Summer of Love 50th: Gaiman brings Brother Power back

[alicemacher]

"I'd read the two BROTHER POWER THE GEEK comics as a small boy, and thought they were seriously weird. Rereading them as an adult they were still seriously weird, and funny, and touched with a sad, strange nostalgia. I'd been reading some Ken Kesey, and somehow the idea of Brother Power as a final remnant of flower power began to possess me. 'At least you didn't bring back Prez,' said my friends, relieved. Little did they know."
--Neil Gaiman, Midnight Days

Mild gore on one page.


From "Brothers," Swamp Thing Annual #5 (1989). Story by Neil Gaiman, pencils by Richard Piers Rayner and Mike Hoffman, inks by Kim DeMulder. 13 pages of 42.

While the Swamp Thing involuntarily travels ever backwards in time, and Abby, pregnant with their child, waits for his return, their friends Chester and Liz discover a Brother Power campaign poster amongst Chester's collection of sixties memorabilia.















When Steel learns of the giant regenerating humanoid interfering with the rescue work, he calls Batman, who'd faced a similar creature in Gotham. Batman suggests he get in touch with Abby, who knows more about the Swamp Thing than anyone else. Steel dispatches Triangle, a government agent who, using the alias Gideon Endor, makes Chester and Liz lead him to Abby in the Houma swamp. Triangle tells her if she accompanies him to Tampa and helps him find out how to get rid of the creature, she'll be paid; if not, she'll be jailed. Abby agrees on the condition that Chester and Liz be allowed to come with. The agent agrees, though that doesn't stop him from being an asshole en route to everyone concerned, with special venom directed toward hippie Chester.

That night, in Abby's Tampa hotel room, a representative from the Parliament of Trees pays her a visit.






Meanwhile, Triangle pulls Chester out of bed, demanding he join him for drinks in the hotel bar.











Chester, unused to hard liquor, stumbles out into the streets of Tampa, when who should he run into but Brother Power.

Comments

[kamino_neko]

Yub Yub here is totally the literal worst.

[thanekos]

Gideon Endor is totally the kind of fake name you make in your hotel room when the first thing you look at is the nightstand.

[rainspirit]

Huh. Is Gideon Endor supposed to resemble Hunter S. Thompson?

[leoboiko]

It is a doll god… a puppet elemental… like others before it…

Is this some DC/comics reference, or is he talking about Pinocchio?

[mrosa]

Well, it would be cool if DC retconned Pinocchio into a puppel elemental...

[goattoucher]

I remember reading this and thinking that I did not care about Endor or the Doll God or any of that. It's about Chester and Liz.

Chester knows that he's helping Liz to heal, and that she won't need him once she does. I wish the last page was posted here. Despite his pain and doubt, Chester tells Liz that he'd never hurt her. The poignancy of that moment: that Chester loves her so much that he'll help her get strong enough to leave him, is heartbreaking.