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Post by kirby101 on Jan 31, 2019 9:43:33 GMT -5
It was going to be a let down no matter who replaced Wrightson, but Rendondo drew some beautiful work and in hindsight he was a great choice,
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 31, 2019 15:29:18 GMT -5
I'd say it was Doyle, Verne & Burroughs and the rest, for the similarities. The Savage Land had already been introduced, well before X-Men #114, inspired by Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Burroughs' Caprona and Pellucidar (which swiped from Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth).
I knew someone who had the original art for the cover of either #9 or 10; I think it was 9, though. He had it framed with a copy of the comic. 9 was also used as the cover for the trade collection of The Roots of The Swamp Thing trade collection (which was collected from the Roots of Swamp Thing Baxter reprints of the Wein and Wrightson issues).
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Post by rberman on Jan 31, 2019 18:34:14 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #12 “The Eternity Man” (October1974) The Story: Swamp Thing tussles with a T. Rex and meets a caveman who has also been displaced in time. He’s hurtled forward in time into a Roman arena, then a Black Death-infested medieval German village, then the American Civil War, then the modern-day Louisiana swamp. In each locale, Swampy encounters a red gem the size of a basketball and a man whose eyes reflect the facets of that gem. It’s the same man either surviving various apparent deaths, or being resurrected afterwards. He sinks into a bog and is lost. Swamp Thing hides the gem under an upright stone, expecting that he will have another opportunity to meet this Eternity Man in the future and return the stone to him. Can we say “setting up the sequel?”  My Two Cents: Best. Cover. Ever. I get it, kids love dinosaur stories. But I was hoping to see the Cable/Abigail/Swamp Thing story progress. There is a sub-plot in which Cable convinces Bolt (from last issue) that he should not be angry at Swamp Thing, and should instead help Cable find him for more benign reasons.  It’s one of those stories in which Swamp Thing is the silent witness rather than the protagonist. The meat of the plot occurs in a lengthy exposition scene during the Black Death sequence. Apparently man named Milo Mobius seduced a witch to create this giant eternity gem, trapping his soul inside so that he keeps being reborn. But when she realizes that he’s manipulating her, she curses him to be unstuck in time, or something.  This issue is an intriguing beginning to the story of Eternity Man; we’ll have to see whether it goes anywhere. It’s a bit late in Wein’s tenure to be introducing big new story elements like this.
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 31, 2019 19:38:12 GMT -5
It was going to be a let down no matter who replaced Wrightson, but Rendondo drew some beautiful work and in hindsight he was a great choice, I think someone like Alfredo Alcala could have added something eye catching to a title like Swamp Thing. |
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Post by kirby101 on Jan 31, 2019 21:11:02 GMT -5
I am sure Alcala would have been good, but Redondo was probably the best draftsman among the Filipinos.
Not to diminish Alcala's talent.
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Post by berkley on Feb 1, 2019 3:17:56 GMT -5
I'm a big Alcala fan and think he would have done a good job on ST or probably any horror or sword & sorcery kind of series.
I've always liked the Redondo issues and read several of them back in the day, though not this particular one, #12. I do find his art was a bit inconsistent - actually not so much the art itself, but his inking of his own pencils. Sometimes it was very detailed and lush-looking, e.g. the cover to #12 seen above, and at other times it looked a bit crude and hurried, like in the last few panels in the last page posted. Not that it was ever bad, it was more of a relative thing, with the best stuff so very good that the relatively ordinary panels were a little disappointing by comparison.
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Post by rberman on Feb 1, 2019 8:43:43 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #13 “The Leviathan Conspiracy” (December 1974) The Story: Matt Cable’s new foam guns somehow defeat Swamp Thing, who is taken to the labs at Fenwick Military Academy near Washington DC. Cable is upset for some reason when government drone Mr. Zero and his scientists plan to experiment on Swamp Thing indefinitely—what did Cable think the government would do? A glass tank proves too weak to hold Swamp Thing; now there’s a shocker! Just like Mayor Klochmann, Professor Degrez interposes himself between Swampy and trigger-happy guards with guns, and Degrez meets the same swift death too. Don’t these geniuses ever notice that Swamp Thing is impervious to small arms?  Cable is granted a private audience with Swamp Thing, who finds the words to tell Cable that he is Alec Holland. Cable and Abigail play "Mission: Impossible" to break Swampy free, first fighting and then recruiting Bolt along the way. Cable plants explosive charges to demolish the lab, but nobody realizes he is the culprit, so he is pleased to be the agent assigned to investigate the incident that he himself caused. Swamp Thing’s body is hidden in a false panel under Degrez’s casket, allowing him to be spirited out of Washington DC; he later digs himself free from Degrez’ burial plot, finds the conveniently nearby headstones dedicated to himself and his wife, and mourns the whole situation before trudging off toward Louisiana.  My Two Cents: Another full plot, though it doesn’t survive analysis. Why is Swamp Thing vulnerable to foam? Herbicide, maybe. Just how many people did Cable kill when he detonated the research facility at the military academy? How did 549 pounds of Swamp Thing go unnoticed in the casket? Just think of the volume he would occupy even if squished flat as possible. Mainly this issue is about Len Wein tying up some loose ends and saying goodbye to the series he created. Cable completes his change of heart to become pro-Swamp Thing, bringing Bolt along for the ride. The last panel of this story deliberately copies the last panel of the original as well. 
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Post by rberman on Feb 1, 2019 20:58:27 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #14 “The Tomorrow Children” (February 1975) Creative Team: David Michelenie writing, Nestor Redondo on art The Story: Swamp Thing defends Jeremy Wheeler, a funky-looking albino child, from Rafe Taggert and his buddies. The men retreat to the nearby town of Prelude and have a long expositional discussion with the mayor about all the dying fish, overgrowing plants, and mutated swamp fauna seen in the area lately. It must be the fault of recently deceased Jeb Wheeler and his three weirdo kids!  Back in the swamp, a pack of giant ants have Swamp Thing on the ropes until the Wheeler children rescue him. Then comes more exposition about the dumping of “radio-chemical waste” in the swamp, and Jeb Wheeler’s Moses-like rescue of three strange children from the bulrushes. Taggert arms his men with flamethrowers and sets off into the swamp to murder the Wheeler kids. A fracas with Swamp Thing causes Taggert'sfuel backpack to explode, killing him and igniting the tree in which the mayor’s son Jimbo, a friend of the Wheeler children, is hiding. Delta Wheeler gives her life to rescue him. The mayor admits that the children aren’t so bad. He’s feeling generous—but not generous enough to take the strange orphans into his home. Good luck on your own, kids!  My Two Cents: David Michelenie has taken the writer’s chair, and immediately Swamp Thing starts thinking in less gothic, more casual and wry language like “being something less than an Adonis myself, that kinda makes me mad!” Also “Damn!” and “Good Lord” are new words in his vocabulary. Michelinie also challenges Wein’s origin story, suggesting that maybe his plant form isn’t the result of his own experiment after all, but is due to this toxic waste that somebody else dumped. Swamp Thing even hopes to analyze the waste and reverse his state, even though we saw in issue #3 that his clumsy giant hands are incapable of operating laboratory equipment.  Finally, we have the prejudice angle, personified in the mayor who is fine with helping “those people” in the abstract but not if it involves personal sacrifice. 1960s folk singer Phil Ochs castigated this sort of hypocrisy in his song “Love Me, I’m a Liberal.” 
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Post by rberman on Feb 2, 2019 8:02:59 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #15 “The Soul-Spell of Father Bliss” (April 1975) Creative Team: David Michelenie writing, Nestor Redondo on art The Story: After getting staggered by a lightning strike, Swamp Thing is taken in at a ruined church by Father Jonathon (sic) Bliss. Unsurprisingly, he’s a secret wizard in league with the demon Nebiros who lives in a glowing Transcendental Globe soul-jar. Nebiros trades minds with Alec Holland, stalks outside in Swampy’s body, capturing Abigail, Cable, and an old dude named Luke who were tracking Swampy again for unclear reasons. Luke is quickly toast, a casualty of Nebiros’ experimentation with humanity. But Cable smashes the soul-globe, Alec Holland gets control of Swampy again, and after Nebiros manifests in a more traditional demonic form and engages in fisticuffs with Swampy, he leaps into Father Bliss’ aged body, finds it too frail to contain his energy, and dissipates into nothing.  My Two Cents: It's a decent supernatural-themed story. Nebiros, sometimes Latinized as Naberius, dates from a 16th century book on demonology by Dutch occultist Johann Weyer. “Tophet” is a Hebrew word for hell, and of course “Elohim” is the Hebrew God.  Father Bliss’ nutty rationale for demon-summoning is that if he can get a demon to attack the world, God will have to show up to defend it. Alan Moore will put his own spin on this notion a few dozen issues from now. 
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Post by rberman on Feb 2, 2019 18:52:45 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #16 “Night of the Warring Dead” (May 1975) Creative Team: David Michelenie writing, Nestor Redondo on art The Story: At the end of last issue, Bolt was kidnapped to a Caribbean island, so Abigail and Cable follow, packing Swamp Thing in a crate in the storage compartment of a commercial jetliner. Wouldn’t you know they get hijacked? In the ensuing melee, Swamp Thing and the hijacker are thrown out a cargo door that can’t take Swamp Thing’s weight, landing in the ocean. He washes up on the island of Kala Pago in the company of Laganna, one of those Caucasian loincloth-wearing priestesses for which uncharted Caribbean jungle islands are famed. After hearing pages of exposition from the guerilla rebels, Swampy is captured by the regular army. He breaks out of prison as soon as he wakes up, though. Meanwhile, Laganna has used a magic trinket to raise a zombie army to fight the human army. Before things get very far, Swamp Thing inexplicably decides to be a champion of the status quo, crushing the trinket, de-animating the zombie horde, and ending the insurrection. Swamp Thing imagines this will lead Laganna and her lieutenant to retreat, but nope; they are so demoralized by Swamp Thing’s betrayal, they just let themselves get cut down by enemy fire.  In a set of interludes, we see that Bolt is on this same island, strapped into an electric chair (just like Cable and Abigail in Gotham City in issue #7) at the behest of Conclave operative Nathan Ellery (also just like in issue #7). Ellery must have survived the apparently fatal fall off a parapet (just like Arcane in issue #2).  My Two Cents: Swamp Thing, champion of the oppressive status quo! Not an imaginary story! Not a hoax! I really don’t understand what Swamp Thing was trying to accomplish in betraying the rebels who were nice to him, in favor of the government that had imprisoned him. Did he imagine some outcome other than their slaughter once the zombies were removed from the equation? It was just not a well-written moment. Our tour of classic horror monsters concludes (for now) with zombies. Beyond that, this issue is about two things, or three things if you want to count Laganna’s breasts separately. I guess Vampirella was really big in the 70s.  The other focus of this issue is a social message about Vietnam veterans. Laganna’s right hand man is Adam Rook, a Vietnam vet who found the home front as inhospitable as the war front. This is reminiscent of Johnny Dune in JLA #95 (1971). Even life in the Merchant Marine was too peaceable for Rook, so he’s become a mercenary, and the hopelessness of his situation leads him to suicide in the face of enemy fire.  
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 2, 2019 23:23:00 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #16 “Night of the Warring Dead” (May 1975)Creative Team: David Michelenie writing, Nestor Redondo on art Our tour of classic horror monsters concludes (for now) with zombies. Beyond that, this issue is about two things, or three things if you want to count Laganna’s breasts separately. I guess Vampirella was really big in the 70s. Yup! In every way you could name, including proportionally!  |
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Post by rberman on Feb 3, 2019 7:30:55 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #17 “The Destiny Machine” (July 1975) Creative Team: David Michelenie writing, Nestor Redondo on art The Story: Inside Sanobel Mission on the island of Kala Pago, Conclave operative Nathan Ellery has captured Abigail and Cable. Being a mastermind of evil, he unloads pages of exposition about his plan to use an “ultra-cerebralociter” machine to turn the brains of world leaders into mush, paving his own ascent to power. (His own bosses will be mush-ified too, so they must not know what he’s up to.) Outside the Mission, Swamp Thing triumphs over a tentacled robot trying to suck him into its giant fan. Then he tricks a giant heat-ray hovercraft into zapping itself. Finally he defeats a pack of robot wolves and some human goons dressed like The Phantom.  Breaking into the Mission, Swamp Thing breaks the machine, smacks Ellery around inconclusively, and rescues Cable, Bolt, and Abigail. They fly away by helicopter but discover they’re perilously low on gas, crashing in the ocean. Cliffhanger! My Two Cents: Swamp Thing is now in full serial mode, with each issue teasing the next one. This issue was straight-up heroic sci-fi with no gothic element, just a James Bond villain with a picturesque tropical lair and an outlandish plan. Abigail was once again useless. Cable really ought to stop bringing her along on these combat missions. She’s not been given the slightest motivation for coming either. Swamp Thing really ought to have given Ellery a more definitive ending. He’s just going to come back and menace everybody again. 
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Post by rberman on Feb 3, 2019 17:35:45 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #18 “Village of the Doomed” (September 1975) Creative Team: David Michelenie writing, Nestor Redondo on art The Story: Our heroes’ helicopter makes a forced no-fuel landing in a swamp with a Swiss–themed retirement home, Serenity Village, populated by silent, hostile, elderly people. A young charmer named Aubrey Trask gives medical care to wounded Bolt but soon has all three humans, plus one other dude, chained to the wall. Plot twist: The other dude is Nicholas Trask, and his father Aubrey has de-aged through occult means. Aubrey plans to suck the youth out of his captives to restore vigor to more of the old fogeys in Serenity Village. Meanwhile, out in the Everglade fens, Swamp Thing beats off a couple of four-armed demons. Realizing that his friends are probably in trouble. He crashes into the youth-draining ceremony and contends with a smoke spirit summoned from a mystic brazier. Nicholas Trask throws Aubrey’s spell book into the brazier, which both banishes the smoke spirit and returns Aubrey to old age, followed quickly by death.  My Two Cents: The helicopter, flying over water from the Caribbean island of Kala Pago to Miami, ran out of fuel and crashed in…. the Everglades? Last time I checked, Miami was on the South Florida beach. Did they overshoot it? Anyway, moving on… As with the story of Vietnam veteran Adam Rook two issues ago, Michelinie is trying to imbue the monster story with a social message: in this case, the plight of forgotten elderly people, shuffled off to Florida nursing homes to die by their preoccupied adult children. It’s a good topic, so kudos for tackling it, even if this story makes the retirees the villains instead of the victims, which is kind of the wrong thematic message to send. How terrible Nicholas Trask must feel to discover his dad has embraced necromancy in his dotage!  Bolt is taken to the infirmary, but Abby makes no attempt to administer any medical treatments to him. I guess she forgot that she’s an urgent care nurse practitioner. Or maybe Michelinie did. However, we ought to give Michelinie a smidgen of credit for finally giving Abigail something to do besides get captured over and over and over. OK, she does get captured here. BUT she also manifests some kind of magic power that enables her to temporarily slip her bonds and make a grab for the spell book. This issue still has as strong odor of Deus ex palo though.  Starting in this issue, the cover contains the title in a ribbon across the top, just in case you missed it in bigger font down below, as well as the title of the story inside. Continuity Note: Swamp Thing teams up with Batman in The Brave and the Bold #122 (Oct 1975). Swampy is again captured by Agent Zero of the Leviathan Project, in a replay of issue #13. He gets put on display in a Gotham carnival, rescued by Batman, and then saves the city from a killer plant. 
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Post by rberman on Feb 4, 2019 8:00:48 GMT -5
Swamp Thing #19 “A Second Time to Die” (October 1975)
 Creative Team: Gerry Conway writing, Nestor Redondo on art The Story: Cable, Bolt, and Abigail are in Gatorburg, Florida, said to be eight hours by jeep north of last issue’s Everglades story. They’ve heard that Swamp Thing is near this town, and a local boy offers to show them where, despite abuse from his dad and mockery from some local biker toughs.  The severed arm from issue #5 has grown into a second Swamp Thing, one which can move but lacks any intellect beyond that. An old Seminole man, Ho’tah Makanah, rescues Swampy Two from quicksand and takes him home. When Cable and Bolt come calling, Makanah feigns ignorance and sends them away. Makanah also reveals to Swampy Two that he has been kept alive since the 1940s by a Grotto of Eternal Youth. The “real” Swamp Thing is contemplating suicide by jumping into a pit of “plant-dissolving lime." But feeling an inexplicable call toward the nearby swamp where his double is hiding, he runs across a construction site, terrorizing the workers who then report the incident in town at the diner. Abby overhears this, so she, Bolt, and Cable head out on the trail again. My Two Cents: Gerry Conway takes over from David Michelinie on writing and immediately opens a can of worms: Will each of Swamp Thing’s severed appendages grow a whole new creature? I doubt we’ll see a repeat of this, but it was good of Conway to pick up on a detail from continuity as the basis for this issue. Unfortunately, Conway’s first story is marred by an editorial decision to cut this issue down, as described apologetically here, and the story's title really applies to the conclusion next issue:  We’ve got several new characters to keep track of in Gatorville: Makanah the ancient Seminole, Earl Hobart and his biker gang, construction workers, Sloan the diner owner, and his son, who has no name but “Junior” so far. Conway juggles them well, though. Swamp Thing Two has yellow eyes, to distinguish him from the red-eyed original. The word balloons on the final panel below are reversed. The biker is talking to Sloan, the diner cook in the pink shirt, but the final panel has the cook calling the biker "Sloan."  Continuity Note: The letter column for this issue promises an ongoing feature starring Gregori Arcane, the Patchwork Man, in House of Secrets. Only one issue was published, #140 (March 1976, Gerry Conway) before House of Secrets went on hiatus for six months, returning without poor Gregori. But this one-shot did establish that Patchy not only survived his fall in issue #3, but he also has crossed the Atlantic and is now in America. He’ll show up again in a much later issue of Swamp Thing. 
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Post by brutalis on Feb 4, 2019 8:34:06 GMT -5
I was loving the Redondo Swamp Thing even though the stories and art veered away from the more classic style Wrightson began with. Oddly enough I could never find Swampy on the stands anywhere and I was reading these each month at my uncle's barber shop. He had subscribed to several comics from DC and Marvel as his shop regulars were all married and with kids. Each month on Saturday my dad would take us boys over for hair cuts and visits with my uncle and then spend the day with my aunt.
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