“The Anatomy Lesson,” written by Alan Moore, art by Stephen
Bissette & John Totleben, colors by Tatjana Wood, lettering from John
Costanza
Swamp Thing is the comic that put Alan Moore “on the map,”
and issue 21 is one of my all-time favorite single issues. In the previous issue, Moore and his
collaborators had killed Swamp Thing, as bullets riddled his muck-encrusted
body. Dead, Swamp Thing’s body has been
taken to a research lab in a high-rise building, the modern marvel of “the old
man,” a businessman who wants to know the secrets of Swamp Thing’s
metamorphosis from Alec Holland into this plant creature and, hopefully,
exploit these findings for himself. To
that end, he hires Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, a similarly afflicted
scientist, to do an autopsy and discover all that he can about Swamp
Thing.
Through his investigation, the Floronic Man comes to
discover that Swamp Thing, though his body has incorporated plant-like body
parts that appear to be analogous to human ones, e.g. lungs, kidneys, a heart,
none of these actually work in the manner they should. These are plants, not human tissue, and could
not act in the same manner. What this
means is that Swamp Thing is not a melding of Alec Holland and the swamp
plants, as a result of the explosion years ago, but is actually a plant being
created to mimic Holland, somehow incorporating his essence, or his soul. But, for all intents and purpose, Holland is
dead and will never be revived.
More importantly, though, if this is actually a botanic
simulacrum and not a human encrusted with plants, then bullets cannot kill
it. It is not dead. The only thing keeping it subdued is the cryogenic
crypt within which it is being held. If
someone were to raise the temperature, it would resuscitate. And if it found out the truth—that it can
never return to being Alec Holland, can only ever be a plant monster with the
mind of Holland—then it might take its frustrations out ona a particular old
man who did not appreciate the Floronic Man’s findings.
With this issue, Moore & company completely reimagined
the character of Swamp Thing without contradicting anything that came before
(as Moore is wont to do). But, like most
comics, this would not have worked so well without the artistic contributions
of Bissette & Totleben. They are the
gold standard, all due respect to Berni Wrightson, when it comes to Swamp
Thing. True collaborators—their thoughts
and ideas were invited and incorporated by Moore—they not only drew Swamp Thing
as a monstrous being who was covered with plants and tubers and vines, but also
utilized inventive panel layouts and added details (such as crafting panel and
page borders from collections of spiders and their webbing) to add to the
ambience and mood of the comic. Under
these three master storytellers, along with the contributions of Wood &
Constanza, as well as later collaborators such as Rick Veitch, Shawn McManus,
and others, the character of Swamp Thing—and, to a lesser extent, horror
comics—was revitalized for a market that seemed to have passed him by. And he continues to loom over the DC comics
landscape today, though nobody has seemed able to crack the code as to his
popularity so well as Moore, et al. did so deftly back in the
early-eighties.
chris
1 comment:
Oh man! I LOVE Moore, Bissette, and Totleben’s run on Swamp Thing. If I were stranded on a deserted island and could only take five series with me, this would be one of them…along with The Micronauts and Preacher, of course. The two others I would need to dwell upon for a bit.
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