Swamp Thing #23

Yay! Free opium!

My cat Judas wanted to write the commentary for this issue but I told him that was too gimmicky. That was like something an 80s comedian would do for his stand-up routine on an episode of Star Search.

80s Comic: "So did I tell you that my cat became a stand-up comedian? Yeah, he's not too bad either. I do an impression of him. Do you want to hear it?"
Audience: *Applauds wildly*
80s Comic: "*pretends to lick hand and slick back hair* Good evening, ladies and gentlerats. No, no. I kid. I also spit up hairballs in the Monkey Warden's slip-on paw protectors. I also poo in a box but, hey, who doesn't? Oh, that's right! The hairless Monkey Warden! He poops in his bowl of drinking water! What's up with that? Am I right? Meow?"
Audience: *Applauding because the jokes aren't funny but still feeling like they should show some kind of appreciation for his ability to know things cats do*
80s Comic: *sits on the ground and licks at his crotch for an uncomfortable forty seconds*
Ed McMahon: *busting a gut laughing off-camera because he's fucking drunk by the 2:00 PM taping*
80s Comic: "Meow. What's up with dogs? It's like they're constantly trying out for a job they already have! Relax, buddy! You've got the gig! What's with all the fetching and running about? The Monkey Warden is going to bring you food even if you 'accidentally' draw blood jumping on its face while getting into bed with her. You don't have to constantly be 'on'! Us cats have been mooching on these idiots for thousands of years and haven't done a lick of work! They haven't thrown us out yet! Seriously, you'd worry less if you learned your Hisstory."
Audience: *Applauds wildly to show they understood a stupid fucking pun*
80s Comic: "Thank you! It's been a wonderful three minutes! You've all been terrific!"
Ed McMahon: "Let's hear it one more time for Whoop Doodle McCrumblestuff! Next, a five year old singer that's going to kick the comedian's fucking ass!"

Even if I did let my cat do the commentary, it would just be pages and pages of licking obsessively with short interludes of a staring at a random spot on the wall and then screaming at the top of his voice demanding something that I'll never guess in a million years.

Me: "Oh, you want some scratchies? Good kitty."
Judas: "MMMMMMRRRRRROOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!"
Me: "Are you hungry? Here's some food."
Judas: "MMMMMMMMRRRRRROOOOOOWWWWWWW!"
Me: "Let me clean your litter box."
Judas: "MMMMMMRRRRRRROOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!"
Me: "Oh so cute. Do you want me to sacrifice another homeless person to Bast?"
Judas: "MMMMRRRRRRROOOOOOOWWWWWW!"
Me: "How about I just fucking ignore you?"
Judas: *goes back to licking himself when I break eye contact*

Oh great. Judas just puked a bit in his crunchy food as he was eating and then just kept right on digging in. Maybe I should have named him Jimi.

"No pictures, bitch!"

I just took that picture with my laptop webcam. He practically lives on my desk. Although I have put my foot down with regards to the litter box. That stays in the other room.

Oh my god. You're killing me, buddy.

Enough about the stupid cat! I have a Whisky Tree to read about!

This is what happens to people who drink from the Whisky Tree. I know, I know. It's hard to believe a Whisky Tree has a downside.

John Constantine is the besotted ruler of a small Scottish Town where all the inhabitants have been possessed by the fruit of The Seeder's Whisky Tree. Swamp Thing, being the character on the cover of the comic book, was supposed to save the day and return everything to the economically depressed status quo because he cares more about "balance" than "human lives." What kind of a man-plant is he? He's like Spock! Always ignoring the human side he's completely ashamed of. But Constantine cut The Swamp Thing off from the Green and now he's withering away in a jail cell.

For someone who always sides with the plants, Swamp Thing still prefers to look like a human. Perhaps it's just his natural form and thus the easiest to maintain with the least amount of effort.

The only power Swamp Thing has left is that power remaining within his current form since he can't access the Miracle Gro of the Green. He can't break out of jail because he's currently runway model thin but luckily he's seen the episode of The Brady Bunch where the family visits a ghost town and winds up in jail. He grows a nice long stick to grab the ring of keys off the passed out guard.

I know what that is!

After making me think up the term "cock ring of keys," Swamp Thing frees himself from the Sober Tank. On his way to confront Constantine, he saves little Reginald Crawford from a man shoving the devil's drink down Reggie's throat. The Devil's Drink would be man spooge. Or Whisky Tree Sap. Maybe both. It's hard to tell sometimes if it's the author and the scene alluding to the possibility of a child being sexually assaulted or it's my repressed memories forcing their interpretation on the events.

That wasn't a joke about child molestation! That was an acknowledgment of possible memories I can't know I have because they may or may not have been repressed! And I'd rather believe that than believe that I read a scene in a comic book about an overly aggressive man trying to shove something down the throat of a small child and instantly think there's something perverse about it!

Whew! This scene is definitely about a man trying to corrupt a minor! I can go back to repressing the idea that I have repressed memories!

Constantine sends out a man hunt for Swamp Thing. But they won't find him because he's a plant and not a man! Although he's also a monster and Constantine sends them out with torches. And I think angry mobs with torches always catch the monster. Hopefully the Swamp Thing has more tricks up his sleeve than his penis.

Ha ha! I was way ahead of you, Swamp Thing! If there's one thing my mom taught me about, it's resentment! But if there are two things, the other one is monster movies!

The Swamp Thing's next trick is to put all of his essence into a seed and pop it off into the wind. So it looks like he does only have the one trick up his sleeve.

The Swamp Thing's seed grows up out of the ground near Constantine. It grows erect and blossoms and unfurls into a beautiful pink flower which presses itself firmly against Constantine's lips, releasing its sweet smelling essence directly into his mouth, again and again and again.

This isn't just a horror book! It's also pornography!

I didn't know all you had to do was shove a poppy into your face to get wasted! Oh wait. Comic books! I should stop thinking comic books should be written as research materials. Besides, The Swamp Thing can twist plants into doing whatever he wants. And if he wants the poppy to ejaculate opiates directly out of its budding flower and into Constantine's eager lungs, Swamp Thing can make that happen.

With all of the sexual undercurrent in this issue, it's beginning to read a lot like Bernie Wrightson's original vision of The Swamp Thing. As the seventies were getting underway, Len Wein told Bernie he had a vision of a new horror character years ago but had to sit on the idea while the Comics Code Authority was outlawing monsters. But now that the Code was loosening up some of their rules, he figured it was time to bring out this character. "Imagine," he said, "a man inside a vegetable!" So Bernie hit the drawing table and came back with a man with his penis lodged squarely into a squash. "Like this?" he questioned, unable to hide the excitement he was feeling about this possible new character. What I'm saying is his pants looked like a scene out of The Second Great Awakening. "Oh God no!" screamed Len who was having a lunch meeting with Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. "I meant some kind of a Swamp Thing! Not some porno Man-thing!" Bernie slunk off to try again, his excitement for the project suddenly waning. "I'm still going to make it all veiny," he proclaimed as he shuffled off to try again.

With Constantine now tanked up on heroin, the spell cutting off Swamp Thing from the Green is broken. He grows into a monstrously large monster with the knowledge that he can stop the Seeder's Whisky Tree plans once and for all. While he considers his plan, The Green pipes up in the back of his head. It is the voice that all Avatars (Green, Red and Gray) must fight against lest they find themselves overreaching and becoming another Anton Arcane. The Green pushes him to kill them all, use their Redness to feed the Green. But Swamp Thing still has that touch of humanity and the connection to The Red that allows him to feel empathy towards the meat monsters. He tempers his justice with forgiveness and merely destroys The Whisky Tree before it destroys all of England. I think this is some kind of Temperance Propaganda!

When Swamp Thing returns to Louisiana, he ponders the other voice he heard as he finished dealing with the town. He knows they weren't all his thoughts but he doesn't have much time to think about it (my thoughts are in the paragraph above! Those weren't his thoughts or the comic book explicating them!) before he has to deal with Cappuccino again. She's strung up in a tree and beat up because The Seeder had wandered by to battle Swamp Thing but Swamp Thing wasn't there. So Swampy won't be helping out Cappuccino any time soon. Because he has to deal with The Seeder next! Except next month is Anton Arcane's Villain Month appearance, so hopefully I'll remember everything that was happening in this comic by the time it gets back to the regular plot.

Swamp Thing #23 Rating: +2 Ranking. Charles Soule is kicking some serious plant butt on this comic book. Not only did he get some nice horror bits in this month, he also put in some sexy plant on human sex stuff! I'm going to try to fall back to sleep for a bit. Maybe if I think about it enough as I doze off, I can dream about Swamp Thing's flower face fucking Constantine! Now where'd I put the rubber sheets?

Swamp Thing #20

Superman would do anything to guest star his way out of his own book.

I wonder if Scott Lobdell is just tired of writing comic books. Maybe somebody just needs to give him an uplifting pep talk to get him back on track! I've been assured by a number of people that they enjoyed Scott Lobdell back when he was writing Young X-Men or whatever it was called. But then most of those people were twelve year old boys when they were reading those comic books and I'm pretty sure I read and enjoyed a lot of poorly written crap when I was twelve as well. So I don't particularly trust those accounts. I wonder if Scott Lobdell's Hardy Boys Mysteries are any good? I should give those a try!

Why do I always end up talking about Scott Lobdell? I think I must have a crush on him.

This issue begins inside Swamp Thing's dreamscape. He must be dreaming while passed out on The Scarecrow's Nasty Gas. Which means the dream should quickly become a nightmare. I know this because I'm super smart and I've sussed out The Scarecrow's modus operandi!

It's Tefé's first appearance in The New 52! And probably her last! Hi Tefé!

Tefé heads out to pick flowers when she runs into the Swamp Thing. She holds his hand and she's quickly engulfed in his plant matter and killed. Alec sees what happens and runs out to cradle his dead child.

I wonder when this dream is going to become a nightmare. I know it will be soon!

Meanwhile in the nondreamscape which I'm going to dub "Awakescape", Metropolis is covered in vegetation. All over the city, people are becoming food for gigantic Venus Fly Traps and probably other plants that eat meat. I think one is the Rotting Corpse Flower that Swamp Thing mentioned last issue. Another one is the Kite-Eating Tree from Peanuts. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just kites that it was gorging on.

I wonder if Clark Kent ever sneezes and winds up giving Lois frostbite?

The fire captain acts like a gigantic jerk but I guess you can't blame him. Most of the shit happening to Metropolis in the Superman comic book would never have happened if Superman wasn't there. I hate that kind of bullshit writing. Bring the action and the plot to Superman because it's easy. But it also means Superman should fucking get out of a populated area because he's putting Metropolis in danger. I'm willing to bet 90% of comic book plots have villains specifically targeting the super heroes. And if that's the case, the world really would be better off without them. Get the fuck out, assholes!

I really wish this wasn't the case though. One of the reasons a lot of these heroes just don't resonate with me anymore is because they're not being portrayed as heroic. Saving your own ass isn't heroic; it's merely saving your own ass. Just because the person saving his own ass has super powers, I'm supposed to be excited? Fuck that. This is why, even though he's not my favorite, Batman is the best. He's off stopping people who are trying to screw with Gotham. Oh, except for that one small Joker incident that got everybody so pissed off. But besides that, he's helped save Gotham from the Court of Owls and The Mad Hatter and The Scarecrow and The Scarecrow and the Man-Bats. Oh, I guess he did bring Leviathan down on Gotham's head. Never mind. He sucks too.

Over in the Dreamscape, Alec Holland is lecturing the Swamp Thing and telling him he's a royal dickbag for choosing plants over a future family life. I'm not sure Holland had a lot of choice in the matter. He'd be dead now if he didn't choose to become the Avatar. And even as the Avatar, he was almost dead! But this is all a hallucination brought on by The Scarecrow's fear spray, so Swampy probably shouldn't take any of it too seriously.

Superman tracks Swamp Thing down in the Botanical Garden where The Scarecrow is trying not to be eaten by The Great Pumpkin. He tells Superman what happened as he jizzes in his pants over the fear of imminent death. Superman, not being Batman, decides he has to burn up Swamp Thing to save everybody else in the city. That makes sense. Batman is so determined to live by the letter of his ethical law that he'd let half of Gotham die before he killed one person to save them.

Oh! But Batman would have known that fire would have worked and not killed Swamp Thing. I'm sorry for doubting you, Batman!

Swamp Thing retracts all the plants and Metropolis can now spend the next six months fixing all the buildings and bridges and streets and sewers. Maybe The Flash will come rebuild everything for Metropolis. And then Swamp Thing asks Superman one question: how do you pretend to be human?

Superman simply tells Swampy that he connects to people. You have to make connections. You have to choose to be human. And then he flies away.

Yeah, that's easy for an alien that looks exactly like a human to say. Swampy's going to have a hard time using that advice. What a bastard.

Swamp Thing probably flips Superman off and then travels along the Green and back into Louisiana where he meets a woman that needs his help. I don't know who she is because I apparently haven't read enough comic books.

Swamp Thing #20 Rating: +1 Ranking. So far, I'm really liking this version of Swampy. And now he's going to go on an adventure!