In case you somehow didn’t notice, this week’s release of Swamp Thing #1 was really great. Mixing Snyder’s penchant for horror with some excellent first issue character development, so far the praise for the book has been rather universally positive.
With that in mind, last night Scott Snyder took to Twitter to take to fans and chat about the book, setting straight the character’s continuity in the DCnU and lightly teasing what is to come. And anyone who has listened to our podcast knows that when he is enthused about something, Scott Snyder can be quite verbose.
Scott writes (with some light de-twitterfying editing from us),
I just want to say thanks so much to everyone out there who picked up SWAMP THING #1. He’s a monster made of vegetation, which sounds weird, but he’s one of my favorite characters of all time, and so hearing from all of you who were willing to give him a try really means a lot. Really. Thanks so much. And…things get really deep into the scares and surprises in #2 🙂
Quick history of the character of Swamp Thing with regards to Alec Holland: originally, Alec was a botanist working on a bio restorative formula in a lab in Louisiana – a formula to grow vegetation in the driest regions on the planet. After an explosion in the lab set him on fire, he fell flaming into the swamp outside and emerged as a monster called the Swamp Thing. He fought all sorts of awesomely twisted men and monsters (the Wein/Wrightson run) and then, when Alan Moore took over, he told a story that re-defined the character, by having Swamp Thing discover that he was never Alec Holland… in fact he was a creature made entirely from vegetation that simply thinks it’s Alec Holland because it was born from the explosion that killed him, like a plant-clone. In this iteration, he slowly discovered the scope of his powers if he could embrace the notion that he was no longer human and instead a plant. He could form and re-form, control vegetation… He basically became (and discovered he was, in effect) a god or godlike protector of the Green (Vegetative Nature) from enemies. He has existed primarily in this iteration ever since…as a plant “elemental,” a force of nature, a kind of monster/warrior/protector/Godzilla of the green.
But recently, the original human Alec Holland was brought back by great forces of Nature (via Brightest Day). His last real memory is of the accident in his lab – dying. But, because the Green brought him back, he has the memories of the creature that was Swamp Thing all those years, too. These memories haunt him, like bad dreams of being a monster, and the volatility and need of the Green has made him want nothing to do with it anymore. But the idea is that maybe, the Green brought him back for a reason. Maybe it wants something from him in a big way. Something that has to do with his history, his destiny… maybe his life is tied to the legacy of this monster in ways he doesn’t know yet. Just as maybe the lives of the original characters like Abby (Swamp Thing’s love interest) are tied to the same mythology of Swamp Thing, the Green, the Red (editor’s note – see Jeff Lemire’s Animal Man for more on the Red) and something else, something dark, in ways that will tie into the history of the character, but reveal new secrets. And again, you don’t need to know ANY of this to enjoy the series from #1 on. I’m just laying it out in case you want to know the continuity we’re building on 🙂
I love the Moore run and the Wein run both, because in their own ways, they’re both about the same thing. A man wrestling with monsters both internal and external. The internal being what makes the character who he is – a monster who can’t give up being a man, no matter how much it hurts him to hold on. What we’re doing is the same idea – as to me, it’s the core of the character – but inverted. We’ve given Alec back his life, his human life, but what he’s worried about, deep down, is that maybe that monster, Swamp Thing, is still there, part of him in ways he doesn’t want to admit.
For anyone out there interested, the Wein/Wrightson stuff is huge fun for its old-school classic monster creep-out stories (especially Arcane and the Un-men). The Moore is real southern gothic Americana, brilliant (of course) for its characterization of Swamp Thing as a monster or God (like Dr. Manhattan eventually) and the battles he fights externally (with everything from underwater vampires to Batman) and internally (struggling w/letting go of his humanity and embracing his nature as a monster/god).
And one last piece – Swamp Thing’s tether to humanity, his closest friend, is a woman named Abby Arcane – white-haired with a black stripe. She’s the love of Swamp Thing’s life, a willing Ann Darrow to his (highly intelligent) King Kong. Our Alec remembers her – he has the memories of Swamp Thing – but where she is and how she’s changed… that’s something we’ll be dealing with soon 🙂 that’s it.
Snyder also reveals that Swamp Thing’s daughter Tefe, who was the star of her own series (written by Brian K Vaughan, although curiously never collected by DC), will be returning to the book at some point as well.
