Swamp Thing: Natural Consequences

[alicemacher]

"Om nom nom"... Sorry, I couldn't resist.



From Swamp Thing #52 (Sept. 1986).

As the Swamp Thing speeds toward Gotham, Dwight Wicker, of the quasi-governmental DDI agency, visits Gordon and Bullock, requesting access to Abby. He explains to the suspicious Commissioner that the swamp creature is wanted for the murder of Sunderland.





The Swamp Thing, noticing a disturbance in the Green, pinpoints it as the Floronic Man's mind and drops by his Arkham cell. Woodrue is terrified, believing the "swamp god" has come to punish him for his manipulation of the Green, but his visitor forgives him for his anger towards humanity and gives assurance it's not him whom he's come to punish. He takes off, disregarding Woodrue's plea not to leave him alone with "the voices."

Alec locates Abby as Bullock escorts her to her extradition hearing, through a crowd of reporters, hecklers, perverts and a sympathetic feminist who hands her a rose. Abby's awareness of her surroundings tunes out as she becomes psychically aware of her lover coming for her. Even as the hearing begins, she ignores the judge's questions and speaks out loud to Alec.







A police officer pulls a gun and warns the Swamp Thing not to move, but the creature disarms and immobilizes him with a root. "You... are warning... me...?" he says.







With that, he zips away, leaving a trail of flowers and tomatoes in his wake.





Brrr. That's one creepy-looking Lex. And remember, this is early enough in post-Crisis continuity that he's still able to present himself to the world at large as a respectable businessman.

An hour passes. With the authorities having failed to release Abby, her lover decides to teach them a lesson. "The swamp god flexes his mind. The wilderness shrugs."





Watching from a distance, the Swamp Thing wonders why he didn't do something like this sooner, but also reminds himself there's someone watching over Gotham. The issue ends with a full-page shot of an angry Caped Crusader.

Next: yet another extra-sized issue. The Swamp Thing becomes an ecological hero to some and a menace to others (including a morally-conflicted Batman), while an old, persistent enemy bides its time.

Comments

[dcbanacek]

Ah yes, the first instance of "Cut Lex Luthor a check".

[lego_joker]

You mostly snipped 'em out, but what I like most about this issue is the sheer geography Moore gives Gotham, more extensively than anyone since Denny O'Neil, I think. In that vein, we also have him to thank for Arkham being an A-list presence in comics, instead of just an empty name attached to the place Batman villains bust out of every other week.

(I especially love it being spelled "Arkham Asylvm" on the plate, something I believe every Karen Berger-edited book retained, all the way up to Perez's Wonder Woman.)

[crinos]

I'm curious, what was Poison Ivy doing when all this occurred? Was she around?

Because I feel like if A) a Woman was arrested on trumped up indecency charges because her hubby was a Plant monster, and B) Said plant monster retaliated by unleashing a reign of botanitcal terror on the populace, Ivy would at the very least have a reaction or a comment. Hell, I would be surprised if while this is all happening Ivy is going and killing the tabloid that initially exposed Abby with Swampy.

[alicemacher]

Again, this story takes place very early in the post-Crisis era. So this was before the Poison Ivy most of us are familiar with, i.e. Pamela Isley. She didn't make her debut until 1989, in Neil Gaiman's story "Pavane" from Secret Origins #36. Before that, Ivy was a minor Silver Age villain, real name Lillian Rose, who didn't have anything near Pam's control over plants. Lillian was simply a temptress villain who adopted a plant theme because she'd survived a poisoning attempt and in the process became immune to natural toxins.

[crinos]

Huh, it must have been rough for Pam debuting after Swampy went on his rampage here. I mean not only is it a tough act to follow, but you know Bats now has a big closet marked "In case Swamp Thing ever comes back." with all of his anti plant tech. So Pam's already starting with a major disadvantage.

[kamino_neko]

Jason Woodrue was active before this incident...he's already prepared for plant people.

[crinos]

Wasn't prepared for Swamp Thing, as the next set of scans will show I suspect.

Of course at this point Swampy is a few levels above Woodrue. (Or Solomon Grundy for that matter. IIRC he was eventually retconned into being an early failed attempt to create Swamp Thing right?)

[zer0man]

That bit with Grundy does come up during Veitch's run, yeah.

As for preparedness, even though they've met in the past, the whole elemental aspect never came into play until now. Let's face it, it's kind of hard to prepare against an entire aspect of the physical world without resorting to total scorched earth, which doesn't exactly count as a win.

[crinos]

Which is probably why Bats goes the route he does (Which I presume is coming next issue, so I wont spoil it).

[tcampbell1000]

Abby's face when she starts her "contempt" speech is... a little distracting. Tears of relief would've been fine, but there's so much water flowing out of her where there was none two panels earlier, it kinda goes uncanny valley for me. That said, the story is strong enough that this is just the kind of note that occurs to me after a few rereads.

Agreed that the geography of Gotham is a high point in this chapter. "Mapping out" stories was an interest that would eventually lead Moore to his two major non-graphic novels, Voice of the Fire and Jerusalem.

The way Bullock and Jim Gordon handle Wicker, even though it's not going to stop him, is still very, very satisfying. Bullock knows the buffoonish first impression he makes and is not ashamed to weaponize that.

Unless I miss my guess, this is pre-Crisis Luthor we're dealing with. The DDI has no compunctions about employing known criminals, as they did Woodrue. They might've adjusted this policy had they realized Woodrue engineered Sunderland's death, but they clearly do not, or they'd have paid off Arkham orderlies to arrange some kind of accident months ago, when Woodrue's breakdown had rendered him helpless. Luthor is cited both here and next issue as an expert in destroying "indestructible, invulnerable" beings. Post-Crisis Luthor, it seems to me, would never have been so public about that little research specialty of his, not when doing so might cost him his hard-won respectability.

From the way the head of the DDI talks here, Abby is also on his hit list, but the DDI will make no move against her for the rest of the series. Hard to say why. My best guess: the last time we see the conspirators shown here, they'll have gotten somewhat tangled up in presidential politics, which could keep their focus off settling old scores.

[alicemacher]

It's post-Crisis Luthor. This issue is dated Sept. 1986. John Byrne's Man of Steel mini, which introduced the new Superman continuity including Businessman Luthor, was dated July through Sept. 1986. Also, the DDI is an intelligence agency, so it's believable to me that Wicker would've been able to find out about Luthor's plans against Superman even though they weren't yet public in this continuity.

[tcampbell1000]

I s'pose you're right about the DDI knowing Luthor's not-so-public fixation: he'd tried multiple assassination plans on Superman by Man of Steel #5, and he had to tell some people about that goal, because one difference between "criminal genius" and "ruthless businessman" is you can't do all the dirty work yourself.

I'm not sure the pub dates prove this conclusively: I do remember some minor glitches when it came to continuity between titles in the mid-Eighties. The Superman title took a little while to "catch up" to what was happening in Crisis, for instance. DC continuity was not nearly as uncoordinated as the Big Two are now, but it was never as orderly as it wanted to be.

That said, Moore was very interested in meshing his work with DC's larger plans until he wasn't, and he was hardly unaware of what was going down with Luthor, considering his own involvement in that transition. Also involved with the new Luthor was Marv Wolfman, whom Moore seems to have worked with especially closely. So you're probably right.

[jlbarnett]

I know that Swamp Thing isn't being the bad guy here, but this idea that he could do this kind of pisses me off. It leads me to an idea. A Green Lantern swoops down to Earth from space and finds no people and everything overgrown. Meets a Swamp Thing esque character who says the green rose up to destroy humanity. He plans to kill the GL too, only to find out the GL is an energy contruct and the real one is still out of the atmosphere beyond his reach. And he proceeds to destroy the planet

[crinos]

Well at the very least at this point Swampy is being amazingly generous all things considered. His initialy strike against Gotham didn't do more it seems than inconvenience people. He overran some houses and stopped traffic (and inspired people to go nudist apparently. I mean come on, you're gonna hold Abbey but you're letting people run around like its the Summer of love?)

Honestly, you think that when a huge green monster man erupted from a rose in the middle of the courtroom they would have just given in immediately. But then again this is Gotham, that judge probably see's more fucked up shit on the way to work.

[alicemacher]

I like how Bullock too isn't the least bit phased. "I think we can maybe chip the bark a little."

@jlbarnett: The Swamp Thing isn't the bad guy in terms of his motive, true. But the story repeatedly suggests that it's unwise of him to let his anger and power run rampant like this, and to assume he's unstoppable. In the previous issue, when he comes across the newspaper showing what's become of Abby, we see a callback to the Parliament's advice to avoid anger and displays of power, but he ignores it. The Parliament's warning is referenced twice next issue, most tellingly at the end, when it's too late for him to finally listen.