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The Wellington Comic Lover’s Guide to… The Swamp Thing

By Gus

Get the dirt on DC Comic’s premier supernatural hero, as we journey to the bayou to meet the Avatar of The Green himself, the Swamp Thing!

comic covers on a black background

Note: DC Comics are divided by publishing eras, determined by a point where they set the issue number (and sometimes, continuity) of a series back to #1. 'Pre-Crisis' is everything published before 1985; ‘Post-Crisis’ is everything from 1986-2011, the New 52 from 2011-2016, DC Rebirth from 2016-2021, and Infinite Frontier from 2021 onwards.

Who is the Swamp Thing?

In the swamps of Louisiana, botanist Alec Holland is killed in an accident while working on a 'bio-restorative formula'. Fusing with his formula and the vegetation of the swamp, Alec is resurrected as a shambling humanoid mass of plant matter. Together with his girlfriend, the mad scientist's daughter Abigail Arcane, Alec protects the environment and fights supernatural threats as the Swamp Thing.

Classic Swamp Thing

First appearing in 1971 in House of Secrets #92, Swamp Thing was popular enough to immediately spin off into his own title. Under the pen of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, he fought mad scientists, federal agents, and Lovecraftian horrors.

Saga of the Swamp Thing

The most famous run on Swamp Thing is by Watchmen writer Alan Moore, who introduced the idea that Swamp Thing was not some accident of science, but in fact a plant elemental who embodies and protects 'The Green', the collective consciousness of all plant life on Earth, answerable to the Parliament of Trees.

Moore also wrote a famous crossover between Swamp Thing and Superman, which appears in the Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? collection.

New 52 - Swamp Thing reborn

In the New 52 series, Alec has returned to human form, but chooses to become the Swamp Thing again to fight The Rot, a force responsible for the natural decay of all life that had run amok. After preventing Earth from becoming a 'Rotworld', Alec expands his suite of plant abilities to fight off a challenger to his position as Avatar of the Green, and confronts a new elemental Parliament based around artificial intelligence.

DC Rebirth

Swamp Thing didn't have a series during DC Rebirth, but he appears in several miniseries and Halloween-themed specials.

Infinite Frontier

During Infinite Frontier, a new Swamp Thing appears in the form of Levi Kamei, a scientist who becomes a plant elemental after returning home to India and learning his secret family history.

Meanwhile, in an alternate future of Green Hell, Alec Holland must contend with a super-Avatar determined to wipe all trace of life from the face of the Earth.

Teams

Swamp Thing is a regular member of the Justice League Dark, a team that takes on the supernatural threats too big for the Justice League alone to handle. Here, Swamp Thing contends with the Parliament of Flowers, a rival faction to the Parliament of Trees.