Swamp Thing #29 “Love and Death” (October 1984)



Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben.

The Story: Swamp Thing and Abby hug and make up after their argument about his name last issue. He finds a bird lying on the ground, dead but moving due to the many flies within it.



Abby returns to Matt, who has two surprises. First, he’s purchased a house without consulting her. (Guys: never do anything like this. Ever.) Second, he has a job at Blackriver Recorporations. Returning to their new home, they make love. But Abby had a vision that Matt’s co-workers are all rotting corpses. She researches their names at the library and finds they are all deceased murderers. She realizes that the “Blackriver” is the Styx, and that the infestation of flies reflects Matt’s deceased status; she has been making love to a decayed zombie. She can’t escape the stench of her contact with him no matter what she does.



Just then, Matt comes home with his zombie associates and grabs her, making a reference to her uncle, i.e. Arcane.



My Two Cents: Alan Moore wrote this story in only two days after editor Karen Berger deferred the story of Nukeface for further down the line. Its graphic horror elements were the proximate reason for dropping the Comics Code seal from this issue, though the extended sequence of discreetly nude Abigail was further justification. It's an E.C.-worthy tale, a spooky set-up with a gruesome punch line and minimal Swamp Thing.Note the cover, a close-up of human eyelids housing a fly's multi-faceted red eye.

Swamp Thing #31 “The Brimstone Ballet” (December 1984)



Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Rick Veitch. Ink by John Totleben.

The Story: Arcane-in-Matt plays mocking mind games with Swamp Thing, then vomits flies all over him. Swamp Thing proves unexpectedly strong in the ensuing battle, now that he sees himself as an aspect of the earth itself. Matt Cable rises to the occasion, driving Arcane’s spirit from his body, back down to Hell. But Matt’s attempt to free Abby’s spirit from Hell is unsuccessful; he collapses into a coma.



My Two Cents: The cover dress now includes the tag line “Sophisticated Suspense,” and the Comics Code seal is gone again, probably due to Arcane’s gruesome zombie face. Moore gets plenty of drama out of just two or three characters interacting, not unlike British TV, which often can’t afford the large ensemble casts of American productions.



While Stephen Bissette is working on the upcoming Annual issue, Rick Veitch makes his debut on pencils for the series here, backed by Totleben. He does well, though I don’t recall Swamp Thing having fingernails before.



The Monitor and Lyla make another editorially mandated one-page intrusion here, best ignored. I don’t recall her décolletage being so extreme in Crisis on Infinite Earth. Was this too mandated here as a ‘sex sells’ tactic?



Did Arcane’s zombie murderers get dealt with also? Hopefully their power derived from his, but a page wrapping up their story would have helped.

Swamp Thing Annual #2 “Down Amongst the Dead Men” (January 1985)



Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben.

The Story: In a twist from what we thought before, it now seems that Abby’s body still lives, but her soul has been cast down to hell. Swamp Thing discovers the ability to enter the astral plane, so he travels to hell to claim her. Along the way, he has a set of supernaturally-themed guides:



Deadman meets Swampy in the realm of the recently dead, where a mother and child who died in a car crash are just finding each other. Deadman expounds on the nature of ectoplasm and poltergeists, then hands Swamp Thing off to his next guide…



The Phantom Stranger introduces Swamp Thing to the spirit of Alec Holland, who says that his burial in issue #28 has freed his spirit to enter the blessed afterlife where he can be happy forever with his wife Linda. Swamp Thing is next introduced to…



The Spectre is immense. He argues that the resurrection of characters renders their deaths meaningless, which is a good point as far as comic book characters go. But Phantom Stranger wins a debate about Abby’s unjust death, and the Spectre agrees to let Swamp Thing pass into hell, where he’s handed off to…



Etrigan agrees to escort Swamp Thing into hell, taking payment in the form of a flower from heaven which Phantom Stranger was wearing on his lapel. They pass the spirit of General Sunderland, who is doomed to lick the hooves of a bloated demon eternally; then they pass the spirit of Arcane, whose single day of torture (since his death yesterday) has already seemed like many years. Finally they find Abigail surrounded by monstrosities. Swamp Thing punches them away and grabs her, and Etrigan casts a spell to return both their spirits to their bodies in our world. Happy ending!



My Two Cents: The obvious mythological basis is the story of Orpheus descending into Hades to rescue his beloved Eurydice. Other comic books around the same time had similar themes. One was the Dante/Orpheus pastiche “Nightcrawler’s Inferno” in X-Men Annual #4 (1980). Its story was quite similar: a family member with a grudge (Nightcrawler’s stepmom Margali) puts Nightcrawler’s body into a death-like state, and Doctor Strange and the X-Men must descend into Hell to bring back his soul, getting a tour of various hellish sights and sites along the way. To add a Wagnerian element to Kurt Wagner’s story, he also learns that his girlfriend Amanda is secretly his stepsister Jimaine, which for some reason pleases him. What a weirdo!





Another story that comes to mind is Thor’s descent into Hel to retrieve mortal souls unjustly stolen from their bodies, in a story arc beginning in Thor #360 (1985). Thor succeeds, but his face is badly scarred in the process. This is also the story in which Skurge the Executioner double-wields machine guns, as depicted much more recently in the film Thor: Ragnarok.





Moore uses the various conversations in this issue to put forward a view about the reality and nature of the afterlife. is it his own view? Deadman tells Swamp Thing that heaven is ruled by Rama Kushna, who first appeared in Deadman’s origin in Strange Adventures #205 (1967), sending him on a mission to avenge his own murder. At the time, Rama was a disembodied voice. Strange Adventures #216 introduced the mystical Tibetan city of Nanda Parbat, which is DC’s version of Shangri-La, just as K’un-Lun is Marvel’s version, and revealed that Rama Kushna was both female and guardian of Nanda Parbat. Putting it all together, Deadman is equating Nanda Parbat with at least one sort of heaven that can be accessed by the recently deceased.





Phantom Stranger gives conflicting explanations of spiritual matters. At one point he says that there are as many version of heaven as there are people, but then he says that Deadman’s idea of God as female shows immaturity.



The Spectre’s main plot point is that he identifies Swamp Thing as an Earth Elemental, one member of a society of similar creatures. Moore will unspool this notion further in future issues.

Etrigan is full of quotations from British poetry. He insults the Phantom Stranger as one “who will not serve above, nor reign below,” a parody of Satan’s defiant declaration of independence in John Milton’s Paradise Lost:


Etrigan also calls Hell a “dark Satanic mill.” This reference to the pollution caused by the Industrial Revolution comes from a poem by William Blake in the preface to his 1808 work Milton: A Poem in Two Books.


Theologically, Etrigan gives voice to the popular notion that God has no wrath (and thus no justice) but is simply a passive observer as men spend their lives creating the afterlife in which they deserve to spend eternity. 

Swamp Thing #32 “Pog” (January 1985)



Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Art by Shawn McManus.

The Story: A team of Smurf-sized aliens looking for a home plop their turtle-spaceship down in the bayou. They befriend Swamp Thing, but after discovering that Earth is home to carnivores such as alligators and humans, they set off to continue their quest elsewhere.



My Two Cents: This fill-in issue gives Bissette and Totleben a chance to catch their breath after the length Annual that was published this same month. It’s a tribute to the funny-animals of Walt Kelly’s comic strip Pogo, and McManus’ more cartoony style fits it well. I know almost nothing about that strip, so I bet most of the jokes went over my head.

Swamp Thing was entirely superfluous in this issue, though he does get to be the audience of Pog’s ongoing exposition dump. The aliens speak in a whimsical Carrollian vernacular of slightly altered words. Once Alan Moore finished the Pog issue, he found it difficult to write in normal English once more, says Neal Gaiman.



It makes sense that funny animals might consider carnivores to be barbarians, except that one of the aliens is himself an alligator-form creature. Is he a vegetarian? This is the second issue of Swamp Thing in which an alien in an encounter suit visits Earth and finds us wanting.

I think the answer to that one is obvious: there aren't many comics writers out there who would be both willing and able to implement your idea convincingly.

Swamp Thing #34 “The Rites of Spring” (March 1985)



Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben.

The Story: Matt Cable is comatose in the hospital. His doctor gives his wife Abby permission to find a new man, so she goes out to the bog and has sex with Swamp Thing.



My Two Cents: OK, it’s not quite as banal as that summary. First come nine pages in which Abby and Swamp Thing gingerly feel each other out for evidence of mutual affection and, finding it present, contemplate what their form their relationship might take. Swamp Thing gives her a tuber from his body. Eating it is a psychedelic experience which literally causes the world to fall on its side, as the art panels shift ninety degrees into a series of two page vertical spreads portraying Abby’s experience of temporary oneness with the plant kingdom, a counterpoint to the similar set of pages when Jason Woodrue ate one of Swamp Thing’s tubers back in issue #22.



Bissette says this story “was sparked by a postcard I’d mailed to Alan amid our steady exchange of lengthy letters and longer phone calls… 'If Abby were a real woman, what we’ve put her through would have landed her in an asylum by now. Why don’t we give Alec and Abby a break and just spend a quiet day in the swamps with them, let them relax and enjoy one another?'”



The final splash page is fraught with symbolism as Swamp Thing’s passionate embrace with Abby causes him to spill white frothy material across his back and erupt with flowers and fruit. Needless to say, no Comics Code seal graces this issue, whose gorgeous cover makes up for last issue’s failure to rise to Wrightson level.



The art is dazzling, including the painted cover. I’m less enthused thematically: partly because this story seems like thinly veiled wish fulfillment on Alan Moore’s part (the hairy, awkward, shambling creature gets the hot babe whose only desire is his happiness!), and partly because Abby’s husband Matt is in a coma after he saved the world from Arcane and then tried to rescue her from Hell. Granted, Moore gave us lots of reasons to cheer for Matt’s departure before that, but no responsible doctor is going to tell the wife of a comatose man that she ought to go find someone else to make her happy. That said, an ambitious issue like this is worth a decade of stories about Thrudvang the Earth-Master.



Speaking of stories in which a sexy woman with no needs of her own decides to mate with a plant, recall the fate of Mantis in Giant Size Avengers #4 (1975, Steve Englehart):



The title of this issue comes from Igor Stravinsky's ballet inspired by pagan fertility dances. The combination of modern (i.e. dissonant) music with avant garde dance provoked a riot at the production's debut.  Disney later used Stravinsky's music in the film Fantasia for the segment depicting dinosaurs.

Swamp Thing #36 “The Nukeface Papers (Part 2)” (May1985)



Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben.

The Story: Wallace Monroe is distressed to learn that vagrants are disappearing near the toxic dump in Louisiana, just as they did in Pennsylvania. And why are children here play-acting games about “Nukeface,” the nickname of a bum from Blossomville?



Wallace’s pregnant wife Treasure wanders into the swamp for no obvious reason. She finds Nukeface looking ill, pityingly lays her overcoat on him, and falls asleep while keeping watch over him. When she returns to town the next morning, she can’t feel her baby kicking inside, and everyone flees her presence, even her husband. She’s hospitalized for treatment, but it doesn’t look good.



Abby finds Swamp Thing, who is rapidly decaying due to his encounter with Nukeface. He hopes to send his mind out into “The Green” and then reconstitute his body with fresh vegetable matter. Will it work?



Nukeface awakens and blithely ambles off to cause accidental poisonings in some other community. A wall of reproduced newspaper clippings encourage the reader to see that this story dramatizes a real-world issue. These are the “Nukeface papers” to which the story title alludes.



My Two Cents: Moore turns over a new leaf here, segueing from straight horror into a series of socially-themed stories. Once again Swamp Thing is more the victim than the protagonist, while Abby is simply a bystander. The problem of Nukeface goes beyond any one super-hero’s purview to solve.

Treasure Monroe is that rara avis of popular fiction, the compassionate Christian. Moore makes a commendable effort to depict real people from all walks of life, and this story gives voice to quite a few of them. It’s structured as a series of vignettes, giving first person accounts of the Nukeface incident from various denizens of Houma, Louisiana, including a cop, a kid, and all the named characters relevant to the story.