This edition of “4-Color to 35-Millimeter” is dedicated to the memory of Len Wein, the co-creator of Swamp Thing (along with dozens of other comics characters, including Wolverine), who passed away earlier this month. We miss you, buddy.
The 1970s were a boom time for mainstream comics to try out other genres with their superheroes, bringing in other pop-culture tropes into their four-color world. In particular, there was a horror renaissance in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with DC having success with characters like the Spectre, Dr. Fate, and Deadman while Marvel would give us the Son of Satan, Ghost Rider, and the seminal Tomb of Dracula comic.
In this atmosphere, Swamp Thing was created.
Gerry Conway and Len Wein were roommates at the time, both writing comics for both Marvel and DC. Stan Lee and Roy Thomas co-created Man-Thing for Marvel and gave it to Conway to script, and not long after, Wein co-created Swamp Thing for DC. The latter debuted in a 1971 issue of House of Secrets as an early 20th-century scientist is caught in an explosion and becomes Swamp Thing. The standalone story was sufficiently popular that Wein and artist/co-creator Bernie Wrightson were asked to do an ongoing comic with the character, who was updated to modern times, and which debuted the following year.
As created by Wein and Wrightson, the comic did well, and won several awards. However, as time went on and both moved on to other projects, interest in the title waned, and it was cancelled in 1976.
However, Wes Craven got his hands on the film rights, and wrote and directed a film in 1982. In order to capitalize on this big name attached to one of their characters, DC revived the character with a monthly title The Saga of the Swamp Thing. Wein served as the editor of the title, which was written by Martin Pasko. When Pasko left the title after 19 issues, Wein also left editorial reins, his last act being to bring in an obscure British writer named Alan Moore. New editor Karen Berger gave Moore free rein to revamp the character, which he did. It’s the comic book that truly put Moore on the radar of American comics readers, and led to further work, most of which you’ve probably heard of…
Swamp Thing would later be folded into the Vertigo imprint run by Berger, which published some of the finest horror comics of the last three decades (most notably Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Hellblazer starring former Swamp Thing supporting character John Constantine).
And we owe it all to Craven doing that first movie…
“There goes the neighborhood…”
Swamp Thing
Written and directed by Wes Craven
Produced by Michael Uslan and Benjamin Melniker
Original release date: February 19, 1982
Alice Cable arrives in the Louisiana swamps via helicopter for her new assignment: working with Dr. Alec Holland and his sister Dr. Linda Holland on a top-secret government project to create genetic hybrids of plants and animals in the hopes of being able to grow crops basically anywhere. It’s not clear what Cable’s specialty is, but given that she recognizes the equipment and is assigned to fix a sensor that’s gone down, she’s probably an engineer. It’s also not explained why she’s wearing a suit and heels and her escort is also in a suit, given that they’re in, y’know, a swamp. Apparently, the project has been going through personnel at a great rate, and Ritter, the chief of security, is particularly concerned about a rival scientist named Arcane.
Their most recent breakthrough is a formula that’s literally explosive, but which may have the transformative capabilities they were hoping for. Linda throws some onto the wooden floor and it explodes, but later that same wet spot starts to sprout plants. Alec, who has been giving Cable a tour of the compound, is so elated, he kisses Cable, much to her surprise. (Basically, everyone in the place except for Linda treats her with unconcealed disdain or waggling of eyebrows. Yay sexism.)
The Hollands have been recording their work in a series of notebooks, and this new formula goes into the seventh and most recent one. Shortly thereafter, a group of mercenaries attack the compound, killing several of the personnel, including Linda. Alec is doused in the formula which explodes and he catches fire and falls into the swamp. Cable manages to get away and hide the seventh notebook.
Ritter is revealed to actually be Arcane in a latex mask. He takes the six notebooks, assuming them to be all of them, and it isn’t until he gets back to his lavish mansion that he realizes that the last entry in the sixth notebook is two weeks old. His two prime henchmen, Ferret and Bruno, are torching the compound and disposing of the bodies. A large plantlike creature emerges from the swamp and starts tossing Ferret’s soldiers around like rag dolls. The attack by this swamp thing (ahem) enables Cable to get away to a nearby gas station, managed by a kid named Jude. She calls in to Washington, and they put her through to her direct superior on the scene: Ritter. Cable didn’t see that Ritter was a fake, and she reports to who she thinks is Ritter. Arcane sends his thugs to pick her up. She and Jude manage to get away, though the gas station is badly shot up.
Jude takes her to a cabin that has a change of clothes and then the pair of them go to retrieve the seventh notebook. Along the way, Swamp Thing saves her from Ferret and his people. Cable gives the notebook to Jude to keep safe, but then Ferret’s people attack him and kill him. Swamp Thing uses his healing touch to bring the kid back to life, and Jude entrusts the notebook with him.
Eventually, Cable realizes that Swamp Thing is actually Alec. At one point, she bathes while Swamp Thing watches with an expression that’s probably supposed to be longing, but mostly comes across as creepy.
Realizing the same thing that Superman’s foes realized ages ago—if you want Superman to appear, kidnap Lois Lane—Arcane has Ferret kidnap Cable. However, Cable manages to get away on her own, by kneeing Ferret in the nuts when he tries to kiss her and swimming away. When Ferret catches up to her, Swamp Thing appears; Ferret cuts off his left arm and then Swamp Thing crushes his head. The sight of that makes Cable faint—this same woman who has held her own throughout the movie and comported herself with more skill and gumption than all the other characters combined, but she faints now. Sure.
Bruno manages to capture both Swamp Thing and Cable with a net and also retrieve the seventh notebook. Arcane celebrates by having a combination dinner party/bachelor party/orgy in his mansion, complete with Cable tied to a chair at one of the dinner tables (Swamp Thing is chained up in a dungeon). Arcane toasts Bruno for his superlative work, then uses him as a guinea pig for the formula in front of everyone. Bruno turns into a tiny plant creature with none of Swamp Thing’s strength (and also scares the living shit out of all the dinner guests as he screams and mutates in front of them).
Arcane brings Cable and Bruno to the dungeon, chaining the former up. Swamp Thing explains that the formula only expands what’s actually there. Bruno isn’t a strong person, so his new self isn’t strong. Arcane decides he’s going to take the formula himself.
Once light starts to come into the dungeon’s tiny window, Swamp Thing is able to use photosynthesis to regrow his left arm and break out of his chains. He frees Cable and Bruno shows them a way out (it’s a doodad that is used in case a guard accidentally gets locked in a cell; Bruno’s too short to reach it in his new mutated state, and the others couldn’t do it until they were unchained).
Arcane has taken the formula and transformed into a weird kind of porcine beast. Grabbing a sword, he chases Swamp Thing and Cable to the swamps and they have a big-ass fight. Arcane stabs Cable dead, but Swamp Thing heals her and then seems to kill Arcane. Then he goes off into the sunset, leaving Cable behind.
“You never feel safe about anything—will you just go?”
The Return of Swamp Thing
Written by Neil Cuthbert and Grant Morris
Directed by Jim Wynorski
Produced by Michael Uslan and Benjamin Melniker
Original release date: May 12, 1989
Five ATF agents are going through the Louisiana swamp to go after some moonshiners, and then they’re attacked by some kind of monster. Two of them are killed, and two more are shot by a woman in a jeep. One agent survives, saved by Swamp Thing.
While Arcane was left for dead in the previous movie, two scientists found his mutated body and nursed him back to health: an asthmatic named Rochelle and a woman named Lana Zurell. Arcane and Zurell are also sleeping together. Arcane has a team of mercenaries led by Gunn, and also including the woman who shot the ATF agents, Poinsetta.
Arcane’s stepdaughter, Abby, leaves her plant shop in Malibu, having realized after four therapists have told her that she has unresolved issues with her stepfather and the death of her mother. She travels to Arcane’s mansion, where she’s welcomed with open, if sinister, arms. Their experiments have resulted in awful mutations like the creature that killed the ATF agents. But Abby’s mother had the right blood type to make the serum work, and maybe Abby will, too. All of this is designed to prolong Arcane’s life, of course.
Two annoying boys get together while their parents are out to look at porn magazines when the monster who killed the ATF agents shows up. They’re saved by Swamp Thing, but only after considerable destruction.
Arcane and Zurell give Abby a ring of her mother’s that “accidentally” cuts her finger, thus giving them a blood sample to test. Abby is weirded out by her stepfather and goes for a walk. She’s almost raped by a couple of redneck moonshiners (possibly the guys the ATF agents were after?) before Swamp Thing saves her. He explains who and what he is, as we flash back to the previous movie.
However, Arcane’s mercenaries blow Swamp Thing up with grenades and take Abby back to the mansion. Some mercenaries stay behind to try to find a sample of Swamp Thing’s body, as they need it for the serum that will keep Arcane young.
Bits of Swamp Thing’s body flow through the water into the pipes that feed Arcane’s mansion.
Rochelle reveals that the only way to make everything work is to combine DNA from a compatible donor with Abby’s—and the only two people with the right blood type are a security guard and Zurell. Zurell overhears Arcane telling Rochelle to “do what he has to,” thus showing that she’s expendable. She draws a bath, but then decides to betray Arcane. After she leaves, Swamp Thing starts to flow through the faucet and reform himself in the tub.
Abby is held in a cell by Gunn. Abby manages to trick him to freeing her and then knees her in the nuts (the common fate of Arcane’s security chiefs at the hands of Swamp Thing’s girlfriends). Zurell gives her the keys to one of the cars even as Swamp Thing tears through the mansion, tossing mercenaries around. They escape in a jeep, Abby shooting some of the mercenaries as Swamp Thing drives.
They wind up in a glade, and each bites off a bit of Swamp Thing’s body that turns out to be a hallucinogen, thus allowing them to have drug-induced hot monkey sex. (Hot plant sex? Whatever.)
Meanwhile, the two annoying kids are trying to find Swamp Thing to get a picture that they can sell to the tabloids. Instead, Gunn and his people find them, but Swamp Thing saves them. However, before they can get the picture, Abby is kidnapped by Arcane and Poinsetta. She’s brought to the basement lab where Arcane will use the security guard and her to rejuvenate himself.
Zurell has injected Rochelle with the formula and locked him in a closet in order to keep him from using her in the experiment. The procedure seems to be a success, with Abby dying in the process, but there are odd mutations on Arcane’s hand. He realizes that Zurell has betrayed him and shoots her.
Swamp Thing breaks into the mansion, taking out all the mercenaries one by one (at one point, dropping a grenade down Gunn’s shorts). When he arrives in the basement, the now-mutated Rochelle breaks out of his closet and attacks Swamp Thing—the door landing on Arcane, crushing his legs. Tossing Rochelle into the elimination triggers the basement lab’s self-destruct, er, somehow, and Swamp Thing grabs Abby’s corpse and departs, leaving Arcane, not to mention the bodies of Zurell, Gunn, and Rochelle and a couple of the monsters in cells all behind.
The mansion goes boom. Swamp Thing uses his healing powers to bring Abby back to life and they live happily ever after. Or something.
“I’m a plant.” “That’s okay, I’m a vegetarian.”
Most of what you need to know about these two movies is established by the director credit. Wes Craven is one of the great horror film directors, and most of Jim Wynorski’s credits are soft-core porn comedies. Also Wynorski got his start as a protégé of Roger Corman.
Not that there’s anything wrong with soft-core porn comedies in the right context, but The Return of Swamp Thing is just a slog. Every bad 80s movie cliché is present and accounted for: bad guy with foreign accent, cheesy dialogue, dumb guys in mullets, attractive women with big hair and tons o’ cleavage, a not-really-as-cute-as-the-filmmakers-think animal that comments on the action (in this case a parrot named Gigi), two nowhere-near-as-cute-as-the-filmmakers-think children, a high body count, and tons of explosions.
Swamp Thing is much more fun to watch, mainly because for most of the movie, it isn’t really about Alec Holland or Swamp Thing, it’s about Adrienne Barbeau’s Alice Cable, who is awesome. She holds her own and more with the dumbass men around her (who either drool over her or dismiss her), she manages to stay ahead of Arcane for much of the film, and she frees herself from Arcane’s clutches without help.
Which is why it’s so annoying that she is suddenly and unconvincingly turned into the damsel in distress once Swamp Thing kills Ferret and she faints. First of all, the fainting is just ridiculous. She’s seen much scarier stuff just in this movie, including a crapton of dead bodies in the compound after Arcane attacked it. But once she faints, she stops having any agency or action, being captured in a net, tied to a chair, chained to a wall, and stabbed while standing around like an idiot while Arcane and Swamp Thing fight.
Of course, this is preferable to Heather Locklear’s awful Abby. Locklear does the best she can—I don’t think she actually deserved the Razzie she got for her performance—but the character is just awful, and particularly pales in comparison to Cable. In a movie that has truly wretched performances by Joe Sagal (Gunn), Monique Gabrielle (Poinsetta), Daniel Taylor (one of the annoying kids), and especially the top-billed Louis Jourdan, who has much more screen time in the second movie as Arcane, which does not do the movie any favors, to single out Locklear just seems absurd. Sarah Douglas is delightfully evil as Zurell, but her heel-turn doesn’t really play to her strengths, and someone really needed to explain to Ace Mask, who played Rochelle, that asthmatics don’t just use the inhaler randomly.
The one way in which The Return of Swamp Thing is superior is Dick Durock—both his makeup and his performance. He looks like a plant creature in the second movie, as opposed to a guy in a rubber suit, and his performance is relaxed and pleasant (something that would continue in the Swamp Thing TV series starring Durock that spun off these movies).
Of course, none of the live-action versions of Swamp Thing can hold a candle to how the character was rendered in the comics by the likes of Bernie Wrightson, Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch, and Nestor Redondo, which is half the problem. These movies are treated, not as the entertaining horror stories of the comics, but rather as monster movies. Mind you, Swamp Thing is actually a good monster movie, but these two stories are ultimately a shadow of the source material.
Which is too bad. When Alan Moore took over the book, he completely redid the character’s backstory, making this the latest in a series of Swamp Things, part of the Parliament of Trees that care for the Earth’s ecosystem. The series that established that was created specifically to cash in on the first movie, and it’s only too bad that the second movie and TV show ignored it, sticking with the much more standard backstory the character originally had before Moore’s retcon. A movie spun out of the classic The Saga of the Swamp Thing #21 (“The Anatomy Lesson”) could be amazing. Oh, well.
The same year as The Return of Swamp Thing, another, better known DC character had his second foray into feature film territory. Next week, we’ll take a look at the two Michael Keaton Batman films.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is what he is and that’s all that he is.
Actually, it was Gerry Conway who was Wein’s roomie and wrote the first Man-Thing story, although Roy was involved as his editor.
Worth mentioning that the producers of these movies, Benjamin Melniker and Michael Uslan, have also held the Batman movie rights since the ’80s. They were also the executive producers of a 1987 animated TV series called Dinosaucers, which Uslan created.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the movies, but I did watch the TV series for a while and thought it wasn’t bad. As for Dick Durock, I felt he did an okay job in the title role, considering that he was mainly a stuntman who’d spent much of his career playing silent henchmen or monster roles. In addition to his acting debut as an Elasian guard in Star Trek: “Elaan of Troyius,” his characters include the Imperious Leader from Battlestar Galactica (body only, with the voice done by Patrick Macnee) and Frye’s Creature from The Incredible Hulk: “The First.”
Let’s not leave Steve Bissett off the list of great Swamp Thing artists.
Steve: Thanks, that’s fixed. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“…two nowhere-near-as-cute-as-the-filmmakers-think children who both should probably have been drowned at birth…”
Really? This seems a bit harsh.
As for Swamp Thing, my first introduction to him was the New 52 with Scott Snyder at the helm, and I really liked him and Abby Arcane. The whole mythology of the Parliament of Trees, and the connection to Animal Man and the Red, along with the Black…I just dug it.
matty42: It is harsh. Only the white kid, played by Daniel Taylor should have been drowned at birth…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yeah. A bit harsh, especially as Daniel is a friend of mine. Return of Swamp Thing was his first movie.
Bobby
My first introduction to Man-Thing was probably when he appeared in an issue of Micronauts. My first introduction to Swamp Thing was probably going back and picking up one of the Moore trade paperbacks after starting to read Sandman in the early 1990s. Never seen either movie and, TBH, that doesn’t seem like a poor lifestyle choice.
I also remember reading (in the 1970s) one of my uncle’s old Mad Magazine paperback collections that had a story called The Heap that I think might’ve been the granddaddy of them all.
Swamp thing driving a jeep, hilarious. And Dick Durock is a great porn actor name.
But what about the TV series that came out of these not-quite masterpieces? More Dick Durock!
Bobby: My apologies, I didn’t intend to say your friend should die, as should be obvious. I was exaggerating for comic effect. But Taylor was spectacularly annoying in the role……..
I’ve edited the post to remove the drowning reference.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
mndrew: I mentioned the TV series, but this is a superhero movie rewatch…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Mad, in the ’50’s, appropriated the Heap from Hillman’s Airboy comics of the ’40’s. If he was the granddaddy of the swamp man tribe, then the great-granddaddy would be Theodore Sturgeon’s “It” from Unknown.
In my review contemporary to the film, I called Daniel “the worst child actor of all time,” or somesuch. I dunno if he was in subsequent movies, but this one didn’t do much to commend him — and of course that has absolutely nothing to do with his attributes as a human being.
Adrienne Barbeau. Enough said
Are you going to cover the 5 Incredible Hulk tv movies with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferringo (there were 2 before the tv series and 3 after). The ones after the tv show had the first live action adaptations of Thor and Daredevil.
@16/Michael: Keith posted the upcoming schedule on his blog:
https://decandido.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/scheduling-the-rest-of-the-great-superhero-movie-rewatch/
The two Hulk pilot movies will be covered in three weeks, the three revival movies the week after that.
By the way, did anyone else ever see the very short-lived Swamp Thing animated series from 1991? It ran for only five episodes, but it’s memorable for its theme song, which was a pastiche of the song “Wild Thing” — “Swamp Thing (da da, da-da-da), You are amazing!”
@18 It was only five episodes?! If you’d asked me I would have said there was the usual twenty or so. (Yes, I saw it – not sure if it was on as part of the BBC’s evening block of kids programming, Saturday morning, Sunday morning or what, but I remember that theme music!)
I can remember going to see the second movie in a theater with a friend of mine.
When the credits came up with written by ‘Grant Morris’, he commented, “Ooh, just 2 letters off from being a good movie.”
I can buy that. It’s one thing to see dead bodies. It’s another to see a body made dead, especially so spectacularly. I’m very sensitive to gore, and while I don’t think I’d faint–I’ve only fainted once–I’d probably puke.
Some sort of reaction would have been okay, but all out fainting is what Keith has a problem with.
I vaguely had the idea that I’d seen a Swamp Thing movie as a kid, but now I’m wondering if I am thinking of the Toxic Avenger instead…
As much as Alan Moore’s revamp of Swampy was great and probably what has turned him into a viable character, I was much more creeped out by the earlier issues when I originally read them and thus feel like these film adaptations capture the character better. IIRC Anton Arcane and his (reanimated?) Un-men gave me many nightmares. And I always liked the idea of Holland being trapped in the body of the Swamp Thing and being unable/unwilling to communicate with those from his previous life. It may not have been an idea sustainable for decades in a long running title, but it was very pathetic for the initial years. The whole plant elemental thing always turned me off.
Edit: oh yeah, I also loved the idea of a man who has basically lost his body and being trapped in a new “monstrous” shell, then having even that horror coveted by a villain who wants to take even that away from him. I don’t remember if that plotline survives in Moore’s reboot or not.
@11. Oh, I realize it was played for humor. Maybe if you’d used the character’s name instead of the actor’s. I get the annoying part. That was what he was hired to play, as I understand it.
Bobby
I just have to ask – will you be doing the cheap SyFy Man-Thing movie from 2005 also?
Hey folks! Little housekeeping note, here: starting next week, I’m going to be reviewing Star Trek Discovery for this site, and those reviews are going to go live Monday morning after the episode airs Sunday night. In the interests of preserving my sanity, we’re gonna move the Great Superhero Movie Rewatch to Fridays. So look for the rewatch of the 1989 Batman and Batman Returns on Friday the 29th of September.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
You got the Discovery job? Bad luck there, KRAD. Still someone had to draw the short straw.
@ 27. random22, speak for yourself. I’m pumped for DSC ;)
@27/random22: Keep in mind that Keith and I have a personal friend on the Discovery staff, Kirsten Beyer, and two more friends, David Mack and Dayton Ward, writing DSC tie-in novels in close coordination with the staff courtesy of Kirsten. So don’t expect him to come at the show from a position of kneejerk cynicism (leaving aside the fact that pre-emptively rejecting the new and unfamiliar is pretty much the exact thing that Star Trek teaches us not to do). Also, from what Dave Mack tells us, we have nothing to worry about where the quality of the show’s writing is concerned. The advance buzz from those who saw the premiere Tuesday night is pretty positive too.
random22: Bad luck had nothing to do with it. The Tor.com editors and I agreed months ago that I’d be reviewing the episodes as they came out. And unlike you, I don’t plan to actually judge it until I see it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I can judge it based on promotional materials, which is what they are for. I can also judge it based on the fact they are refusing to have reviews of it be released until after airing too. That last one is pretty damning.
@krad, just out of curiosity, are you going to do any write-ups on The Orville, Star Trek’s brother from another mother?
No, you can’t judge the show based on all that. You can only judge those previews, or the suits that made the decision to not let reviews be published before premiere. The show itself, you have to watch to judge.
krad: Can’t wait for Discovery and then dishing about it on your reviews.
@31/random22: “I can judge it based on promotional materials, which is what they are for.”
That’s like saying that nourishment is what the aroma of a meal is for. You’re getting the two ends of the process confused. Promotional materials are not for judging the final work — that’s silly, because obviously they want you to watch the final work. Promotional materials are just to get you curious.
“I can also judge it based on the fact they are refusing to have reviews of it be released until after airing too. That last one is pretty damning.”
Only in the minds of people who are looking for excuses to hate it. You’re confusing two different things. The warning sign is when a studio won’t even allow reviewers to see something in advance. In this case, they did let reviewers see it; they just asked them to hold off on publishing their reviews until after the airdate, to avoid giving away spoilers. But as I said, in the wake of Tuesday’s premiere event, the spoiler-free buzz has been quite encouraging.
Guys, I’m gonna nip this before the moderators do. This is a post about Swamp Thing and its sequel. I was simply providing info about when the next installment of “4-Color to 35-Millimeter” will be and why. This isn’t the place for a discussion of the merits of the new Star Trek series.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Word is there is a swamp thing series planned for 2019. Hopefully , it will be more faithful to alan Moores work. I think a good model for it would be the first hellboy movie. Ron perlman and selma blair gave great performances in that film. I felt sorry for heather locklear , the person to blame for return of the swamp things failure was it’s director. He was mainly known for soft core comedies.
@36 Lee winters I think the opposite of you. For a mass market entertainment that old school Swamp Thing would be a better choice (ie: love at a distance with Abby, Arcane and the Un-men etc) because it would be too difficult to squeeze the subleties of Moore’s Swampy into a single movie.
@37/vinsentient: As Lee said, it’s a series, not a movie. It’s one of the original series being developed for the DC Universe streaming service, along with Titans, Doom Patrol, Stargirl, Young Justice: Outsiders, and Harley Quinn. Since it’s on a pay service, it can go more adult and dark than most theatrical superhero movies could, and as a TV series it would have more room to develop concepts and character arcs than a movie could.
D’oh! I missed the word series. In that case, Moore/Totleben it up all you like! This will be interesting to see, especially how The Green is handled and Abby eating the tuber…