Swamp Thing: Roots

[alicemacher]

"Making the Justice League fit into a horror book was largely a problem of approach. What I decided to go for was a more oblique and shadowy representation of the JLA. They appear a little weirder and ominous and more frightening, unknowable entities of immense power that sit up there in space and watch over the affairs of men."
--Alan Moore, The Comics Journal 93 (Sept. 1984), 84.





Woodrue's recording states that, at the Green's behest, he's made the world's plant life output ten times the normal amount of oxygen, which will render the atmosphere flammable and destroy humankind within a year.





Back in Lacroix, Swamp Thing confronts the Floronic Man, who assumes he's returned from the Green in order to share in the destruction. Woodrue offers the "swamp god" the life of the woman he'd hoisted in vines the previous issue. Instead, Swamp Thing punches him and rescues her. Woodrue calls him a traitor and uses his control of plants to subdue him. A brave elderly local man tries to save the day by fetching his trusty chainsaw, Evangeline.





Fortunately, Swamp Thing manages to free himself in the nick of time and break Woodrue's arm. He tells Woodrue his actions are hurting the Green.





Actually, fungi also produce carbon dioxide, as do plants themselves at night. But I wouldn't tell Woodrue that.





As Woodrue runs off screaming, Abby asks her friend what he meant by saying he wasn't Alec. He says Alec is long dead, from the lab explosion.

"And who are you?" asks Abby.

"I? I am... the Swamp Thing." He assures her that he's happy with who he is and they embrace before he returns to his beloved swamp.

Also returning (rushing) to the swamp is Woodrue, who's now decided he's not a plant, but a human. Reaching his makeshift lab, he hurriedly dresses, puts on his wig and sprays on his artificial skin. However, he's let his bark grow out for too long, so when Superman and Green Lantern find him there, this is what they see:







"...and meet the sun."

Next: a visit from Jason Blood.

Comments

[tcampbell1000]

Well, maybe! Honestly, it's a little ambiguous right up to the end, where Abby says "He realized the plants couldn't survive without man, and so the plants backed down" and Swamp Thing agrees.

It does certainly seem that Woodrue and the Swamp Thing (can't call him "Alec" right now) get very different messages from the Green, which at least implies that their nature shapes their response to it. But elsewhere in the text, the JLA talk about a "mass-plant mind" that Raven can telepathically reach but not fully understand.

It never really occurred to me to doubt the JLA's tactical assessment. It's radical enough that they're completely ineffectual in this story except as a cleanup crew, despite the way Moore mythologizes them. I figured he'd at least grant them the dignity of knowing what they're talking about.