The Saga of the Swamp Thing Annual #1 (May 1982)



Creative team: Adapted by Bruce Jones from Wes Craven’s screenplay. Pencils by Mark Texeira. Ink by Tony DeZuniga.

The Story: This unfolds very similarly to the movie as recounted in this thread. You might want to go read that first for comparison purposes.

Alice Cable arrives at the secluded lab; she and Alec Holland investigate the disabled sensor; the explosive and super-fertilizer effects of Holland’s animal-plant hybrids become apparent. Arcane’s commandos appeared at the very beginning of the film, but the comic book introduces them when they burst into the lab and gun down Alec’s sister Linda. Arcane’s disguise as the lab’s security chief Ritter is attributed to black magic rather than a Mission Impossible fake face.



Alice hides one of Alec’s notebooks, gets captured by Ferret, then rescued by Swamp Thing. Alice accidentally draws Ferret to the gas station as before (check out the gas station's 1930s telephone), resulting in another rescue by Swamp Thing. Alice and the local kid retrieve the hidden notebook. The kid gives Swamp Thing the notebook. Alice is captured again, escapes Arcane’s yacht after enduring some groping by Ferret, and then leads Ferret to Swamp Thing, who kills Ferret.



The gratuitous nude bathing scene is skipped, and Swamp Thing and Alice are captured by Arcane’s men. Arcane hosts his dinner party including captive Alice. Bruno gets turned into a midget by Holland’s formula. Arcane takes the formula, believing it will make him immortal and super-smart. Swamp Thing regrows his missing arm and busts out of the crucifixion bondage in the basement. Bruno leads Swamp Thing and Alice out through an underground passage. Arcane turns into a beast, grabs a sword, and fights Swamp Thing in the swamp, mortally wounding Alice in the process. Swamp Thing kills Arcane and uses his regenerative power to heal Alice.



My Two Cents: With a couple of very minor changes (the location of Alice escaping Ferret on the yacht was moved indoors in this version), this is about as faithful a comic book adaptation as you could imagine. Texeira and DeZuniga did a creditable job on the art as well. Swamp Thing looked appropriately hulking in a way that “man in suit” never can.



The film presents a double-edged sword to the comic book by conflating Matt Cable and Abigail Arcane into a single character, and making Arcane a businessman instead of a gothic wizard. These continuity changes make Matt, Abigail, and Arcane useless to the comic book in the short term, so the creative team of this reboot had to come up with completely new characters (except Alec Holland). It will be a couple of years before they dare revisit Abby and Matt.

Yes, this element was quoting from issue #2 at Arcane's castle. It's present in the film as well. The leg manacles look wrongly positioned; shouldn't they be attached to the legs of the cross? As it is he appears to have lots of wiggle room with the legs, so don't get too close!

(The Saga of the) Swamp Thing #1 “What Peace There May Be in Silence” (May 1982)



Creative Team: Written by Martin Pasko. Art by Tom Yeates. Len Wein was editor.

The Story: Swamp Thing emerges from a bog in the North Carolina Tidewaters and spends six pages recalling his origin story. On the outskirts of a town called Limbo, he rescues hunters from a grizzly attack, then is enraged when the terrified men fire on him and amputate his left hand. Under a pier, a nutjob has just killed his wife and is about to shoot his daughter for being a witch; Swamp Thing intervenes again, and the man kills himself. Swamp Thing adopts the mute orphan girl, who seems unfazed by any of this; is she blind and deaf as well? He somehow divines that her name is Casey. He takes her to town, protects her from a speeding car, and is beset by locals.



Disreputable-looking operative Harry Kay, an agent of the mysterious Mr. G., has arrived in town looking for Swamp Thing. Lizabeth Tremayne has written a book about Swamp Thing, and locals jabber endlessly about him in the Heever’s General Store. Harry has retrieved Swamp Thing’s amputated hand and believes that Swamp Thing is now dying, unable to regenerate further.

Back-up Story: “In Shadowed Depths” with Mike Barr and Dan Spiegle telling a Phantom Stranger tale.

My Two Cents: Same Thing, different swamp. A reboot issue is going to require a good bit of retread to get new readers up to speed. Three new elements appear: Casey the mystery girl, Liz Tremayne the author, and the nefarious Harry Kay.

Martin Pasko had penned Swamp Thing’s recent appearance in The Brave and the Bold. He’s moving out of gothic archetypes; the villagers in this story use shotguns and pistols, for instance, though they’re still preparing firebrands at one point. But on the cover, it’s strictly axes, torches, and pitchforks. Pasko’s Swamp Thing has an 80s approach to profanity, with regular “Oh my God!” and the like that wasn’t seen in the 70s. Len Wein recalled the recruitment of the new team:


Tom Yeates lived at one point with three other artists: Steven Bissette, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch. All four collaborated on storytelling and visual ideas for this series, and all four would see credit as primary artist at one point or another. Every issue of the new series says “Swamp Thing created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson” somewhere in its first few pages. This seems like a relatively early (and positive) blow for creators’ rights of that sort.

For a while there, it seemed like half of DC's artists were Kubert School grads. Of course, he had the connections and they had the training that your average fan artist didn't.

Put Tom Yeates on the list of under appreciated artists.

It was certainly true of Swamp Thing, where throughout this run just about every regular or fill-in artist came from the Kubert School. I saw one artist who did a couple fill ins at a show and said, "you went to the Kubert school, didn't you?" He said, "Yeah, how'd you know?" and I said, "well, a lot of you kind've dear the same." He acted a little insulted.

Swamp Thing #4 “In the White Room” (August 1982)



Creative Team: Written by Martin Pasko. Art by Tom Yeates.

The Story: Reporter Lizabeth Tremayne is in Pineboro, Illinois covering a string of murdered minority children for her tabloid TV show “In-Depth Magazine.” Turns out that Stryker, host of “Uncle Barney’s Good Neighbor Hour,” a local access TV show for kids, made a deal with a demon to become an assertive negotiator in his business interests. The demon has possessed him and turned him into a serial killer, recently captured by the police. The demon spirit abandons Stryker, whose body spontaneously combusts. A pink mist seeps out of the ashen corpse and infects Paul Feldner, Lizabeth’s co-worker.



Casey uses her telekinesis to escape from the orphanage. Possessed Feldner picks her up in his sedan just as Swamp Thing lumbers into town. Somehow Paul kicks Swamp Thing off a bridge (seems unlikely, but maybe he has demonic strength), setting up a final confrontation at a slaughterhouse. The demon attempts to possess Swamp Thing but finds his body too swampy. Apparently this destroys the demon. Feldner comes to his senses and runs off. Casey disappears as well. Swamp Thing, weak from his ordeal, is taken into the care of Liz Tremayne, who knows just the place for him to heal: The Sunderland Corporation! Dun dun dun…

Back-up Story: “Hospital of Fear” with Mike Barr and Tony DeZuniga telling a Phantom Stranger tale.

My Two Cents: It’s a message issue. Here’s the background: in 1979-1981, twenty-four child murders (and several of adults) in Atlanta were traced to Wayne Williams. It attracted national attention, including a scathing report from ABC News’ “20/20” tabloid news show into the haphazard manner of the Atlanta Police Department’s investigation. Williams was finally apprehended, apparently while disposing of a body found nearby; several subsequent DNA investigations have backed up his involvement. Celebrities including Sammy Davis Jr., the Jacksons, and Frank Sinatra threw a benefit concert to raise money for the Atlanta Children’s Foundation.

Marty Pasko dedicated this issue of Swamp Thing "the good people of Atlanta, that they may put the horror behind them... but not forget." It too features a TV tabloid reporter investigating child murders, and arguing that kids’ TV shows (apparently Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was in view) do children a disservice by encouraging them to be trusting of strangers. The world is dangerous! Show kids about danger! But I’m not sure that Pasko’s “the devil made me to it” story is the creepiness that is called for. Wouldn’t the truth have been more disturbing, that some people are messed up enough to commit atrocities even when they aren’t performing black magic and getting possessed by evil spirits? that happens in gothic horror stories all the time.



Casey was awfully passive this issue. She used tremendous TK power to bend steel bars at the orphanage, yet just lies there like a lump when the demon-possessed Paul Feldner is about to gut her. She wasn’t nearly so inactive when Harry Kay was going to shoot her two issues ago. But she did just stand there as her dad was about to shoot her in issue #1.



The part with Tremayne taking Swamp Thing away to Sunderland in an ambulance is kinda goofy. Isn’t he either a suspect or material witness in this string of murders? Also, is a small town in Illinois a good setting for a story about murdered minorities? Chicago or St. Louis would have made more sense.

The issue title comes from Cream's famous 1968 song "White Room."