Just began reading Alan Moore's rendition of "The Swamp Thing" - a horror-fantasy comic about a creature that is a traumatized plant-like monster that spends its life trying to understand itself and its past.
The original story arc revolved around the usual super-hero mythos - something along the lines of The Hulk - the creature was born in a lab experiment gone bad, where an explosion results in the mingling of the scientist's mind with the boggy marsh surrounding the laboratory. When everyone thinks he's dead, he arises phoenix-like, and begins to hunt down those responsible for the explosion and for his wife's death (obviously, she was conveniently disposed off by the bad guy's henchmen).
But Alan Moore takes the original script and gives it a twist - in #21, "The Anatomy Lesson", the reader finds that the Swamp Thing has been located and shot down by the Military Special Corps and now a doctor who moonlights as a half-plant mutant himself is performing the autopsy. In a beautiful interplay between the panelling and the story line, Alan Moore bores into the tortured anatomy of the Swamp Thing, revealing that it is not really a man who has been turned into a plant, but merely a sentient plant, that believes itself to be a human!!
This outstanding revelation now leads into the creatures deepest darkest nightmares, and reveals it as a desperately pathetic animal looking for salvation. Wonderfully illustrated, Alan Moore made his mark with this series, and it certainly is a brilliant read.
There is a wonderful line in one of the comics at a point where the Swamp Thing has visions of running from the plant world into the Human plane of existence while being advised by his humanity. It says : "This is the Human Race, You have to keep going, or you will get disqualified"
The original story arc revolved around the usual super-hero mythos - something along the lines of The Hulk - the creature was born in a lab experiment gone bad, where an explosion results in the mingling of the scientist's mind with the boggy marsh surrounding the laboratory. When everyone thinks he's dead, he arises phoenix-like, and begins to hunt down those responsible for the explosion and for his wife's death (obviously, she was conveniently disposed off by the bad guy's henchmen).
But Alan Moore takes the original script and gives it a twist - in #21, "The Anatomy Lesson", the reader finds that the Swamp Thing has been located and shot down by the Military Special Corps and now a doctor who moonlights as a half-plant mutant himself is performing the autopsy. In a beautiful interplay between the panelling and the story line, Alan Moore bores into the tortured anatomy of the Swamp Thing, revealing that it is not really a man who has been turned into a plant, but merely a sentient plant, that believes itself to be a human!!
This outstanding revelation now leads into the creatures deepest darkest nightmares, and reveals it as a desperately pathetic animal looking for salvation. Wonderfully illustrated, Alan Moore made his mark with this series, and it certainly is a brilliant read.
There is a wonderful line in one of the comics at a point where the Swamp Thing has visions of running from the plant world into the Human plane of existence while being advised by his humanity. It says : "This is the Human Race, You have to keep going, or you will get disqualified"
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