HE’S BEEN A MAN, A MONSTER AND EVEN A PLANT. HE’S ALSO BEEN AN ENDURING – AND ENDEARING – DC COMICS CHARACTER FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS.
By Rhonda Reinhart
Swamp Thing might have emerged from his boggy environs for the first time in 1971, when Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson brought him to life in DC Comics’ House of Secrets No. 92. But in 1984, British writer Alan Moore – who would go on to create the landmark comic book Watchmen two years later – gave the character a full-on existential makeover, producing one of the most successful comic books of the 1980s in the process. In Saga of the Swamp Thing No. 21, Moore stripped away all the backstory that had come before and revealed the character not as a man who’d become a monster but as “a vegetable crawling with insects … a massive, sodden plant” who thought he was a man.
Tom Yeates’ cover for ‘Saga of the Swamp Thing’ No. 21 hearkens back to Swamp Thing’s ‘House of Secrets’ origins and reestablishes the character’s connection with horror comics. The work is available in Heritage’s April 3-6 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction.
The issue’s cover, created by artist Tom Yeates, placed Moore’s reimagined creature front and center in all his terrifying glory. Now, more than 40 years later, Yeates’ original art for the cover is one of the centerpiece offerings in Heritage’s April 3-6 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction. The cover, long hidden in a private collection, has never been to auction.
In honor of this recent reemergence involving everyone’s favorite muck monster – who, incidentally, has a new movie in development as part of James Gunn’s DC cinematic universe – we’ve rounded up some key items from Swamp Thing’s five-decade-plus history.
Swamp Thing Makes His First Appearance
This is the book that started it all: House of Secrets No. 92, which tells the Victorian-era tale of murder and revenge that portrays Swamp Thing as a human-turned-beast who kills his former best friend to save the life of his former wife. The woman on the comic’s classic cover, which features Swamp Thing creeping up from the shadows, was based on comic book writer Louise Simonson, who also served as the model for the story’s female lead. This copy of the issue, graded CGC NM/MT 9.8, sold for $90,000 in a September 2021 Heritage auction.
Swamp Thing Gets His Own Title
Swamp Thing No. 1 hit spinner racks in 1972, just one year after the creature made his House of Secrets debut. In this 20th-century-set iteration, the character, renamed Alec Holland, gets a more human look and a more fleshed-out origin story involving a deadly chemical explosion and a rebirth as Swamp Thing in the Louisiana bayou. The series, which spanned 24 issues from November 1972 to September 1976, kicked off with a striking cover by Swamp Thing co-creator Bernie Wrightson, who drew the first 10 issues of the series. Wrightson’s original art for the cover of Swamp Thing No. 1 realized $191,200 in an August 2016 Heritage auction.
Swamp Thing Goes to the Movies
In 1982, Hollywood decided to capitalize on Swamp Thing’s popularity in the comic books with a self-titled movie starring Ray Wise as Alec Holland, Dick Durock as Swamp Thing and Adrienne Barbeau as a damsel in distress named Alice Cable. Written and directed by horror legend Wes Craven, the film got mixed reviews, with Roger Ebert proclaiming it “an off-the-wall, eccentric, peculiar movie fueled by the demented obsessions of its makers” and “one of those movies that fall somewhere between buried treasures and guilty pleasures.” The flick, whose poster features artwork by Imaginative Realist painter Richard Hescox, was enough of a success that a low-budget sequel titled The Return of Swamp Thing followed in 1989.
Swamp Thing Meets Alan Moore
Although Saga of the Swamp Thing No. 21 is where Moore introduced his full-blown retcon of the character, Moore actually took the writing reins in January 1984’s Saga of the Swamp Thing No. 20. However, the issue was meant only to wrap up plot threads from previous storylines. After that, as we now know, Swamp Thing would cease to exist as readers once knew him. Moore would go on to win multiple Jack Kirby Awards for his work on Swamp Thing.
Swamp Thing Gets the TV Treatment
1990 saw Swampy get his first self-titled television series, with Dick Durock reprising his title role from the 1980s Swamp Thing movies. The series ran on the USA Network for three seasons and 72 episodes and developed a cult following that led to a second life in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel. Less successful was a 2019 Swamp Thing TV series, which lasted only one season. This life-size creature suit from the original television show sold for $6,400 in a November 2020 Heritage auction.
RHONDA REINHART is editor of Intelligent Collector.