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Post by rberman on Mar 4, 2019 13:28:06 GMT -5
I don't remember whether you've mentioned it, but Chester is named after Bryan Talbot's head trip character Chester P. Hackenbush. I did not mention and did not know. Thanks for the detail. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 4, 2019 21:02:00 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #44 “Bogeymen” (January 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben. The Story: As you can see from the cover, this is a story about how Alan Moore loves America. The end! OK, it’s actually about a serial killer who wanders into the swamp and learns not to mess with Swamp Thing. He ends up drowning in quicksand, and his victims promise him a very unpleasant afterlife experience. I really don’t know what this story has to do with the American flag on the cover. The titular “bogeyman” serial killer doesn’t make any appeal to patriotism. He just thinks it’s his fate in life to murder as many people as possible, and he remembers each victim by their number and some distinguishing physical feature.  Swamp Thing intrudes on Abby, reconstituting his body out of the slime on the inside of her bathroom sink’s pipes. She is not at all thrilled at his presence in her house, and after an awkward exchange, he slumps off. Check out Abby’s guarded, crossed-arms posture!  My Two Cents: I commented, nay complained, back in issue #34 that the story of Abby and Swamp Thing was wish fulfillment, a sublimated romantic longing from Alan Moore himself. Whether that’s correct or not, Moore at least has the courage to be realistic about where this Beauty and the Beast story is headed. Abby mentioned a while back that she spends her weekends in the swamp but her weeks in town. We don’t see her life there, because this book is not called Abby Cable, Group Home Aide. But it’s apparently quite mundane, and she’s in no hurry to quit her job and live full time in the swamp. Now we see that she also doesn’t want Swamp Thing intruding on her “real world” life. She says that she doesn’t care what the neighbors think, in a way that shows us that she cares what the neighbors think. Her living room isn’t suited to swampy visitors; she has to put newspaper down everywhere, as if she were hosting a puppy rather than a lover.  Joni Mitchell had a similar experience, living in a cave on on the island of Crete with fellow expatriate Cary Raditz for a few months in 1969 before the natural life wore on her. As she recounted in her songs “California” and “Carey”: Houma is Abby’s California, and she’s not going to abandon it for a Mediterranean cave, or a swamp, no matter how good the tubers. This issue also features an awkward meeting between Batman, John Constantine, and Mento. Batman doesn’t recognize Mento out of costume. Mento was a love interest for Rita Farr in Doom Patrol. We’ll be seeing him again in issues #49-50 here. Batman’s appearance is part of an obligatory two page Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover which sees Constantine and Mento looking at the red sky, an artifact of the duel between the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor.  Abby is reading “Books of Blood,” a collection of horror/fantasy short stories then-recently published by Clive Barker. One Barker’s stories, “Sex, Death, and Sunshine,” featured a man who realizes belatedly that he is having sex with a zombie. This seems a likely inspiration for the “Love and Death” story Moore had to throw together in two days for Swamp Thing #29. 
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Post by rberman on Mar 5, 2019 8:16:11 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #45 “Ghost Dance” (February 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stan Woch. Ink by Alfredo Alcala. The Story: Gather round the campfire for a ghost story about two foolish couples that spent the night in a haunted mansion. Ol’ Amy Cambridge built it huge, with secret passages and dead-end hallways to befuddle the ghosts of all those killed by her family’s firearms manufacturing company. Our hapless quartet of thrill-seeking explorers are quickly separated and set upon by ghosts: a women shot in the head. Two frontier gunslingers in an eternal duel. Firing squad victims. Murdered Indians. Even a herd of slaughtered buffalo looking for comeuppance. But one of the nosy trespassers has “knocked on wood” to superstitiously call a wood spirit to help, and sure enough, Swamp Thing appears, causes the spirits to all rush up the chimneys and exit the house as smoke, and escorts the surviving couple Linda and David outside.  But all is not well; Linda was having an affair with Rod. David knows how to handle this situation; it’s nothing a trip to the local gun store can’t cure.  My Two Cents: It’s a straight-up ghost story, rooted in facts, with a dollop of Swamp Thing deus ex palus on top, just as in the voodoo story. Bissette says this issue “grew out of a suggestion by my good friend Jim Wheelock to set a ghost story in California’s infamous ‘Winchester Mystery House.’” This home was the residence of Sarah Winchester, widow and heir of the Winchester rifle dynasty. Seven stories tall, with three elevators, forty bedrooms, two ballrooms, but only one functional bathroom – reportedly all to confound the ghosts which a medium told her were after her. She continued adding on to the mansion throughout her life, though not as ceaselessly as in Moore’s version of the story. The moral of this story is so straightforward, there wasn’t much to add except for decorative language, which Moore does very well. “The hammers must never cease” is a terrific double entrendre.  Moore calls out his influences: Stephen King. Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson from Kubrick’s film of King’s “The Shining.” H.P. Lovecraft. The splash/credits page uses Eisnerian techniques on the words. Where is the usual “created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson” credit, though? 
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Post by rberman on Mar 5, 2019 19:05:38 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #46 “Revelations” (March 1986)
 Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben. The Story: Constantine and Swamp Thing survey the chaos wrought by the Anti-Monitor’s Crisis. Then it’s off to the Monitor’s satellite, to mingle briefly with heroes while Alexander Luthor prattles in the distance about saving the multiverse or somesuch. Later, Luthor thanks Swamp Thing for having agreed to manage the spiritual component of the Crisis; this is news to Swampy. Constantine unloads pages of exposition about the Brujeria warlocks of Patagonia, and the need for Swamp Thing to visit “The Parliament of Trees” in Brazil.  Meanwhile in London, Constantine’s associate Sister Anne-Marie can’t find the punk girl Judith, but she does get found… by the Invuche creature! Dun dun dun…  My Two Cents: Time for the editorially mandated Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover special! Moore makes the best of it, with Swamp Thing’s detatched assessment of the carnival of costumes gathered on the Monitor’s satellite and a unique emphasis on horror elements of the colliding universes. Lots of great art as always. With all that going on, there’s not need for much else in this issue, but Moore does spend a bit of time teeing Swamp Thing up for the South American sojourn that begins next issue.  “Burjeria” is Spanish for “witchcraft,” and men who practice it are “Brujo,” not “The Brujeria.” As this issue’s closing quotation shows, Moore learned of Chilean Brujeria practices from Bruce Chatwin’s book “In Patagonia” (1977), a nonlinear narrative about the author’s wanderings in South America. “Invuche” means “deformed midget” in a Chilean tribal tongue and describes a Bruho’s door guardian, as partly detailed by John Constantine in our text. Patagonian natives later challenged the authenticity of Chatwin’s account of their land. Hey, look! There’s Alan Moore strolling through London, wearing a V for Vendetta T-shirt near a store called “Veitch.” What are the odds? 
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Post by rberman on Mar 6, 2019 7:35:59 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #47 “The Parliament of Trees” (April 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stan Woch. Ink by Ron Randall. The Story: A nature photographer accidentally snaps pictures of Abby cavorting topless with Swamp Thing. He pretends to be scandalized by the salacious pictures he eagerly takes, which leaves readers in a quandary as to how they are to feel themselves about these entrendre-laden panels of Abby eating a grinning Swampy.  Shown the photos, the guys at the local newspaper think maybe Swamp Thing is a dude in a costume, but either way, controversy sells, moreso when sex is involved, so it’s time to make Abby “famous.”  Traveling through The Green to Brazil’s rain forest, Swamp Thing meets up with Constantine, who guides him to a gathering of Plant Elementals like himself, the titular Parliament of Trees. He meets the previous Swamp Things that Abby learned about, then forgot, in “Abandoned Houses” (issue #33). The original Wein/Wrightson creation is here, as is The Heap, dangling a toy WWI Fighter Plane from his branches to recall his origin story. The older plants are full of Buddhist wisdom about the importance of being instead of doing. “Flesh talks; wood listens… Flesh doubts; wood knows.” That sort of thing. Swamp Thing is clearly not ready for this kind of sedentary life but is hurt to be told so.  My Two Cents: This issue is essentially a dialogue between trees, but Woch and Randall do a great job of surrounding it with fascinating imagery. Moore told Neal Gaiman that the climax of this "American Gothic" story arc was a criticism of the American belief that “there’s black and white, good and evil.” In this issue, the Parliament categorically deny the existence of evil; everything that happens is just part of life’s great cycle. This is the same sort of detachment that Moore was writing for Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen. Swamp Thing may not be in this headspace now, but it clearly is his destiny, as it was for his mossy forebears.  
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Post by rberman on Mar 6, 2019 18:45:19 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #48 “A Murder of Crows” (May 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by John Totleben. Ink by John Totleben also! The Story: Swamp Thing arrivers on the Chilean island of Chiloé all decked out like a dancing girl at Carnival in Rio. Constantine ushers him to the cave guarded by the Invuche. Trying to build a new body inside to bypass this mystic guardian, Swamp Thing is thwarted for the first time by an environment from which all plant life has been scrupulously cleaned; there’s nothing within the cave from which to build a new body.  Worse yet, Constantine’s colleague Judith betrays them, and Constantine is captured. The Brujeria make good on their promise to turn Judith into a bird. But wait! The flower in Judith’s hair falls to the ground, which somehow provides Swamp Thing with sufficient plant material to finally reconstitute himself a body within the cave. Swamp Thing defeats the Invuche, but not before the Judith-bird escapes the cave carrying a black pearl which will somehow facilitate the Satan-figure’s defeat of God.  Meanwhile, back in Houma, the police come to cart Abby away for questioning after the local newspaper prints a front-page photo of her consorting with Swamp Thing.  My Two Cents: A pretty straightforward issue. This is the first time Abby has had a story of her own, which is a welcome development, though it’s a story in which Swamp Thing figures heavily, and one setting her up as the damsel again.
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Post by rberman on Mar 7, 2019 7:47:20 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #49 “The Summoning” (June 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stan Woch. Ink by Alfredo Alcala. The Story: Swamp Thing rescues Constantine and fights his way out of the Brujeria cave. Swamp Thing's astral projection floats down to Hell, where he once again encounters Deadman, The Phantom Stranger, The Spectre, and Etrigan the Demon. Etrigan speculates that even some of Hell’s demons will oppose the great evil which the Brujeria hope to summon.  Meanwhile, Constantine comes to Baron Winter of the Night Force, who hosts a séance with Zatanna, Zatara, Mento, Sargon, and Dr. Occult. Mento sees the Judith-bird deliver its black pearl payload to a firepit in Hell, and something monstrous starts to rise… My Two Cents: This issue is mainly set-up with lots of character development chat between the various mystic characters featured. A few others like the Demons Three, Cain and Abel, and Doctor Fate also get cameos. Mento seems particularly unstable as well as gullible, falling for Constantine’s story that the coming séance will be totally without danger.  Constantine speaks of having left “the perpetual South American summer.” Parts of South America are equatorial, but Chiloé Island is near the southern tip of the continent, with average June temperatures in the 40s Farenheit. British class distinctions are very much in view here. Baron Winter calls Constantine a “jumped-up street thug,” while Constantine mockingly says, “I knew I could rely on the aristocracy.” Meanwhile, Zatara shows that even wizards have their intramural squabbles. Zatanna and Constantine kiss and recall the Tantric Studies group they attended together. 
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2019 10:57:03 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #44 to #49 were some of my favorite stories ... and your reviews are spot on rberman and this is one of my favorites in the Swamp Thing legacy here.
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Post by rberman on Mar 7, 2019 18:51:34 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #50 “The End” (July 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette and Rick Veitch. Ink by John Totleben (and Tom Mandrake?) The Story: The séance begins at Baron Winter’s house, allowing Seven Soldiers of mysticism to funnel their power through a reluctant Mento and observe what Swamp Thing is up to in Hell. It’s too much power; Sargon and Zatara, are immolated by the effort, and Mento goes mad. I am not sure what the result of all of this effort and sacrifice was; they are all merely observers of what goes on in Hell, without impacting the outcome. Meanwhile, down in hell…   Ultimate Evil is attacked in turn by a variety of foes, with each one educating it about some itself. Etrigan teaches fatalism; Dr. Fate teaches contempt; The Spectre teaches vengeance. Swamp Thing recollects the Parliament telling him that evil is just decay, an important part of the cycle of nature. This provides Evil with insight such that when God and Satan reach for each other, they shake hands and part, rather than fighting.   My Two Cents: This issue is about “What is evil, and why?” The cosmic power taking shape in Hell professes ignorance about its own nature and quizzes its antagonists, who already have well-formed opinions about it. Etrigan gives the Manichean answer, that evil is good’s eternal equal and opposite, with neither ever prevailing. Dr. Fate says evil is ignorance, an obstacle to be overcome through enlightenment. The Spectre says that evil exists to be punished, as an example of why we must obey God. Finally, Swamp Thing hesitantly suggest that good and evil are mutually dependent, and that each contains the seed of the other within it. This is (1) just a description of what the yin-yang of Chinese mysticism depicts, and (2) seems pretty much like what Etrigan said already, but it’s treated as a great insight. In the end, Moore has broached a big question but really doesn’t have a better answer than all those who have discussed it before him – not that I expected him to, but the portentous narrative acts as if the problem of the ages has finally been solved here in this comic book.  This was the same time that Moore was writing himself into another philosophical corner in Watchmen, with Doctor Manhattan trying to convince Laurie that her life had meaning because of the particular sperm which fertilized her mother’s ovum. Yet if it had been a different sperm, that different resulting person would still have just as much (or little) meaning, right? “Unique” does not inherently mean “meaningful,” just a ten letter password string of gibberish characters may be unique yet meaningless. Still, you can’t fault Moore for tackling the big questions, even if he has no answers beyond the rest of us.  Etrigan’s battle armor is festooned with venomous and poisonous creatures like scorpions. He puts starfish on his eyes. Are these supposed to be Starro in particular?  Dr. Fate kills Rath of the Demons Three. He stays dead a long time but is seen regrowing during Grant Morrison’s JLA run.  The story opens with two pages of exposition from Cain and Abel. In Elvira’s House of Mystery #5, the hostess is shown reading this issue of Swamp Thing, particularly the part about Cain that impinges upon her own mag’s story arc.   The séance's fiery conclusion is recalled by Grant Morrison in Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #1 when she attends another catastrophic gathering at Baron Winter's home: 
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Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2019 6:43:47 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #51 “Home Free” (August 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Rick Veitch. Ink by Alfredo Alcala. The Story: At Abby’s arraignment, her bail is set at $15,000. Her soon-to-be-former employer at Elysian Lawns bails her out. She becomes the subject of obscene prank calls and a media circus. Finally, she skips town, boarding a bus for Gotham City. In Gotham she’s promptly arrested while asking directions from prostitutes. The Gotham Police identify her and prepare to extradite her back to Louisiana.  Swamp Thing leaves his allies in Hell and returns to Louisiana, where he says goodbye to Constantine and confidently declares that nothing could anger him now. That’s when he discovers Abby’s empty house and eventually happens upon a newspaper which shows he’s been gone longer than he realized. When he realizes she’s being prosecuted over her relationship with him and is now in Gotham City, things start to get a little nuts.  My Two Cents: Abby isn’t sure where she will get $15,000 for her bail. Being a foreigner, perhaps she’s just unfamiliar with America’s bail bond system, in which a bondsman would have fronted the money, for a fee. And then sent a bounty hunter after her when she skipped bail. Does she realize that she's just cost her generous ex-employer $15,000 by leaving town? Constantine bids his farewell, punting off on a skiff called “The Honorable Gordon Sumner,” in tribute to the birth name of Sting, the musician whom Constantine was drawn to resemble.  “Framed upon the wall, an incubus squats upon a sleeping woman’s chest.” This refers to Henri Fuselli’s 1781 painting “The Nightmare.”  
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Post by MDG on Mar 8, 2019 10:38:50 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #44 to #49 were some of my favorite stories ... and your reviews are spot on rberman and this is one of my favorites in the Swamp Thing legacy here. This is probably the time I was most excited about what was going on in mainstream comics and at my most fannish. Around the time issue 50 came out Bissette, Totleben, and Veitch were at Ithacon and I was able to get this drawing (I also got a Superman by Veitch that I since gave to a friend for his birthday): 
(Also at that show: Wrightson, Kaluta, Jones, Smith, Williamson, Blevens, Mandrake, Duursema, Stern, Brigman, Richardson, and a few others. It was a good show.)
This thread's prompting me to pull out and re-read this run for the first time in 25+ years.
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Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2019 11:02:22 GMT -5
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 8, 2019 13:26:44 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #44 “Bogeymen” (January 1986)Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Stephen Bissette. Ink by John Totleben. The Story: As you can see from the cover, this is a story about how Alan Moore loves America. The end! OK, it’s actually about a serial killer who wanders into the swamp and learns not to mess with Swamp Thing. He ends up drowning in quicksand, and his victims promise him a very unpleasant afterlife experience. I really don’t know what this story has to do with the American flag on the cover. I believe the flag is due to the overall arc being titled "American Gothic". You're correct: it doesn't seem to particularly apply to that month's story. That being said, are serial killers as important a part of popular culture in Europe as they are in North America? They truly are our modern bogeymen, as per the story's theme. |
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Post by rberman on Mar 8, 2019 19:04:33 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #52 “Natural Consequences” (September 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils by Rick Veitch. Ink by Alfredo Alcala. The Story: Swamp Thing travels through The Green to Gotham City, leaving a trail of blooming plants in his wake. After visiting Jason Woodrue at Arkham Asylum, he materializes in the courtroom, using the plant matter from a rose that Abby had been given. Abby wants to avoid the bloodshed that would come with a confrontation, so Swampy withdraws for an hour, giving an ultimatum for Abby’s release which is ignored. In response to their lack of response, he causes massive vegetation overgrowth; plants engulf Gotham. Is this his way of avoiding bloodshed?  Dwight Wicker of the D.D.I. (a government agency working with Sunderland) tries to nose his way into Commissioner Gordon’s good graces to participate in dealing with Swamp Thing but is rebuffed. Undeterred, Wicker hires Lex Luthor as a consultant to help D.D.I. come up with an anti-Swamp Thing weapon. Meanwhile, Batman ponders his own response to this crisis…  My Two Cents: This is the second but not the last time that we’ll see Swamp Thing finding reason to menace a community. The first was the underwater vampire town in Rosewood. There will be more to say about this next issue, but for now, note the last panel in which humans who shed their clothes and embrace this new Eden are described as “converts.” Further religious imagery awaits us.  This issue also demonstrates the added possibilities of the post-Crisis Lex Luthor, a devious business magnate rather than a wanted criminal who must operate underground. He has his own schemes going but is also available for consultation by shady para-governmental agencies, for the right fee.
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Post by rberman on Mar 9, 2019 8:12:07 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #53 “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (October 1986) Creative Team: Writing by Alan Moore. Pencils and ink by John Totleben. The Story: Gotham City turns into a jungle, and the people love it. Instead of mass lootings and riots, everyone enjoys this newfound arboreal playground and eats the fruit found everywhere. Swamp Thing is welcomes as a folk hero.  His hallucinogenic tubers also proliferate, providing a different sort of entertainment. But all isn’t fun and games. Abby is still in custody. After various attempts to get the attention of the authorities, Swamp Thing finally forms a giant Redwood Groot and stomps through downtown for a few minutes.  Batman feels compelled to act, but his attempt to meet Swamp Thing with force proves woefully inadequate. So Batman tries another tactic: reason. He persuades the authorities that it’s a bad idea to make consorting with non-humans illegal, considering that it would mean imprisoning Lois Lane, Sapphire Mason, Dick Grayson, and everybody else who dates aliens. An appeal to Washington yields some sort of pardon for Abby, apparently one covering the charges in Louisiana as well as Gotham.   Just before Swamp Thing and Abby embrace, D.D.I. strikes. Their deal with Luthor has yielded a napalm weapon that will both destroy Swamp Thing’s body and prevent him from reconstituting elsewhere. And it seems to work just as advertised, turning Swamp Thing once again into a burning heap.  My Two Cents: This issue overflows with plot as it shows all the consequences of Swamp Thing flexing his muscles to hold Gotham hostage. The story wants us to see him as a benign jailer whose plants cover the city without doing any actual damage. That’s wishful thinking, and so is the pleasant response of the citizenry to finding everything covered in plants. No criminals take advantage of the situation to loot. No ambulances fail to get dying people to the hospital. No power outages lead to widespread heat death. The water system still works perfectly. Etc.  The title of this issue comes from a triptych painting by Heironymous Bosch, likely an altar piece from around 1500. Its outer doors depict the creation of the Earth. The first inner panel introduces Adam and Eve; the large center panel shows a massive orgy of various pleasures, while the surreal final panel depicts punishment in hell and contains a mysterious character who is part-man, part-tree. Bosch had been drawing this tree-man for decades.   A talking head on TV references the time President Ronald Reagan says, "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," referring to the effect of hot summer sun to organic resins found in trees. Gotham also has a “Mayor Skowcroft,” perhaps a reference to Brent Scowcroft, an advisor to the Ford and Bush administrations. A side plot involves Chester the drug dealer and Wallace Monroe, both drawn to Gotham by reports of Swamp Thing’s activity. Monroe is wracked with guilt over his wife’s radiation sickness; Chester offers him the final portion of Swamp Thing tuber, which I guess is still fresh from whenever issue #43 was.  Swamp Thing threatens to take control of the “fauna in the human intestinal tract.” It’s really bacteria like E. coli. Can he control bacteria? I guess if the writers say so. Hopefully a scientist like Alec Holland would know the difference between plants and bacteria. Bissette says that Totleben was inspired by the works of Virgil Finlay, and his versions of the Batcave and Batmobile were composed in response to Frank Miller’s grim work on The Dark Knight Returns.  Despite numerous artists, this series has enjoyed remarkable consistency in its art style. The main difference I notice here, with Totleben on pencils as well as ink instead of inking Bissette’s pencils, is that Bissette assiduously avoided rectangular panels; almost every image was some sort of off-square quadrilateral, as can be verified by looking at the images earlier in this thread. Totleben sticks to more traditional rectangular panels.
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