Alright, by now these have become full-blown recaps, with spoilers and all. But I guess they do flow forth from my appreciation of this really weird superhero comic. So, read on, Macduff.
It was called American Gothic because in these adventures Swamp Thing dealt with various Americanized Gothic monsters;
And then the Multiverse shifted.
And the Crisis on Infinite Earths arrived.
And, luckily, it didn't stick around for very long. At least, not in the pages of Swamp Thing, where our heroes are in and out of the main event without barely having seen action. It is comfortably the oddest of the Swamp Thing's already pretty strange adventures, more because it feels as if he's a step behind everyone else, and because the story itself feels very wonky. Crisis on Infinite Earths is the massive crossover event in the 1980's wherein DC brought together all its disparate superheroes, and made all the different multiverses into one universe harbouring all of the superheroes. As someone who's never read the main series (and likely never will) it all came across here as... lacklustre, and pretty barebones.
But as John says it, there was a point to it anyway, as the Crisis was to be used as a springboard by an ancient, evil force, and Swamp Thing was going to be crucial in the battle ahead.
After the Crisis, for a little while all of reality would be unstable and vulnerable to attack, and the Brujeria had been waiting for it, and more than that they had been waiting for the Swamp Thing in particular, knowing him for what he was, knowing his nature and true power. And they were prepared for him. And so Constantine finally pointed the Swamp Thing to the place were it all was to be revealed: South America.
Deep in the jungle of the amazon forest in the company of the Parliament of Trees, the Swamp Thing learns that he is but the latest in a long line of Swamp Things, all of them protectors of the Green, all of them transformed from man into elemental life by fire, death and water, all of them part of a recurring pattern throughout the history of the world, and he finally sees the possibilities inherent in his nature.
But though he asks the Parliament for help in controlling his power in order to be ready for the danger ahead, the evil to come, they rebuke him and state that all is simply as nature is. They refute his human point of view, so laden with doubt and prejudice and so uncertain of what to do, and so they refuse to help him, and they cast him out from the sacred place where the Swamp Things come for their final rest.
And so, disappointed and unprepared, the Swamp Thing goes to war against the Brujeria, and it all goes dreadfully wrong.
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I actually did like pretty much all of this arc. This is in large part down to the heavy involvement of John Constantine, it being his team of friends and hangers-on that gets pretty much annihilated. I had seen some of them in the Hellblazer series, which also had a few vague references to the events here, and it was nice to finally have it all seemingly filled in. In the Abigail Arcane's side story, which serves to set up the last story for Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing, there are also some quite intriguing moments with Sandman's Cain and Abel, who seem to predate their whole Sandman shtick. And would you please bask in the violent glory that is this awesome panel?
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But anyway. The Brujeria manage to hold off the Swamp Thing for long enough to succeed in their ritual, releasing a bird of doom that wings its way past the end of the universe, where it wakes something huge and dark, something that will destroy Heaven.
The odd thing here is that Moore introduces it by calling it heaven, instead of just what it is; the light. Attention is given to the just-awakened thing, the oh-so-dark thing; that for some it is Satan, for some it is Cthulhu, for some it's just a massive energy field, either way, that it is the enemy, the thing to be stopped, and the goal of this thing would be 'Heaven'? Anyway, it's just a bit of an oddity I thought. It's obvious that this is the about the dichotomy between light and dark, good and evil. That the metaphor of the endless struggle is about to reach its climax.
But then, the confusion of the matter is also here for quite a crucial reason: The reader is not supposed to be completely clear on the exact identity of the two forces that are about to clash, just like the thing they're about to fight doesn't exactly know what it itself is. This gives it a reason to embark on a dialogue, which is where our hero comes in.
Swamp Thing and Constantine split up, Swamp Thing to travel ahead and gather up a team of heroes in order to try and forestall the coming end, and John to gather a cabal of magicians and warlocks to lend their psychic strength to the confrontation to come. And here we come to the second precursor for Justice League Dark (apologies if I'm in error about Swamp Thing having the first and or second DC-wide precursor for the Dark Justice League, I've barely read a thing from DC).
On the physical confrontation side of things there's a whole menagerie of characters some of which are quite undeniably superheroes, and on the psychic backbench we have a roster of masters of the Dark Arts, most notable are of course John Constantine himself, Sargon the sorceror, Zatanna and her father, Zatara.
And what follows is quite awesome actually. The heroes and the circle of magicians square off against the massive dark thing that bears down upon them and, doing what self-important superheroes do they mostly engage with their enemy in grand-standing one-on-one engagements.
They are of course promptly defeated, as this force is so beyond them that they stand no chance at all.
They are swallowed up by the dark, and in their helplessness are asked a question pertaining to the nature of the dark thing itself, it having lived so long that it has forgotten its purpose and doesn't know what it wants. And each hero, according to their own temperament and way of dealing with their enemies answers as they are wont to do, leading to disastrous results.
On the Magicians' side of things, in trying to shield the battling heroes from the worst of the dark thing's power, the casualties have been severe, a few of the more notable members of DC's Dark magicians simply having burnt up, in quite an impressive and affecting manner.
And as all the climactic confrontations have happened, the greatest heroes having been defeated, as all seems lost and the dark's advance seems inevitable, the Swamp Thing, knowing there is nothing he can really do but unwilling to look on without acting, in silent humility steps forward into the dark.
He doesn't struggle, he doesn't fight, and as the dark asks him whether he knows the answer to the question of its nature, this nature that has been called evil, the conflicted and uncertain Swamp Thing responds as only he could; he responds with doubt.
He says he doesn't know, but he tells the Dark about his conversation with the Parliament of Trees and their assertion that all existence is simply as it is, that evil does not exist, and he adds that though he does not truly believe this, he believes that maybe evil and good are more intertwined and less independent than everyone has made it out to be. The dark lets him leave, and then continues on its way, and in a pretty awesome scene of metaphor made physical the great powers of dark and light clash and mingle, altering the very fabric of reality with their harmony.
And so, with all and done with Swamp Thing can go back home to Abby Arcane, who, because of her close relationship with him, has become the target of outrage and censure, the consequences of which will lead to the Swamp Thing's strangest and most experimental adventures.
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