Rough Trade Friday: Swamp Thing
It takes quite a bit of talent to turn a force of nature into a force of nature. In what I consider the best example of retconning to date, Alan Moore successfully mapped an entire mythos onto the DC universe, raised a minor horror protagonist into an elemental building block of said universe, spawned Vertigo Comics, inadvertently created Hellblazer and gave Neil Gaiman work for decades. Moreover, Swamp Thing is the first comic to abandon the comics code, and approach the medium as a serious literary endeavour. But most importantly, its really freaking good.
The basic set-up is similar in all four of the series; Scientist + Volatile Chemical + Explosion in Swamp = Swamp Thing. Facts that vary are which scientist, which chemicals and which swamp. Though most writers present Swamp Thing as a mutated human, Moore, in his retcon, established the Swamp Thing as an elemental of the Green, which is a pure representation of the lifeforce of the planet, and his Swamp Thing as the forth incarnation. Moore's Swamp Thing only believed himself to be a human, as it absorbed all the memories and feelings after the explosion.
All the series are available in trade and are worth a read.
The Boy Blunder
Posted to Trade Paperback on 17 August 2007
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Other stuff like this: Alan Moore, comics, DC, Rough Trade Friday, Swamp Thing
So now that you've covered Black Orchid and the Swamp Thing can we expect profiles on Poison Ivy and the Floronic Man next?
;)