Swamp Thing 33-34
“Rite of Spring”
Swamp Thing and Abby finally reveal
their true feelings for one another. Given this story is very low on
plot and very high on psychedelic art, I think I'll let a series of
gorgeous pages from the artist, Stephen Bissette do most of the
communicating.
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| Cain offers his choice. |
In a bit of a nightmare sequence, Abby
discovers some pertinent information to the main, over-arching plot
of the Swamp thing series thus far: the fact that Alec Holland, or
the swamp muck that thinks it's Alec Holland
is not the first Swamp Thing to appear. Meeting the DC Universe
analogues of Cain and Abel, they of the Biblical persuasion, two men
doomed to lord of the House of Mystery and House of Secrets
respectively, Abby chooses to hear of a secret from Abel, thinking
it's a dream and nothing will come of it. When Abel reveals the
secrets of previous Swamp Things (Thang?), he tries to skew the rules
of secrets by rigging the dream so Abby will remember what he's told
her.
The
trouble with secrets is that if the information is shared, then it's
no longer a secret. Mysteries may be shared and pondered, but secrets
go to the grave. Just as Abel is prepared to shunt Abby back to
reality, Cain appears and murders his brother for trying to subvert
the rule stheir both punished to protect and act upon. Cain is
punished for being the first murderer and Abel punished for being the
first victim. Not fair if you ask me. It's a cycle the two play
through again and again for eternity.
When
Abby awakens, she forgets all she learned and only the reader is the
wiser in this case.
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| What happens when you tell a secret. |
Abby's
day gets substantially better from there when she and Swamp Thing
later talk. She talks of Matt, her husband that was rendered catatonic by her insane, demonic uncle
(comics!), and the guilt she feels because she is in love with
another man. Swamp Thing goes on for a couple of pages about how it's
ok if she loves another and she should approach this charming,
handsome, dashing fellow. It takes him a while to realize that it's
him to whom she's referring. While Swamp Thing may not be the most
eloquent with words, he's able to express his love for Abby in other
ways. Words may be nice, but it's the images that really express the
love Swamp Thing feels, and has felt for a long time, towards Abby.
I've mentioned before, the maturity of the characters and their
relationships in this mag
is far and away more mature than anything else occurring in comics
at the time and this sequence is one that solidifies this fact.
Comics as a story-telling medium rarely gets better.
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| Why Can't Hal be this open with Carol. She doesn't know what she's missing. |
Really enjoying this blog so far. I have always been interested in the post-Crisis DCU myself, and I have done a pretty extensive reading of the Batman stories from Year One through Flashpoint. Always wanted a sort of "tour guide" through the stories of the universe as a whole, as it's full of rich characters and stories, as you say.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to following along as the saga is chronicled.
Sam, glad to hear you're enjoying the blog. 'Tour Guide' is a good way of describing what I'm attempting here: Once we get to the the Post-Crisis proper, the scope of titles I'll be examining will grow, including such lower-tier titles like Gunfire and Black Condor. While I don't have EVERY Post-Crisis title, I made an attempt to get as much as I could and as many diverse titles as I could. This blog should have more than enough content for a while and eventually consist of a narrative tour through the DCU up until Flashpoint.
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