Swamp Thing: Ghost Dance

[alicemacher]

From Swamp Thing #45 (Feb. 1986). Art by Stan Woch and Alfredo Alcala.

In San Miguel, California, two married couples take a nighttime drive to a condemned mansion that once belonged to Amy Cambridge, whose family had made their fortune with the Cambridge Repeater, a firearm that was a cheaper alternative to the Winchester rifle. (The Winchester was real, as is the Winchester Mystery House on which Moore based this story.)

David, an amateur folklorist, tells his wife Linda and friends Rod and Judy that Amy Cambridge allegedly built the mansion in order to appease the ghosts of all those whom her family's rifles had killed: Native Americans, outlaws and others.





Judy apologizes to David for her husband's non-stop flirting with Linda. David shrugs it off because Linda reciprocates and it's "just a thing she does." He suggests they look for their spouses inside.





The four immediately lose track of each other. Rod heads upstairs to one of the bedrooms. In the darkness, a blonde figure he takes for Linda silently seduces him.







As Linda looks on in horror, the ghosts of blindfolded firing squad victims approach her and a few of them feel her face. She passes out.

Judy, having discovered "a closet only half an inch deep, and another the size of an apartment," next finds a freestanding wardrobe in the middle of a room. She opens it to find a herd of charging buffalo, and slams it shut. Although startled, Judy soon laughs it off as a hallucination. Then the ghostly buffalo break out and trample her to death.

David runs from floor to floor, coming across the ghosts of Native Americans, suicides, and a family of murderer and victims. Finally, he meets the Swamp Thing.





The Swamp Thing finds Linda, still unconscious but otherwise unhurt as the voices of Ed Clutty and the Dutchman continue arguing about their poker game, while their severed hands struggle over a gun.





All the ghosts, at the sound of hammering, flee into the fireplaces and go out the chimney as smoke. With the house secured, the Swamp Thing carries Linda outside for her "tender reconciliation" with David, then walks off.





Nearby, Constantine greets the Swamp Thing, who's in a fatalistic mood, resigned to never learning "the truth" from him. "The truth?" says Constantine. "Well, why didn't you say?" He introduces the creature to his associates Benjamin Cox (who upon meeting Swampy compares him enthusiastically to the "spawn of Shub-Niggurath") and Frank North, whom he's recruited to help with the "final stages" of his plan. John tells the bewildered Swamp Thing that the four of them are off to see the "end of the universe," where he'll at last learn the truth.





This is the last of the "social commentary" stories within "American Gothic." It was well-received, except (judging from the letters column) by Second Amendment advocates. Next up: an issue which both crosses over with the then-ongoing Crisis on Infinite Earths and subverts it.

Comments

[captainbellman]

Interested in the story of Winchester Mystery House? I heartily recommend the recent horror-comic "House of Penance", illustrated chillingly in great detail by the talented Ian Bertram.

[alicemacher]

That cover... it's like the distilled essence of gothic horror and it is beautiful. Thanks for drawing attention to this comic; I'll have to check it out.

[qalchemist]

I loved the references to the Winchester House. I've been there, and many of the things in this comic are real.

The door three stories up that just comes out of the side of the building, for instance...

[tripodeca113]

That's creepy and neat.

[dr_archeville]

In the thirteen (so far!) seasons it's run, Supernatural has never had Sam & Dean Winchester visit the Winchester House. Or even mention it. That's always felt like such a weird oversight.

[crinos]

That feels like something they would save for a series finale. Like Sam would be like "We have to go back where it began. Where it ALL began." And then smash cut to outside the Winchester manor where they have to go in and fight Super Cthulhu or whatever.

[tcampbell1000]

The only thing that's a little off here is that the story can't quite make up its mind whether the Cambridge Repeater is a little-known also-ran gun, a "cheaper alternative," or whether it was so popular and important that "Cambridge bullets built a nation." I'm tempted to chalk that up to well-meaning editing, as it's an extremely minor change and not the kind of inconsistency Moore generally does.

I... can't bring myself to mourn for Linda here (odd choice of name, given Swamp Thing history) and I feel like that's intentional. Infidelity on its own wouldn't deserve death, but she's so hateful and self-centered that it would've felt like cosmic justice if the ghosts had gotten her instead of Judy (I doubt she's even upset over the loss of Rod so much as the loss of, well, his rod).

Hell, even Rod had the grace to feel a LITTLE guilty about what he was doing to David, though not, apparently, what he was doing to Judy. It's a poor sort of empathy contest, but Rod limps across the finish line for a third-place finish while Linda just sits there like a stone.

No, I don't think we're meant to mourn for Linda here, but David is another story. He was a good man or at least tried hard to be, but within hours of the finale he'll have committed a sin from which he is unlikely to find redemption.

"The truth? Well, why didn't you say?" said Constantine, habitually crossing and uncrossing his fingers. "Really, mate, apart from threatening your missus and blaming you for not following instructions I didn't give you and dropping out of your life for about four issues, when have I done anything that'd make you impugn my character?" he went on, as four aces of spades fell out of his right sleeve. "We've got to work on those trust issues before the world ends or something... oop, too late, it's ending now. Forgot to mention that." He wiggled finger quotes in the air. "Well, before we all die, can I interest you in some Amway?"

[lego_joker]

As I said in the last post, I find this the most effective of Moore's What's Wrong With America stories, partly because the message is less "Guns Are Bad (And Must Be Stopped)" and more "Guns Are Scary", which they are. That's the whole damn reason America has built a culture around them - to scare the Bad Guys away.

(Of course, in about eight issues Moore will be issuing a much less ambiguous stance on guns via Swampy himself, but by then, he's earned it...)

Mostly, though, I guess I'm just a sucker for Eldritch Location horror. It's just so much more chilling than embodying the horror in one or two or even a pack of conventional monsters like vampires or werewolves. The only change I would've made might be making one of the four a direct Cambridge descendant who inherited the house and spent a few weeks enjoying its its blood luxuries - or would that be a little too cliche?

[lissa_quon]

I think having someone tied to the house - would have made more sense than just "four random adults decide to wander in a decripit house" But this arc has been low on the sense.

I'm just sort of like baffled at the logic of someone who knows about this house deciding to go wandering around in the decrepit run down ghost house. Someone whose supposed to be an intelligent adult.

The real Winchester Mystery House - they make it very clear is not safe or wise to go wander off the tourist path. People can get lost. The house has survived a earthquakes and some of it is not in the best state. And that's as a maintained landmark.

But yea - this one works as an American Horror story. The Winchester House and the industry that built it is very much part of America and it's history.

[kamino_neko]

I've always been bothered by the fact that both Winchester and Cambridge exist in this story.

If Cambridge were just the in-universe equivalent to Winchester, or if this was presented as a thing that happened to every major firearms manufacturer, that'd be one thing (well, two things, but you know what I mean), but the way it's done just...it makes the story feel like a cheap knockoff, if you follow.