john totleben – Coke & Comics

The Saga of the Swamp Thing #21

The Anatomy Lesson
by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben

This is the place. At night you can almost see it… At night, you can almost imagine… You shouldn’t have come here.

Welcome back. As explained recently, I’ve been on a short hiatus from my reading of the Marvel Universe. Still not quite ready to return to it.

However, I find myself with a bit of time thanks to having contracted a bug that’s going around, and thought I could return to my series on reading great comics. I call it a series, though this is only the third entry. But hopefully we’ll be getting more.

The format is similar to my posts about the Marvel Universe, where I pick up a single comic and read it and write down my thoughts as I do. Except where my Marvel reading is guided by the internal chronology of those stories, I will here be picking up my very favorite comics, specifically those not focused on the early Marvel Universe. We’ve talked about a favorite issue of Sandman and Astro City… it’s time for Swamp Thing.

Sandman #19

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess

Things have changed and will change more; and Gaia no longer welcomes us as she once did.

But he did not understand the price. Mortals never do. They only see the prize, their heart’s desire, their dream… But the price of getting what you want is getting what once you wanted.

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

Thirty years ago today, one of the finest comics I have ever read was published. I would like to take a moment to reflect on Sandman #19, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; admittedly at some considerable length.

Due to its length, the post is broken into 3 pages. The first page gives an overview of the Sandman series, and some background. The second page discusses this issue in depth, as well as Sandman #13 and #75, which serve as prologue and epilogue respectively. The third page examines particular themes of this issue and how they resonate throughout the entire series.

Please find the buttons at the bottom of each page to navigate.

Pages: 123

Eighth Day of Classic Comics Christmas

Swamp Thing and Batman

See my initial post for the context. Suffice to say that I will be sharing my entries to the Classic Comics Forum tradition, “ Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas“. This is a cross-post of my eighth entry, representing #5 on my list of favorite comic book Crossovers.

5. ~~Spider-Ma~~ Swamp Thing and Batman
“Garden of Earthly Delights”
From Swamp Thing #53 (DC, 1986)

by Alan Moore and John Totleben

After seven straight days of Spider-man entries, let me try to recall if I’ve ever read any other comics. Well, Alan Moore is my favorite comic writer, so let’s see if he ever wrote a crossover. Looks like he has. I’m not the only one to think of his Swamp Thing series, I see. Not even the only one today.

Here’s where he fights Batman.

The story so far: Swamp Thing’s wife has been arrested in Gotham City for the crime of fornication with a swamp creature. Swamp Thing is angry and has turned Gotham into a garden paradise. Many Gothamites have embraced the new order and a cult of worship has grown around Swamp Thing. But Batman is not happy.

Batman gives it his all, but can’t beat Swamp Thing, and begins to question whether he is even on the right side of this conflict, and whether Swamp Thing should just be reunited with his wife. Obviously the law is wrong. But can you just start giving into demands to change the law made by force?

Where Batman fails, Lex Luthor succeeds. He scoffs at the notion that Swamp Thing is invulnerable, saying, “You don’t know from invulnerable. I know from invulnerable…”

The issue ends with Swamp Thing dead. Second time Moore killed him this run. Yet somehow the series isn’t over this time either…