In the mid 80’s, over a series of 45 issues, Alan Moore redefined Swamp Thing as well as the comic book series. When he decided to leave the book, what would happen to the character as well as the book. Swamp Thing actually enjoyed a brief rise due to a new movie, a TV series, a short animated series as well as the continuing  comic book series. How long did it last?

How do you follow a writer who reinvented a character and won every conceivable award for a series? That’s the question DC had when Alan Moore left Saga of the Swamp Thing after issue 64. The plan they came up with was to promote artist Rick Vietch to writer. Rick came from the underground comic background and had been writing (and doing some co-plotting with Alan Moore) for awhile on the series. Vietch kept the book as a horror comic while trying to continue in Alan Moore’s storylines and characters. His last set of stories in the book had Swamp Thing travelling back in time until issue 89 was blocked by DC. It was going to have Swamp Thing interacting with Jesus and DC decided that it was too controversial. Vietch quit over the decision and moved onto other things.

After a couple years without a regular writer, Nancy Collins came in and looked back to the original storylines for inspiration. She had some well-regarded issues before leaving 3 years later. Grant Morrison came on for a four issue series before turning the series over to newcomer Mark Millar. The reaction to Millar’s storylines and falling sales quickly led to cancellation.

In 2000, Brian Vaughn tried a revamp which featured Swamp Thing and Abby’s child Tefe. It lasted almost 2 years before being canceled. In 2004, DC tried moving Swamp Thing back to his Alan Moore storylines and it lasted just over 2 years before again being canceled.

Swamp Thing was successful enough for a movie sequel to be made, The Return of  Swamp Thing.. B-movie director Jim Wynorski brought on TV star Heather Locklear to play Abby Arcane with Dick Durock again playing Swamp Thing. The movie was bad, cheesy and didn’t really help or hurt Swamp Thing. Heather Locklear probably brought in additional interest because she was big enough to draw in some viewers.

The USA network then decided to try a Swamp Thing TV series (title character again played by Dick Durock). It was fairly successful and had a decent fan base while lasting for 3 seasons. An animated series was attempted for FOX Kids and only made it through 5 episodes. Lately there have been rumors of Joel Silver working on a 3-D version of Swamp Thing, but nothing has been set yet.

The character is strong enough to have lasted for almost 40 years now. While it has never again regained the popularity that Alan Moore brought it to, Swamp Thing is assured a place in the comic industry for years to come.