Swamp Thing #1

As Alec Holland (I'm making an assumption here!) narrates the story, the reader sees Superman, Batman, and Aquaman watching as creatures die all around them in their respective homes.

Superman is represented by pigeons.

Alec Holland rambles on about plants screaming at him. Then a tornado hits an archaeological dig and scatters Mammoth bones everywhere. And Holland throws out a bunch of wood. And then Superman arrives!

For a Teen Plus rated comic, this is pretty tame stuff! Even his origin story, which is one page long, doesn't have any sex or gore! He just narrates an explosion that killed him. Couldn't we at least have a flashback of his head blowing off and his eyeballs melting? Instead, we get a guy in a construction hat looking at wood!

Alec mentions that he woke up from being dead (that sounds more like being asleep!) and suddenly had memories of being a swamp monster. This is beginning to sound like a Lovecraft story. But all of this is background. I don't think the story really starts until Superman arrives looking for Alec Holland.

That's what I was going to ask!

During Superman's conversation with Alec, he basically confirms that he has died. So Superman having died is still canon. I guess I should assume that all of the stories DC has ever told are part of everyone's history but compressed over the last decade or less. The more complicated things get as I read these stories, the more it seems DC decided to do the reboot on the advice of their lawyers. DC is probably just going to shed any history of any character that can't expressly be seen as the property of DC Comics. No more creators wanting some extra cash from their creations! DC is just going to rewrite whatever the writer wrote right out of existence! Boy, I bet Marvel wished they had thought of this before squicking Gary Friedrich's flaming skull.

As an aside about Superman: do you think we'll get to see him killed by Doomsday again in the pages of Justice League? I'm betting that DC puts out a title at some point that reprints (or retells!) the major stories of DC Characters over the last half century. And they can all be squished into a nice neat little five year timeline.

Superman mentions to Alec that it can be rough coming back. He means from being dead like I said earlier. That was the line that tipped me off! But what it means is that Alec died, became Swamp Thing, had a bunch of Swamp Thing adventures in the old DCU title, and then Swamp Thing disappeared or died or withered, and Alec woke up in the swamp. But he retained all of Swamp Thing's memories. DC really likes the two personalities in one body story. Jason Blood and Etrigan. June Moone and Enchantress. Alec Holland and Swamp Thing. All the other ones I can't think of at the moment!

So Supes is just checking up on the newly resurrected Doctor Holland. Holland has gone all Office Space and decided to chuck the whole botany thing since plants were so frickin' violent. So now he was taking a break to not find himself and do some construction.

Meanwhile, the mammoth bones turn into some giant monster that sends out flies to go into people's ears. The people then twist their heads around and walk around backwards. These are probably some sort of threat to humanity.

Doctor Holland is harassed by vines and flowers while he sleeps so he decides to get rid of his formula that allows plants to grow in any environment. But just as he's going to toss it, Swamp Thing appears to stop him.

So Swamp Thing and Alec Holland are two separate entities now. Yeah. We'll see how long that lasts!