thing, the two are not reunited in the end, and there’s no apparent resolution to the Green-persuing-Constantine plot (and in fact, the series ends with the implication that the Green is still trying to get its leafy tendrils on Constantine).

If it weren’t for the explicit references to the then just-completed Brightest Day series, I would have said this was a new reboot for Swamp Thing, unconnected to Brightest Day. But it all ends up a moot point anyway, as within a week or so of this mini wrapping up, the New 52 starts, with its new continuity, and a whole new Swamp Thing series.

The new Swamp Thing starts sort of where we left off from the mini, with a resurrected Alec Holland, only with the Green actively pursuing him, and no Constantine in sight. However, the return of Alec Holland appears unrelated to any of those events from Brightest Day or Search for Swamp Thing, given statements in later issues that Holland “woke up naked in the swamp” and, well, what the Parliament of Trees says directly to Holland in issue #7:

I still think some kind of Brightest Day thing was supposed to have occurred in this New 52 continuity, as clearly something happened to the previous Swamp Thing, the one that had been based on Holland’s memories. (Or I missed it, or haven’t gotten to it in the rereading yet.) Also, Superman shows up in Swamp Thing #1 to check on Holland, which sort of implied to me that the two were tied up in the Brightest Day event, but that may have been more because those comics were still fresh in my mind more than anything actually presented in the text. It could be just that Superman makes a habit on checking on people who come back from the dead, particularly those tied to powerful characters in the DC Universe.

(Also, Superman seemingly references his own “Death of Superman” storyline during the discussion, so maybe that happened in the New 52 world? Who knows?)

Anyway, my main goal here was to find out if there was an in-story explanation for Holland’s return that didn’t depend on readers assuming a New 52 Brightest Day-esque event whose story Must Not Yet Be Told, and lo, look at the pics above.

Come back…oh, Friday, I guess, when I regale you with more recent Swamp Thing trivia I may have missed.

So blogging brother Tim O’Neil tried to kill me with the following question:

…Is there any chance in the near future you could go into a bit more detail on all the discrepancies between pre-Flashpoint and Nu52 Swamp Thing continuity?

Well, good gravy.

I went into some detail about that here, in which I discuss the new status quo of Swampy’s arch-nemesis, but even now, it’s hard to say what is still “in continuity” and what isn’t.

Some of the big details are the same…Holland is still killed by sabotage of his lab, his memories are incorporated into a Swamp Thing that thinks it’s Alec Holland, Holland is eventually resurrected, and finally actually is transformed into Swamp Thing himself. And along the way, Swampy (the original one) has a romance with Abby Arcane.

Some of the specifics are different…Holland meets Abby and Arcane before becoming Swamp Thing, Arcane is the one who sabotages the lab and prevents Holland from initially, directly becoming Swamp Thing, necessitating the Parliament of Trees’s creation of an ersatz Holland-mind to inhabit the Swamp Thing body.

And I’m still not 100% certain how the resurrection of Holland even happened in this new post-Flashpoint continuity. I mean, Holland was brought back at the end of the Brightest Day series, resurrected by the White Lantern’s power to become the new Swamp Thing in order to defeat the old Swamp Thing, who had been corrupted by evil or…hell, something like that. I don’t know if “Brightest Day” even happened in this New 52 continuity…I guess Green Lantern continuity is pretty much as it always was, or at least recent events carried through into the new series without too many hiccups or revampings, and the White Lantern thing was tied into GL’s adventures, so maybe the Brightest Day event still happened in one form or another.

However, there’s that whole business with Holland and Swamp Thing being two separate beings at the beginning of the New 52 series, and the point of the early issues of this series was to transform Holland into Swamp Thing, so in the new continuity, I guess this is taking the place of the reintegration of Holland and Swampy from the end of Brightest Day. So maybe Brightest Day didn’t happen. Or it ended differently. Or something.

I think, as time permits, I’m going to sit down and reread all the “return of Swamp Thing” stuff from the end of Brightest Day, to that terrible Search for Swamp Thing mini, to the current series, and try to figure out what continuity “plugs” may exist to explain the new status quo that I’m either not remembering or even don’t exist in the first place. Probably should have done that before writing this post, but I started late Sunday night and frankly, I’m tired.

Anyway, I’ll get back to you on this. I’m sure you can’t wait.

In the meantime, Timothy T. had this to say about the end of Hellblazer:

I hope they give him a good sending off. But I have no idea what sort of ending would fit, he’s done so much crazy stuff that any finale will disappoint. Maybe it’d be best if they ended it like Cerebus or maybe just having a beer with his mates (or himself).

I’m hoping for a “THE DEATH OF CONSTANTINE,” which will be packaged in a black plastic bag with a big bloody “H” (or perhaps a pentagram) on the front. …And then a few months later, they can publish a comic in which a bunch of replacement Hellblazers show up, so DC can finally reuse a lot of those Constantine-a-likes that used to pop up now and again.

…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.