The character of Swamp Thing has always been a personal favorite of mine. I saw the first movie, enjoyed the several of the comic book series and might even have seen a few episodes of the TV show. So today is the first of a 3 part look at Swamp Thing and his many incarnations. Today we’ll look at the beginnings of the character through the end of the Martin Pasko run on the comic books, a stretch which includes the Wes Craven movie.
Len Wein (writer) and Bernie Wrightson (artist) created the character of Swamp Thing in 1971 as a story for the House of Secrets horror comic book series. It was in issue #92 and was set in the early 1900s. The main character was Alex Olsen who had been killed and resurrected as a plant man. The story struck such a nerve that a Swamp Thing series was quickly planned.
Starting in 1972, Wein and Wrightson decided to update the series to the 1970s and made a few changes and the series was ready to roll. The new Swamp Thing was named Alec Holland. Holland was a biologist who was killed along with his wife, but he came back to life as a half man/half plant monster. Holland tried to avenge his wife and be transformed back to human. Wein wrote for the first 13 issues and Wrightson was artist on the first 10 issues. They introduced a lot of characters that made their way forward including: Anton Arcane, his niece Abby and Matt Cable. All the Wein/Wrightson stories have been collected in Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis.
The series continued on for another 11 issues with a host of writers and artists before slow sales caused it to be canceled. One of the writers, Gerry Conway brought Swamp Thing with him to the Challengers of the Unknown reboot, but that didn’t last long. For the rest of the 1970s and early 1980s, Swamp Thing was an occasional guest star in a variety of comics, but there was no real direction to him.
Then Wes Craven decided to make his way to mainstream Hollywood by helming a Swamp Thing
Ray Wise played Alec Holland and Dick Durock played Swamp Thing (a role he would reprise for many future shows), but the big star was Adrienne Barbeau (an up and coming actress and sex symbol) as Alice Cable (the movie version of Abby Arcane). The box office was not great (and neither was the movie), but DC decided to restart the comic. The first issues was a comic book version of the movie and the new name of the series was Saga of the Swamp Thing.
The Martin Pasko experiment lasted for 19 issues. Pasko took up Swamp Thing from the end of his Challengers of the Unknown storyline and had him traveling around trying to save the world before heading back into familiar territories by bringing back some of the original cast. Pasko also created a Sunderland Corporation that was trying to capture Swamp Thing as the bad guys. There wasn’t much love for the series critically (especially from creator Len Wein) or in sales numbers and Pasko left to work as a Hollywood screenwriter.
DC Editor Karen Berger came on to the series and since it was headed for cancellation decided to give a young and talented British writer the series and the freedom to revamp the series as he saw fit. So Alan Moore came on to issue 20 and closed all of Pasko’s storylines and had Sunderland Corporation capture Swamp Thing. In Part 2, we’ll explore the Alan Moore years on Swamp Thing and how the revolutionized the comic book industry (and gave other British writers storylines and characters for years to come).