Swamp Thing: Issue by Issue
Jan 25, 2019 8:29:31 GMT -5
Roquefort Raider, Jesse, and 5 more like this
Post by rberman on Jan 25, 2019 8:29:31 GMT -5
The House of Secrets #92 “Swamp Thing” (July 1971)
The Story: Somewhere and sometime in the late 19th century, chemists Alex Olson and Damian Ridge are work partners. Damian is jealous of Alex for having married Linda, so he engineers a laboratory explosion in which Alex is seriously wounded. Damian buries Alex alive in the swamp and marries Linda. Over time, Linda grows suspicious, so Damian plots her death too. But just before he plunges a syringe into her neck, a Swamp Thing bursts through the window and throttles him to death. It’s none other than Alex, resurrected as a sort of plant-zombie. Realizing that he terrifies Linda, he shambles off into the fens, wondering whatever happened to the bracelet she once gave him.
My Two Cents: The lineage of swamp monsters is long, a branching lineage that traces through other sentient shamblers from Frankenstein’s Monster through the Golem of Chelm back to mythical Greek automata. Theodore Sturgeon’s “It” (published in the magazine Unknown in 1940) fired many imaginations, and Solomon Grundy (1944) of course brought the concept into comic books. Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, and Roy Thomas claimed co-writer credit on the debut of Marvel’s Man-Thing just two months before Swamp Thing, but Len Wein disavowed any knowledge of that story making its way through the production cycle at the same time he was writing his.
This was the highest selling DC Comic the month of its release. Did purchasers even know what was in it? I bet they plunked down their twenty cents just for the pleasure of owning Berni Wrightson’s gorgeous cover, which has become one of the most iconic images in comic book history. What media is this? Chalk? How was the stippling on her cheek achieved? The contrast between the two light sources – the warm yellow from the unseen lamp to the left of her body, versus the silver light of the full moon—effectively splits the cover into two worlds, one of comfortable domesticity and one of the terrors of the wilds at night. Rembrandt would approve.
Many horror covers have an element of sexual danger, and this picture of a beautiful woman caught by surprise in her nightgown and her bedroom is no exception. Len Wein’s taut, economical story has that element too but flips the hero and villain roles from the husband to the monster in this Poe-like tale of gothic vengeance. Wein also tells the story in first person, from the perspective of the monster, except for one page in the middle in which Damian reflects upon his crime. We instinctively empathize with any character into whose shoes we are thrust, a trick well known to pulp noir writers. Wrightson in particular had good reason to appreciate the first-person narration. He had just ended a romantic relationship and felt rather like a lump of swamp who could only inspire revulsion in a woman.
#2
The bracelet was a nice fake-out. We see Linda give it to Alex early in the story and assume that she will be able to identify him by it at the end. But no, he’s lost it, just as he’s lost everything else. The knife twists, in a touch suggested by editor Joe Orlando.
Index:
Len Wein (mostly with Berni Wrightson: Volume 1 #2, #4, #6, #12
Mostly David Michelinie (mostly with Nestor Redondo): Volume 1 #14, #20
Annual #1 (Adaptation of the 1982 film)
Martin Pasko (with Tom Yeates): Volume 2 #1, #5, #10, #13,
Alan Moore (mostly with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, then Rick Veitch): #20, #23, #29, #38, #44, #54
The Story: Somewhere and sometime in the late 19th century, chemists Alex Olson and Damian Ridge are work partners. Damian is jealous of Alex for having married Linda, so he engineers a laboratory explosion in which Alex is seriously wounded. Damian buries Alex alive in the swamp and marries Linda. Over time, Linda grows suspicious, so Damian plots her death too. But just before he plunges a syringe into her neck, a Swamp Thing bursts through the window and throttles him to death. It’s none other than Alex, resurrected as a sort of plant-zombie. Realizing that he terrifies Linda, he shambles off into the fens, wondering whatever happened to the bracelet she once gave him.
My Two Cents: The lineage of swamp monsters is long, a branching lineage that traces through other sentient shamblers from Frankenstein’s Monster through the Golem of Chelm back to mythical Greek automata. Theodore Sturgeon’s “It” (published in the magazine Unknown in 1940) fired many imaginations, and Solomon Grundy (1944) of course brought the concept into comic books. Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, and Roy Thomas claimed co-writer credit on the debut of Marvel’s Man-Thing just two months before Swamp Thing, but Len Wein disavowed any knowledge of that story making its way through the production cycle at the same time he was writing his.
This was the highest selling DC Comic the month of its release. Did purchasers even know what was in it? I bet they plunked down their twenty cents just for the pleasure of owning Berni Wrightson’s gorgeous cover, which has become one of the most iconic images in comic book history. What media is this? Chalk? How was the stippling on her cheek achieved? The contrast between the two light sources – the warm yellow from the unseen lamp to the left of her body, versus the silver light of the full moon—effectively splits the cover into two worlds, one of comfortable domesticity and one of the terrors of the wilds at night. Rembrandt would approve.
Many horror covers have an element of sexual danger, and this picture of a beautiful woman caught by surprise in her nightgown and her bedroom is no exception. Len Wein’s taut, economical story has that element too but flips the hero and villain roles from the husband to the monster in this Poe-like tale of gothic vengeance. Wein also tells the story in first person, from the perspective of the monster, except for one page in the middle in which Damian reflects upon his crime. We instinctively empathize with any character into whose shoes we are thrust, a trick well known to pulp noir writers. Wrightson in particular had good reason to appreciate the first-person narration. He had just ended a romantic relationship and felt rather like a lump of swamp who could only inspire revulsion in a woman.
#2The bracelet was a nice fake-out. We see Linda give it to Alex early in the story and assume that she will be able to identify him by it at the end. But no, he’s lost it, just as he’s lost everything else. The knife twists, in a touch suggested by editor Joe Orlando.
Index:
Len Wein (mostly with Berni Wrightson: Volume 1 #2, #4, #6, #12
Mostly David Michelinie (mostly with Nestor Redondo): Volume 1 #14, #20
Annual #1 (Adaptation of the 1982 film)
Martin Pasko (with Tom Yeates): Volume 2 #1, #5, #10, #13,
Alan Moore (mostly with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, then Rick Veitch): #20, #23, #29, #38, #44, #54
