Swamp Thing - The Bronze Age Volume Three!

The Swamp Thing had made a big splash in the early 70's but like its muck-brother Man-Thing at Marvel had failed to find a lasting place on the comic book racks of the day. Critical acclaim did not add up to robust sales and like the monster fad that to some extent gave birth to it, the Swamp Thing had sunk beneath the murky waters of the black waters from which it had sprung. 

And then they made a movie for release in 1982. Swamp Thing the movie is not a great movie by any means, but it's a decent flick with abundant action and some decent actors and a Swamp Thing make-up that ain't half bad for the day. Swamp Thing the movie did decent business, or at least I went to see it and enjoyed it for the most part. I find I rather like any movie which features Adrienne Barbeau, a zoftig actress who can hold you utterly spellbound if she dons just the right blouse. But this movie also has Ray Wise as Alec Holland and Louis Jourdan as Arcane so it's not all Adrienne's assets. The story as we know it from the comic books is pretty much changed with Barbeau playing the Matt Cable part and Holland being a romantic interest for her since his sister and not his wife is his research colleague. Arcane is an oily rich guy who doesn't doesn't have "Un-Men" but does have some distinctive henchmen nonetheless. With Wes Craven on board as the director, this movie had some cache as a horror film, but it's not really. It's more of an action fantasy and that's okay. It did well enough to spark a television show at least. 

And as it turned out it also sparked a one-shot adaptation from DC Comics. Truth told the adaptation by Bruce Jones on the typewriter and art by Mark Texiera on the pencils and Tony DeZuniga on inks is not all that good, though it is true to the movie. It's like all too many mainstream comics of the era from the "Big Two", just rather bland. It's not good and it's not really bad, it just is. But it served its purpose and it's incorporated in the back of this third volume of Swamp Thing tales from the "Bronze Age". 

The movie also sparked a new ongoing series dubbed The Saga of the Swamp Thing. The editor for this series as it had been for the adaptation is Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein and the writer for the first nineteen issues was Marty Pasko who working hard to take Swampy in a somewhat new direction. The stories begin much like what had come before, episodes in a broader narrative, but as the series chugs along the storyline becomes more and moe dense and the cliffhangers never end. The artwork on these issues is a real winner with Tom Yeates doing both the pencils and inks and getting a decent approximation of what had come before from Berni Wrightson and Nestor Redondo. It's not the same, but it's similar enough and worthy in its own rights. In the debut Swamp Thing rescues a mute young girl from being slain by her father and then feels an odd compulsion to stay with her. 

Yeates does all the covers for the regular issues in this run save for the second issue which features the Swamp Thing from the movie. One can see here Dick Durock looking pretty fine in his turn as the bog beast. Durock would go on to play the Swamp Thing again and again on television and in the sequel film which had to wait until 1989 to get to theaters. In this issue Swamp Thing is hunted by a hitman named "Grasp". 

Swamp Thing gets separated from his young charge in this issue which has him taking on a town named Rosewood which is teeming with vampires. These early issues have introduced new elements to the mythos such as the mysterious Sunderland Corporation which wants Swamp Thing dead for reasons which are not well explained at all at first, but will be eventually. 

As Swampy battles demons in another place, he is also introduced to his new supporting cast. There's a TV news woman named Lizbeth Tremayne and a strange older man named Harry Kay who at first seems to be a villain. 

Swamp Thing is captured and taken to a hospital run by the Sunderland Corporation where all manner of weird experiments are going on, some which allow folks to live arguably forever. A doctor there named Dennis Barclay along with Liz helps Swamp Thing to escape the hospital but it means they are all fugitives on the run from the deadly Sunderland group. Barclay also determines that something is interfering with Swamp Thing's natural processes and is slowly killing him. 

In what becomes a somewhat relentless chase story our heroes find themselves aboard a Sunderland ship, but not for their good. The Swamp Thing is smuggled aboard but doesn't succeed in staying hidden long when he confronts deadly menacing tentacles and something more sinister still. 

With Liz Tremayne dressed like the slave Princess Leia, the Swamp Thing finds himself battling an ancient alien who long ago came from the stars and into the depths of the ocean where it became a huge sea monster. This kraken from the stars sinks the ship and our hardy trio survive to find a beach and on that beach --dinosaurs. The sea monster evokes something of a Lovecraftian quality but not much is done to develop this. 

After escaping the schemes of evil men and evil monsters on the high seas, the trio find themselves on an island which is not at all what it seems at all. Swamp Thing must battle dinosaurs and even finds himself up against the familiar threat of King Kong. Kong gives way to Rick's Place when they learn that some tormented Vietnam vets have manufactured a world as needed to save their lives and their tattered sanity.  

The threat of Sunderland Corporation resurfaces when it turns out Harry Kay is not on the wrong side after all, or not now anymore, and he leads a group of powerful mutants with telepathic and telekinetic powers to defend the world against the little girl that Swamp Thing saved so long ago. As it turns out she's no longer a little girl, but a suddenly-grown woman who threatens the very existence of the world itself as the harbinger of a the devil itself. Jan Duursema and Tom Mandrake fill in for regular artist Yeates on this issue. 

Tremayne, Barclay and Swamp Thing become part of Harry Kay's forces when they try to find a way to stop the impending apocalypse. Harry Kay reveals some of his secrets and we learn that he is attempting to redeem himself for his crimes during World War II. The battle against the apocalypse goes poorly. 

The Jewish legend of the Golem is activated by Harry Kay's group and sent against the woman-child who threatens the world. But not before Swamp Thing has to do a little battle with it himself.  

The long saga nears its end as we learn the real truth about Harry Kay and his motivations and we also are reintroduced to the villain Grasp, who has a very important part to play in the grand scheme. 

It's the end of the world as we know it, but it will come as no surprise that the apocalypse was cancelled when Swamp Thing and his allies win the day but just barely and at great cost. All through this long sprawling tale, the story has seemed at times a bit tortured and overwrought, taxing artist Tom Yeates to the maximum. His handsome stylings are compressed into pages which wriggle uncomfortably at times with overwhelming narrative and sometimes burdened by just words. Marty Pasko's story has depth and heft, but has gotten somewhat unwieldy by it s conclusion. 

It then comes as a bit of a refreshment when writer Dan Mishkin and artist Bo Hampton step in for a two-part tale about a man who loses his humanity to the world of computers and digital information. He is presented in these issues as a high-tech version of Swamp Thing, but one with more malign intentions. The Phantom Stranger guest stars in these two issues. 

With the defeat of the demons who threatened the Earth, the trio are still left with the menace of the Sunderland Corporation which has wanted Swamp Thing dead from the beginning and now his two allies as well. The Swamp Thing though finds a village which greets him with open arms and allows him to see himself as Alec Holland. It's less than it seems and he must return to his friends. 

He returns to find old friends Matthew Cable and Abigail Arcane, who has become Cable's wife. She is working trying to help Matt overcome his demons which prove to be both those of demon rum and more literal as well. Swamp Thing tries as always to help. Pasko is joined by new artists Stephen Bissette and inker John Totleben. Yeates stays on as cover artist, but needed relief from the regular grind of a series. 

That grind shows up as all too real when the eighteenth issue is mostly a reprint of issue nine of the original Swamp Thing series. This volume only reprints the pages which are produced as a wraparound for the reprint of Swampy's second battle with Arcane, 

That second battle was one which was thought to have been the end of Arcane but as all loyal comic book readers know all too well, the demises of villains is a rare thing indeed. Arcane is back in a new weird form with new insect-inspired Un-Men. He seeks revenge on Swamp Thing and the Cables. He wins the day, but barely and only with aid of the tragic Harry Kay. Liz Tremayne and Dr. Barclay have been somewhat absent in the story but we see that they have their own issues to attend to as they to some extent turn their back on Swamp Thing for the time being. This is Pasko's final issue. Editor Len Wein, Swamp Thing's co-creator needs a new writer. He will find one  in a fellow from across the waters by the name of Alan Moore who will turn in the next issue to attend to loose ends. More on that next week. 

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