Scary Monsters & Super Creep ~ ONE

1. The First Salvo

Do you remember the first comic that you ever bought?

Do you remember the circumstances surrounding it? Whether you were a kid with your friends, riding your bike up to the local 7-11, and you had an extra sixty cents to spare, so you bought that issue of Amazing Spider-Man that was sitting there with a Lizard cover that looked cool? How you sat down and pored over the pages before lending it to Jimmy, who returned it without a cover and chocolate prints all over the pages.

Well, I have an eidetic memory, basically, I remember everything. I can tell you what the first movie I saw in theatres was: ET: The Extra Terrestrial. I can tell you what the first adult novel I read was: a hardcover edition of HG Wells' stories including War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man, given to me by my grandfather when I was four and I devoured every page. The spring of that year was also the first time I kissed a girl, Margaret, as she was five and going to Kindergarten the next year, starting off a long string of affairs with older women (I've never dated anyone younger than me).

I thought it would be interesting to start off the "first" column discussing "first" things like my first comic. Yet, through all of this, I haven't got a clue what my first comic book was. This suggests to me that it was something bought for me before my second birthday -- which would mean before 1983. It's somewhat strange, because usually you can hand me anything in my vast collection of stuff and I can tell you when I got it and the circumstances surrounding it, but I can't remember that.

I know that I would have got it at the Jerseyville General Store, which had a rack of comics that changed regularly, usually carrying DC and odd small publishers, never any Marvel there. Marvel books I had to get in Ancaster at the Zehrs there. Both the Gene Colan and Ed Hannigan Batman stick in my mind, I remember having Batmans around #350, but I couldn't tell you which ones. This is my problem actually, my earliest comic books I don't have anymore. Either they were thrown out, given away, or destroyed in some, way, shape or form. It really wasn't until '84 or '85 when I got my first long box that I really paid any attention to what I had and where I kept it and even then things I "didn't like", didn't get put it the box, it was mainly reserved at first for Swamp Thing, horror books, Batman and Detective Comics from then on.

Up until Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, I wasn't exactly what you'd call a comics "collector", I was just a reader. I honestly didn't care if I got the next issue of Batman or not, it was just another form of entertainment, and often I could get better out of old sci-fi and horror novels. Swamp Thing was what changed my mind. Moore's stories, with richly textured art from the likes of Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Ron Randall, and Rick Veitch, just drew me in. They were exactly what a young horror fan needed in addition to the black and white magazines, Stephen King novels, and the bad horror b-movies I used to watch on Sunday afternoons, like It Came from Outer Space and Horrors of the Black Museum.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you, "I was there from the very beginning." I wasn't. I read several of Marty Pasko's Swamp Thing issues before Moore and really didn't care for them, it made me pretty much ignore the book on the stands, even when the writer changed. The first issue of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing I bought was #38. It was illustrated by Stan Woch and John Totleben, and quite simply I bought it because it had underwater vampires. That may sound silly now, but to my four year old brain, I heard "underwater vampires" and I automatically thought "cool", or whatever it was that kid's then said when they thought something was neat.

For those of you who haven't read it, let me tell you a little bit about it. The story takes place during the American Gothic storyline, the one where Swamp Thing is state-hopping at the bidding of John Constantine. Basically, it's your "town overrun by vampires" story, but with a twist. As the years progressed, a group of vampires discovered a perfect way to exist without being bothered by pesky things like sunlight by moving underwater in the dark, living in the sunken town of Rosewood, Illinois. There's your high concept there that hooks the kids, like me. Basically, from there, it's up to Swamp Thing to stop the underwater vampires, who've started to breed, from coming back up out of the water and killing whatever they feel like. Simple, isn't it?

It continued into the next issue with "Fish Story", and that may be one of the reasons why I continued reading the book, but dressed up in an intelligently told tale, were all of the things that I loved from the horror b-movies I watched. Now that I can look back upon this with more "worldly" eyes, I can see that Moore was playing with the classics, turning them on their ear, and creating something that was true to the heritage of the "monsters" and yet completely fresh and different. He did it in these two issues with vampires, then werewolves, zombies, serial killers, and the haunted house. As a horror fan, I just ate this stuff up like candy.

Honestly, though, it does show you a method to Moore's madness that you can see is even true today. He's very good at taking something old and making it new, giving it a fresh spin. Swamp Thing has its roots in all the old horror stories, Watchmen grew out of Charlton, Tom Strong and Supreme both come from Superman and Captain Marvel, and so on and so forth.

It's amazing how he does it.

2. Welcome to the Swamp

Carrying on with the Swamp Thing thread, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the beginnings of the lovable muck monster, with Len Wein and Berni Wrightson's initial issues that are collected in Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis. Although you might expect me to start with the first collection of Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing, I thought considering that I'm talking about "first things", the beginning was as natural a place to start, as opposed to a third of the way in. Dark Genesis collects the first Swamp Thing story from House of Secrets #92 and the first ten issues of the first Swamp Thing series.

Note: I will start out with a caveat before I go into this collection. Basically, whoever decided to print this in the first place -- the book was originally published back in '91 -- they excised all of the story titles, creator credits, and indicia, and the like. Although it marginally makes this seem a bit more like one continuous work broken up into "chapters", it really is nothing of the sort. In my obsession with all things Swamp Thing, I've since gone back and purchased every single issue -- for quite a small fortune -- and I can honestly say that part of the fun of Wein and Wrightson issues were the campy horror titles for the stories. Titles like "The Man Who Wanted Forever" and "The Clockwork Horror"

If you're not above it, you can take a big, black marker and write the following titles in the book beneath the splash pages -- there's ample room for them to be put back in.

1 - "Dark Genesis" / 2 - "The Man Who Wanted Forever" / 3 - "The Patchwork Man" / 4 - "Monster on the Moors" / 5 - "The Last of the Ravenwind Witches" / 6 - "The Clockwork Horror" / 7 - "Night of the Bat" / 8 - "The Lurker in Tunnel 13" / 9 - "The Stalker from Beyond" / 10 - "The Man Who Would Not Die"

The saga of the Swamp Thing starts out simply enough in House of Secrets, in a story that was originally only supposed to be a one-off exercise. In it, we're presented with a story of jealousy and revenge, as a slighted scientist murders his partner for his wife, only to have the murdered man come back as the Swamp Thing. An easy little horror piece, that honestly isn't even about the Alec Holland we know and love, but a precursor Alex Olson. This schism will eventually be explained during Alan Moore's run, but it is interesting to see it presented as a prelude to the main body of Wein and Wrightson's work. What's somewhat funny is that this story managed to spark anything at all. Sure, it has some nice, dark, and moody artwork from Wrightson, but it's incredible overwritten. Although I could probably argue that about quite a few of Len Wein's scripts, this one really makes me wonder, with lines like:

He stands silently behind her, the needle poised to strike -- to end the life of the only thing in this world that makes my existence bearable -- the only reason I live -- fury fills the spaces behind my eyes -- and I walk into the room...

...and, of course, all of that is in a panel with the murderer standing behind Olson's wife with a needle, while Swamp Thing crashes through a window. You know, something can be said for a certain amount of brevity in comics storytelling.

There are some techniques, though, that Wein will employ in the writing in later issues of Swamp Thing, like multiple narration. Here, it's used to differentiate between the thoughts of Swamp Thing and those of Damian Ridge, the jealous scientist, and it's a nice way to flip back and forth between different settings rather than using an omniscient narrator.

The first issue of the actual Swamp Thing series, after which this entire volume is named, retells and reinterprets the origin of the muck monster. Although the basics are the same -- scientist murdered, runs into the swamp, comes back as giant muck monster. You know, the usual -- the story is transposed into a modern setting, and our cast of characters changes and expands. Here we've no jealous suitor, but a criminal organisation known as the Conclave, vying for Alec and Linda Holland's bio-restorative formula, one that "could make forests out of deserts." Added to the cast is Lt. Matt Cable, who is hired to guard the Hollands for the government. Which, you have to admit, he does a really bloody terrible job at, not only allowing Alec to get murdered, but later after rebuilding the laboratory in the exact same spot, he lets Linda get killed too. Matt Cable's idiocy will speak volumes as to some of the contrivances Wein has us believe in the course of the book.

We have to remember that this book was created and written in the early seventies and wouldn't get to the "sophisticated suspense" of the 80's for almost a decade. Wein borrows heavily from classic and not-so-classic horror movies in creating his serial storytelling. That's another thing you should always note when reading this volume, it was creating at a time when the "story-arc" was an issue, one single issue. Although it continued serially it was written episodically, each issue was essentially a single-issue story with continued subplots, like Matt Cable's futile and somewhat stupid trek to capture Swamp Thing. Keep in mind, this isn't meant to excuse bad writing, or shoddy storytelling, just to place the story in a certain context to better understand it.

The second issue introduces the man who will become the Swamp Thing's arch-nemesis, but when he first appears he's little more than a stock horror b-movie character, the mad scientist who creates "abominations of nature", who lives in a giant castle on a cliff overlooking a small rustic village, and enjoys going off in long, involved tirades about taking over the world and all that. I am, of course, talking about Anton Arcane. His plan here, though, is to capture Swamp Thing, switch bodies with him, and then use the power of the Swamp Thing body to crush the people who made fun of him and criticised his work, you know the usual. The logistics of Arcane's magic are best left forgotten, due to the fact that Arcane grows to Swamp Thing stature -- and can talk, I might add, something that the Wein Swamp Thing generally doesn't do aside from the occasional "No!" or "Arcane!" -- yet, Swamp Thing is somehow transformed back into Alec Holland, instead of actually switching into Arcane's old and disease-riddled body. It's played off as the effects of a "Soul Jar", but who really cares about these little details when reading a comic about a giant muck-encrusted monster?

Wein and Wrightson's Swamp Thing is a b-movie in comic form, something that should be readily apparent to anyone reading this, fraught with all the usual clichés and conventions of the horror genre: mad scientists, evil shadowy corporations, misunderstood monsters born in matters of chance and circumstance, a trigger happy "hero" attempting to bring the monster in, and a beautiful woman that stands between the "hero" and the "monster". In a somewhat odd turn, that somewhat defies the common convention of the heroine being held captive by her oppressive and insane relative, the beautiful woman, Abigail Arcane, is introduced in the third issue, along with Swamp Things's Frankenstein Monster analogue, the Patchwork Man.

What's interesting about this isn't the fact that the Patchwork Man is Gregori Arcane, Abby's father experimented upon by good old Anton, or that his battle with the Swamp Thing derives from a misunderstanding between the two of them, both trying to protect Abby from each other, that's all old hat. What is interesting is that without captions and thought balloons, often narrating from both Swamp Thing and the Patchwork Man at the same time, it would largely be a silent issue. This is true of a large percentage of Wein's issues, aside from visuals, a large portion of each issue is told almost entirely through Swamp Thing's thoughts. Without them, the book would indeed be a largely different animal, and Swamp Thing himself probably wouldn't be as likeable as he appears, looking more to us like a silent, hulking monster.

That's an important distinction when you think of how he'd be perceived by the characters around him. Even in a world filled with Batman and Superman, with all their colourful rogues, you'd still probably be frightened of a large green thing that doesn't talk and probably smells like a swamp. Yet, none of this quite gets at Matt Cable's determination to follow Swamp Thing to the ends of the Earth, intent on destroying him. I'll just put in Cable's explanation for his quest from issue four, which is pretty much the same as all other times he curses Swamp Thing:

Gratitude is only for the innocent, Abigail. Something that monster is not!

He killed my friends -- Linda and Alec Holland -- and someday -- somehow -- I'm going to make him pay!

That's his hatred in a nutshell. He believes that Swamp Thing murdered Alec and Linda, and this is from a government agent who does detective work at that. I just don’t get it. There's not even circumstantial evidence that Swamp Thing murdered the two, and how many times did he save Matt and/or Abby even by this issue? I mean, take it at this, how does a green monster who killed two known criminals, -- known criminals, I might add, who were also known to be harassing the Hollands before any death -- with his hands, blow up a lab? ...or better yet, when he can just crush the criminals, why would he bother with a pesky gun to shoot Linda? It may seem silly nitpicking something like this in a book ostensibly about a hulking green swamp monster, but there are certain stretches to character motivation that come off as simply bad writing. Wein's characterisation of Matt Cable, no matter how driven, is one of those examples. It turns a character, who could possibly have been multi-faceted, into a caricature that takes you out of the story by his presence.

It may also sound like I'm harping on certain points, belittling the story here and there, perhaps being over critical of a work that may not deserve it. Wein and Wrightson's Swamp Thing has its faults. Many of them, from the overblown dialogue where virtually every sentence sees the characters screaming -- a funny aside, some reprints of Swamp Thing, had many of the punctuation marks removed, with sentences ending on no demarcation, just blank space in place of the exclamation points -- to the clichéd characterisation and story points, but it is still fun camp, b-movie horror material. You like it, maybe not in spite of being horrible, but because it's so horrible. The Plan 9 from Outer Space effect.

This is camp at its basest, presenting the material honestly, as though it were the first time you were seeing it, even though it borrows heavily from film and stock plots. Like the Scottish werewolf in #4, or the witch-hunts of #5, the Lovecraftian village appropriately outside of Gotham in #8, or the old civil war ghost woman in the swamp -- Auntie Bellum, Wein isn't exactly honing razor-sharp wit here -- in #10. They're stock plots, yes, something every horror aficionado has come across many times previously, it's just that this time they have a giant green monster shoehorned into them.

What's kind of funny is that Alan Moore will play with these same conventions, same clichés, same tricks of the genre, and come out with something a little bit greater. Understatement, sure, but it's interesting to see the same approach done by two different people on the same title that achieve to entirely different effects. Take for instance, Wein's ninth issue, "The Stalker from Beyond", vs. Moore's Walt Kelly tribute issue with Shawn McManus, "Pog". Both featuring a different take on mankind's, or even nature's as is the case with the latter, reaction to the alien, literally and figuratively in this case. Granted, Moore's is more of a humour piece in Kelly's style, but they both get to the heart of being different and being persecuted, a theme that runs through virtually every issue of Swamp Thing actually, a central theme that helps draw an audience.

I should also note that it's Berni Wrightson, for a very large part, which makes the issues as enjoyable as they are. I know I've gone on and on about story elements and what Wein did, but that's largely because being a writer, the story, the writing, is more easily critiqued than the art. It's something that you'll see in a lot of reviews, with the emphasis being placed heavily on story rather than art, aside from some rudimentary, "I like it."

Berni Wrightson was one of the rising stars of the seventies, in the same camp as Mike Kaluta, who grew up with EC Comics and developed a style that spoke of influences from Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta, B. Krigstein, and Joe Orlando -- who also, it should be noted, edited Swamp Thing, with Paul Levitz his assistant. Wrightson brought about an almost visual style to DC's horror pantheon. It's his lines you see being adapted for Sandman by Sam Kieth, or even the style being perpetuated in Swamp Thing by Steve Bissette or Rick Veitch. The older artists' influence is apparent, but so is Wrightson's own. There's a beauty and fluidity to Wrightson's work similar to Neal Adams, but it's darker, more informed by the EC horror.

Finally, there's a tease in the final panel of #10 for the next issue, "The Conqueror Worms", which I don't remember a hell of a lot about, but I think it actually had giant wormy thingies battling Swamp Thing, and an artist other than Berni Wrightson. Nestor Redondo, who honestly wasn't a bad follow-up, even though Wein's scripts continued to get a little campier, then we saw a few fill-ins from David Michelinie and Gerry Conway, before Wein himself returned to close out the first series. Who knows if DC is going to collect those remaining fourteen issues, let alone complete Alan Moore's run.

Next Week: Yes, I said "Next Week". Maybe we'll discuss something about it being a bad idea to eat drugs that happen to just be lying around on the floor. Oh, and driving people nuts with split infinitives. To boldly go where no comics column has gone before, and all that. Oh, okay, where several have gone before, but did they have rubber duckies?