Who is Swamp Thing?

Ahoy Captain Cats here. With Doom Patrol TV series is at the end of its season one run, another series just finished production and its a hero a lot of people don’t know about, and that hero is Swamp Thing. So today I’m going to give you a quick, informational history lesson about Swamp Thing.

Swamp Thing was created by writer Len Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson. Len stated how he came up with the name in an interview in Wizard magazine back in November of 2004:

“I didn’t have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as ‘that swamp thing I’m working on.’ And that’s how it got its name!” – Len Wein

Swamp Thing was first introduced in House of Secrets # 92 as a horror story. The story and character were popular that they gave him is one solo series which was set in the DC general continuity. The first series ran from 1972 till 1976 and was released bimonthly. This series lasted 24 issues and out of the 24 issues, the first 13 were written by Wein, and Wrightson drew the first 10. After issue 13 David Micheline and Gerry Conway came in to finish writing the series while Nestor Redondo came in to do all the artwork.

Swamp Thing didn’t have another solo run until 1982 with The Saga of the Swamp Thing with Martin Pasko doing the writing, and that didn’t go so well. After issue 19 Pasko left the book and was replaced by Alan Moore who would go one and gave Swamp Thing the best comic book run he ever had. Moore brought back Swamp Thing back to his horror roots and introduced other memorable characters such as The Floronic Man, the Parliament of Trees and John Constantine. After Moore left the series in issue 64, five other writers took on the Swamp Thing:

1. Rick Veitch – 1987 till 1989
2. Doug Wheeler – 1989 till 1991
3. Nancy A Collins – 1991till 1994
4. Grant Morrison – 1994 four issue arc
5. Mark Miller – 1994 till 1999

The third series run was in 2001 by Brian K. Vaughan, Roger Petersen, and Giuseppe Camuncoli and it focused on Tefe Holland, the daughter of Swamp Thing, and it made fans of Swamp Thing reject this series. The fourth series run was, to me was pretty forgettable due to the rotation of writers. Andy Diggle wrote issues 1-6, Will Pfeifer wrote issues 7 and 8 and Joshua Dysart did issues 9-29. In 2011 DC decided to bring back Swamp thing in the new 52 series, and this was on par with The Saga of the Swamp Thing with some of the best writing and art in a long time. Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette brought him to a new audience and a great story arc with Animal Man in “Rotworld.”

For powers and abilities, he can control anything plant-based and form, whether its on earth or from another universe, if its plant like he can control it. He has mastered Fire, Water, Earth, and Air elements and is considered one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe.

So there you go, everything you need to know about Swamp Thing before the series premiere on May 31 of this year on DCU. In case you want some reading recommendations to read start with the Saga of Swamp Thing series run and the New 52 series run of Swamp Thing.