Swamp Thing: Love and Death

[alicemacher]

"I can still remember the feeling of shock with which I read 'Love and Death' [...] This was the first comic-book horror I had seen that actually horrified me; I became hooked, discovering with amazement that comics had the same capacity to disturb and unsettle that the best prose and film had. [...] 'Love and Death' also made comics history as, beginning with this issue, The Saga of the Swamp Thing became the first DC comic with newsstand distribution to go out on a monthly basis without the Comics Code Authority's seal of approval. [...] It is to DC's credit that, from this point on, rather than trying to tone down the title they chose to put it out without the Code's seal instead."
--Neil Gaiman, Introduction to Titan (UK) reprint ed., 1987

Warning for rape.



Issue 29 (Oct. 1984) opens with Abby passed out on her kitchen floor after having, in a frenzy, tried to rid herself of a burnt-insect smell by scrubbing herself repeatedly in the shower and then scouring herself bloody with a wire potato brush. She dreams of the events leading up to this.

In her dream Abby, for the first time in weeks, visits the Swamp Thing. She apologizes for her continued habit of calling him "Alec," and says she'd been worried he no longer liked her as a result. He assures her it's no longer a problem, and that she can keep calling him Alec if it's easier.

Matt tells Abby he has three surprises for her, and takes her to see the first of these: their palatial, completely furnished new house. Disregarding the fleeting smell from the bedroom, she asks her husband how they can afford this home on just her salary.

The answer is Matt's second surprise: his new office job at Blackriver Recorporations. He takes her there so she can meet his boss and coworkers. The building also has a burnt-insect smell. At first glance, his four coworkers look to her like decaying zombies, only for them to assume human form a split-second later. Abby goes dizzy at what she takes to have been a hallucination, then shrugs it off and meets the staff, including the young, beautiful secretary Sally Parks, "whose name sound[s] familiar." Afterward, she asks Matt what his third surprise is; he says he'll save it for later. They go back to their new home. Abby, taken with Matt's newfound sobriety, confidence and charm, makes love to him. (Note the downplayed but significant bit of foreshadowing in the bedroom mirror.)





At some point during all this, the Swamp Thing comes across a dead bird that's nonetheless moving about as though alive.

Some time later, Abby visits the local public library to do research on autism for her job. She accidentally comes across a crime book about Sally Parks, complete with the Blackriver secretary's photo on the front cover. Reading it at home, she learns that the "young" Parks brutally killed fifteen people over three months in 1962 before the police shot her dead. This prompts Abby to wonder who else from Matt's workplace might be returned from the dead.















Meanwhile, the Swamp Thing picks up the dead bird and finds that the reason it appears to be alive is that it's full of writhing bugs.

Next: Things get worse in "A Halo of Flies."

Comments

[tcampbell1000]

Between this and what happens with Dennis and Liz, the domestic horror of a marriage to the worst kind of man was clearly on Moore's mind. This was a less literal representation, but there's something about the way her subconscious tugs at her while she consciously thinks everything's fine that speaks to me.

Another instructive comparison is The Killing Joke: there as here, a series' principal nemesis reaches a level of depravity he'd never even approached before-- and honestly, really never would again-- not (just) by aiming for a high body count, but by committing smaller, more personal atrocities.

Moore rarely makes Abby a straight-up victim to be rescued in his stories, despite her obviously having been designed for that role long before his involvement. I think it only really happens twice: here and in the much later arc where she becomes a victim of... the American legal system and closed-minded sexual mores.

And in both cases, at least Moore is very interested in rendering the experience from her viewpoint, making it much more disturbing, where a lesser writer would focus quickly on how upset Alec is that this is happening to her. Not that we won't get to see that, but all in good time.

[alicemacher]

And in both cases, at least Moore is very interested in rendering the experience from her viewpoint, making it much more disturbing, where a lesser writer would focus quickly on how upset Alec is that this is happening to her.

While we're making comparisons with The Killing Joke, this matter of viewpoint is something that would've vastly improved that Batman story (not as much as leaving Barbara alone would've done, but still). I mean focusing more on how her physical trauma at the Joker's hands affected her emotionally. And not just Barbara saying "What's he doing to my father?", natural and humane as that reaction is, but how she feels about what the Joker did to her. Only later, influenced by Simone's "Women in Refrigerators" consciousness-raising, would a writer attempt that. I don't remember who that was nor which comic, but it was a powerful flashback to the still-hospitalized Barbara calling Batman out for, in effect, joining the Joker in viewing her trauma as incidental, as an afterthought to their own concerns.

In contrast, "Love and Death," despite as you say having the villain raise the stakes in personal cruelty, does a better job of showing the emotional/psychological impact on the victimized woman. It helps, too, that, given this was an ongoing run and not a one-shot, Moore himself was able to have Abby heal from her trauma instead of leaving it to subsequent writers.

[tcampbell1000]

My original comment here was about Kim Yale, who with her husband John Ostrander started Barbara's rehab process and was the first to examine Barbara's own feelings about the matter (Ostrander's the bigger name, but in this instance Yale was the driving force). Looking at this again, I see you were referencing a more specific story than I'd thought on first pass, and that's one I haven't seen, so I can't help there!

[crabby_lioness]

IIRC Moore was influenced by an aunt in an abusive marriage. It also influenced his story for -- who was the DC equivalent of Punisher who committed suicide? He had a title in the 90s, but I didn't find him very memorable.

[cygnia]

Vigilante?

[crabby_lioness]

That's the one. Thanks.

[tcampbell1000]

Incidentally, while #28 may not have been the original plan, I suspect Moore reworked plans around it, and the result is greatly improved pacing. An issue where Abby's biggest problem is maybe offending her friend by using the wrong name is a much sharper contrast with this one than there would have been if we'd gone straight here from the Monkey King.

[alicemacher]

Fun fact: Moore originally wanted to follow the Monkey King arc (and possibly "The Burial," I don't remember) by introducing Nukeface, but Karen Berger wanted a suspense arc at that juncture instead of a social commentary one, so he brought the planned "Arcane's back" storyline forward.

[tcampbell1000]

Huh. Yeah, that makes more sense than a writer of Moore's caliber setting up the suspense of Matt's possession and initially planning to IMMEDIATELY blow through it with the next issue. I can definitely see how things like Matt's new job and the new house could've been stretched out as a subplot over multiple issues while Nukeface took center stage. Doing it all at once like this way does give it more focus, so I don't think we lost too much, but it would've been nice to get a scene of Alec interacting with Arcane-pretending-to-be-Matt.