Swamp Thing: Down Amongst the Dead Men

[alicemacher]

Moore, Bissette and Totleben pay homage to The Divine Comedy in this tale that received the 1985 Jack Kirby Award for Best Single Issue.


From Swamp Thing Annual #2 (Jan. 1985). 13.33 pages out of 40.

It's been a day since Abby's and Arcane's deaths and Matt's lapse into a coma after managing to restore his wife's breathing and heartbeat but not her soul, which remains in the afterlife.







Resisting the temptation to lose himself once again in the Green's tranquility, the Swamp Thing presses on to the afterlife, and is shocked to find it empty, except for a woman and her young son who've just died in a car accident. As they head toward the Light, leaving him still more confused, Deadman comes by and says hello.





Deadman escorts the Swamp Thing through the region, a sort of antechamber for the other afterlife realms, but there's no sign of Abby. He suggests the creature check Heaven, although Deadman's not allowed to accompany him there. Fortunately, someone who is allowed shows up.





The Swamp Thing asks if Heaven is the Phantom Stranger's home. "No," he says, "I fear I have long since become a stranger in paradise."







Abby's nowhere in Heaven either, so there's only one realm left to visit. Before the Swamp Thing can enter Hell, though, he and his guide must seek permission from the Spectre, who guards the border between order and chaos. The Spectre recognizes the Stranger, but not the Swamp Thing, whom he identifies as an "Earth elemental" -- another bit of foreshadowing. He confirms that Abby's in Hell, and says she must remain there. The Swamp Thing lunges at him, only for the Stranger (wisely) to restrain him and plead his friend's case, saying Arcane had no right to consign Abby there.





Swampy: "Stranger... who was... Jim Corrigan?" Stranger: "He was... while he lived."

As they approach the gates of Hell, the Stranger tells his companion they must part ways. Everyone must enter Hell alone, "otherwise, how could it truly be Hell?" Then Etrigan (who gets nearly all the best lines in this issue) happens by.







The Swamp Thing comes across Sunderland, now the slave of a demon who's making him polish his hooves with his tongue. At least that's what he's supposed to be using, so the demon rips out his tongue. Although responsible for his death (when not in his right mind), the Swamp Thing is horrified. So we get a page of theodicy, immediately followed by my favourite moment in this story.







Sure enough, Etrigan and the swamp creature come across Abby, whose beauty is still intact despite her (notably silent) agony. To keep it that way, Etrigan joins his companion in fighting off demons who want to divide up her body parts. Eventually, the Demon tells the Swamp Thing to just pick Abby up and run while he opens a portal for them to the land of the living. Arcane, outraged that his revenge is about to be undone, gives chase with other demons in tow.









A landmark comic, not just because of the eloquent and moving story, but also because it was (as far as I know) the first attempt to weave several DCU occult characters into a single mythological framework. Moore would continue doing so in his "American Gothic" arc for Swamp Thing, as would Gaiman and others in The Books of Magic. And as Justice League Dark continues to do today.

Next: the Swamp Thing meets... Pogo Possum? Well, sort of.

Comments

[tcampbell1000]

One of Moore's biggest influences on Neil Gaiman's work was this notion of Hell, which he refined and developed, sticking to the basic "we invent our own" scheme while adding a rich mythology and population of Hell-denizens, later taken up by Mike Carey and finally revised into the TV series Lucifer. Gaiman's early work would also feature a soul unjustly condemned to Hell, a wrong that would take much longer to be righted than this one.

The contrast between Alec's reactions to Sunderland and Arcane jumped right out at me even on first reading. His regret at Sunderland's death was perhaps a necessary correction: it would test our sympathies if the Swamp Thing was brutal and unforgiving to everyone he deemed evil, or even every being he needed to put down. Moore's next big arc would hinge on accepting moral shades of gray, so this capacity for nuance would soon become more important. Sunderland was a bad man to be sure, a bully and a mass-murderer by proxy, but torture has made him a fearful, traumatized shell, and it humanizes Alec to want to pull him from the pit.

Still, some crimes are beyond forgiveness, or at least our mortal capacity for such. Alec only says four words to Arcane until the story's climax, but the last two of them are cruel and richly deserved.

One last moment that couldn't fit in here: before Alec meets the boy and his mom or Deadman, he briefly wonders, "Can this be Heaven? But why is it so empty? Was there no one who was good enough?" This thought is quickly dismissed, but it could've served as the ending to a (bleak) short story on its own.

[strejdaking]

See, that was always my problem with American Gothic arc. I just don't get what most of those stories have to do with moral complexities. The first one with underwater vampires, I can see bit of that, but other than that, unless you really, really want to stretch it, have little connection to that idea.

[laughing_tree]

Fans like to say the Phantom Stranger's origins were a mystery, but between stuff like this and some of Gaiman's hints, it was essentially confirmed that Moore's story in Secret Origins (where the PS was an angel who couldn't pick a side) was the truth of it.

[gnarll]

Was that why he always wore a necklace made of silver pieces? Thirty kf them?

[icon_uk]

No, that's entirely a New52 conceit, that he's absolutely definitely the Biblical Judas seeking to redeem his act of betrayal, which is just poorly thought out on a number of levels IMHO.

Here, and any appearance prior to the New 52, he wears a medallion of some sort, which given his penchant for turtlenecks, just means he spent too much time in the early 1970's. :)

[bruinsfan]

That's always seemed the likeliest and most appropriate of his possible pasts, though I did appreciate the Secret Origins issue keeping it mysterious and offering several options.

Not a fan of what the New 52 did with a new allegedly definite origin for him, as I always felt the Stranger should be beyond having his past retconned by time travel shenanigans.

[zylly]

Honestly, I always preferred Mike Barr and Jim Aparo's origin of the four offered.

[tripodeca113]

"Since yesterday"

Now that is horrifying.

[mister_terrific]

I still recall reading that for the first time and just getting chills. Never had a comic do that to me before.

[bruinsfan]

Moore did it to me several times in American Gothic (as did Gaiman in Sandman). I've been a ravenous horror lit consumer since I was a kid, so it's always a thrill when a writer manages to evoke that sort of visceral response in me.

[icon_uk]

Complete agreement, little Icon_UK was tearing through this comic and then hit that line.... DAAAAAAAMN!

[zylly]

It really, really is.

[icon_uk]

Just so damn good, the Phantom Stranger being soooo msyterious and supercilious, Etrigan stealing every damn scene with amazing poetry, Swmap Thing at him most human (NOT going to see Linda because it would hurt too much) and the scene with Arcane is just the essence of horror.