(HUGE fricking images behind the lj-cut plz)

Obligatory intro: Alan Moore joined DC Comics in 1984. He was made to work on this series called Swamp Thing, a character created way back in 1972 and relaunched in 1982 – but about to be cancelled because of low sales. There was not much one could do with an angsty Swamp Monster but play the Frankenstein card – sympathetic human mind trapped in a monstrous body and all that. Nobody thought that the character had much potential. Nobody but Moore, who began his work with issue 20, with a story called “Loose Ends”, in which he wrapped up previous cliffhangers, and then launched into a series of storylines that destroyed comicbook conventions of the day and gave Swamp Thing a new lease of life. His 40-odd-issue body of work stands as an entity that is worshipped to this day by fans and professionals alike.

The first Alan Moore Swamp Thing story I read in my life was issue 34, ‘Rite of Spring’, published in a digest called The Best Stories from 1985. Yes, DC used to bring out digests too, and though the colour seperations were really terrible, I loved reading them, especially the Superman digests. This one was a compendium of stories from various titles, and what sold me completely was the picture of Ambush Bug on the cover. Ambush Bug was my favourite character back then, a completely wacked-out guy who got everyone fuming with his complete irreverence. For instance, there is a storyline in which Ambush Bug approaches every major character in the DCU with a proposal to join his superteam. In Batman’s case, it ends with The Bug squashed under the giant penny in the Batcave, and Batman with a thought balloon that shows him solving a crossword puzzle. “Lunatic (9, down)” and he fills up A-M-B-U-S-H-B-U-G in the blanks. Keith Giffen, the creator of Ambush Bug later went on to do the hilarious Justice League America series from the 1980’s, and runs on Lobo, of course. Oh blah, I digress again.

The story in ‘Rite of Spring’ was about Abby Cable and her love for Swampy, and the consummation of their relationship. Now remember, Swamp Thing is a plant ( there, I have spoilt issue 21 for you, muhuhahahahah!), so consummation is not as easy as you might think. The issue was COMPLETELY mindblowing – quite literally. I could understand the prose and make out that they were making out (*snicker* lame PJ of the day), but it was just too hallucinatory, the panel layouts were strange, the artwork was very jarring to my newly developed sequential art-senses used to the clean styles of Curt Swan and Paul Gulacy ( from Superman and Batman, respectively). The story ended with a very cool splash page showing Swampy and Abby kissing each other, and Abby almost overrun by plants. That image stuck in my mind, and not just because it was a kiss, mind you.

But the Moore effect struck me good and proper sometime in the winter of 1992. Having painfully obtained the grand sum of 75 Rs from my parents, I proceeded to the neighbourhood haunt for comics – Western Book Depot, Panbazar. There was also another shop – called Modern Book Depot, but I stayed away from it because the salesmen were really grouchy. Also, Western Book Depot used to get fresh comics from time to time. And luckily for me, they had a HUGE bundle of new comics waiting all for me. Slobber slobber slobber. I pounced on Legends issues 1 and 2, and also two stray Batman titles. And then I saw them. Four issues of Swamp Thing, with covers that promised much gibbering nightmares, issues 48, 49, 51, 52.

Finances in hand: 75 Rs. Price per comic = 15 Rs. This was…SACRIFICE TIME!

The Batman issues were default buys. (Word of advice: You DO NOT leave behind issues of Batman if you find them at any shop. The probability that a Batman fan will land up at the same shop within 24 hours is quite remarkably high.) That left the choice of whether I should buy one issue of Legends and two Swamp Things or two Legends and one Swampy. Now, let me clear things a bit – I was at that stage in life when Legends – a completely fight-dominated crossover involving Darkseid against all the heroes of the DC Universe would be my idea of meditative reading. Chances were, if I was reading meditative literature and you interrupted me, I would punch you in the face. I actually did punch a guy in school just because he tried to take a comic from me, but that’s another story.

BUT, the covers of the Swamp Thing issues, in particular issues 48 and 49, seduced me like Legends never could. Observe:

    
What sold me on issue 48 was the sight of the guy with the twisted face and the hand stitched up behind his back. I bought Legends issue 1, and left 2 behind, in the hope that nobody would come and buy issue 2 if they did not find issue 1. And I picked up both the Swamp Things. I was pretty sure issues 51 and 52 would be gone by the time I came back. but I was willing to take the chance. I just HAD to read both 48 and 49.

So I open the first page of issue 48, and the red-on-black colours assault my eyes bad.

I read the page. Read it again. And again. This was…what was this? Trust me when I tell you that this page was my comic-book equivalent of Nirvana. Until then, I had seen detailed Byrne fight pages, the claustrophobic Miller panels on Daredevil, I had seen all kinds of artwork in comicbooks, but I had never seen this kind of a panel transition – I didn’t even know what the term “panel transition” meant, at that time.

Turning the page yielded this two page spread – I have chopped off the dialogue at the bottom.

Later, much later, while reading some grammar book, when I came across the collective term for crows, I finally figured what the title of the story really meant, which gave me this delicious shiver up my spine.

The storyline, as far as I could make out ( that was the problem with buying and reading DC comics all my life. You just landed squarely in the middle of a storyline and had to grope your way about. In all likelihood, you would never really find out the complete thing, after 22 pages of story, there would be this nice big “To be continued” pasted at the end, and you would wistfully read the letter columns. Letter columns were good. They also told you about the storyline that went on three-odd issues ago) generally presents was this. This English guy named John Constantine ( yes, he’s the same guy who Keanu Reeves played in the movie. THIS is John Constantine, a cocky blonde Englishman who meddled in things that did not really require much human meddling, and generally caused much grief and pain to get the job done. ) had come to Quincavi, along with two people he knew – Frank and this girl named Judith. Seems there were couple of other people due to join them, but they did not, as Judy explains, because one of them was nowhere to be found and the other’s mother drove her away when she went asking for him. Constantine is dismissive, and a little worried. The Big Guy isn’t there yet. And then…

Now is that a God Level Moment or what?

All of them enter the cave, the plan is that Swamp Thing will go ahead and erupt in the central chamber ( if you haven’t figured out by now, he can become part of any plant-life and can transport himself through the Green to any part of the world ), while the other two would follow and surprise their adversaries from behind. The kindly folks they are up against, incidentally, are the Brujeria. Their motives, so far to me, were unknown.

What happens next is, Constantine gets seperated from Frank and Judy, and his flashlight gives out in a couple of minutes. And then his matchboxes fall to the ground, leaving him in complete darkness, until….

I bet if you are alone, in a dark cave, you wouldn’t like to be hit in the face by a boy with his head twisted backwards and one of his hands stuck up inside his spine running at you at 40 mph. Constantine blacks out, and wakes up inside a mud pit, tied down by the Brujeria. He’s worried – where is his backup? Where are Frank and Judy? Where’s the Big Guy?

Unfortunately for him, Judith had been lying to Constantine and the others for quite sometime.

What of the Swamp Thing? As it so transpired, the Brujeria had known that Constantine would bring him along, and so they had bewitched all plant-life in the cave ( Brujeria means “witchcraft” in Spanish, didn’t you know?) . The Creature was therefore trapped in the Green between the real world and the cave, because the enchantment made it impossible for him to transport back outside. The pit starts belching mud, ensuring that Constantine would be destined for a gross death ( drowned in mud, yeaurgh!) and at the same time, Judith is stripped of her clothes and made to chew a root in preparation for her task. And then, one of the most Childhood-defining Moments happen:

That’s right. In order to cast away her old body, Judy has to vomit EVERYTHING out, lher intestines, her lungs, her COMPLETE BODY, eaving only her head behind. O boy o boy o boy, this is getting better and better, what? Yes, things really start to happen after that.

I assure you that by this time, I was rolling on the floor having a seizure. THIS WAS SO COOL! The only plant-life free of enchantment in the cave was the FLOWER ON JUDITH’s HAIR! The Swamp Thing plopped his way out through A SINGLE FLOWER. I think the only superhero I thought was cooler than this at that time was Firestorm – a guy who could have converted the flower to ice-cream. Heh. Later in life, I was to observe the harmony of the text with the images – “can you stand upon them?” echoed by Swamp Thing’s feet gaining form.

So things start happening all at the same time. The Invunche, the creepy kid – in case you weren’t paying attention – tackles Swamp Thing, while the leader moulds Judith’s head into a crow. Constantine is being drowned by the mud, and he screams at Swamp Thing to stop the transformation from going through. The Big Guy however sees Constantine in danger, and the big softie that he is ( he is, he really is, you guys should read ‘Rite of Spring’ to know how gentle Swamp Thing can be), he ignores Constantine’s screams and after tossing the Invunche ( actually, I think he grinds the kid’s hands to pulp when the latter tries to push him around.), Swamp Thing jumps into the mud-pit, where Constantine has already disappeared underneath.

What follows next is The Greatest Pinup Moment in Human History, and a moment that shall leave young beatzo as a willing slave to John Totleben’s charms for the rest of his life.

But the deed is done, the crow is let loose, and something unspeakably evil is about to happen. There is a brief epilogue at the end, a subplot that will make sense to you and me later in the course of the story, but this is how issue 48 ends, amidst mud and glory and the smell of something rather bad brewing in the air.

Up next: Issue 49, Guest-stars galore, and the Unspeakable Cliffhanger.

End note: I was not kidding when I said I was a slave to John Totleben’s artwork. The man, one of the alumni of the Joe Kubert School of Graphic Art in the early eighties cut his teeth on Moore’s run on Swamp Thing, inking fellow Kubert School alumni Steve Bissette’s pencils and drawing the occasional cover. ( including the oh-so-gosh-beautiful cover to Issue 34, ‘Rite of Spring’.) Issue 48 happens to be the first issue he completely pencilled and inked himself, and also painted the cover to. He went on to collaborate with Moore on issues of Miracleman ( notably, the most lauded Miracleman story ever, issue# 15, and the series 1963 from Image) He was diagnosed with this ailment called retinitis pigmentosa, which affects night-sight and peripheral vision. Because of this, Mr Totleben’s output has come down from before, but he still does commission sketches and drawings, and two pages of this issue of Swamp Thing are available for sale at his website, but for quite high rates ( the Constantine closeup page that you see above is for 525$, and the page in which the Invunche is let loose on Swamp Thing is on sale for 800$. Right now they are beyond my budget, but I am going to buy them someday, I swear.