History Of Swamp Thing

[Music] welcome van we love comics more than I think Red Skull is gonna be an infinity war I'm your host Ayers quinones easily one of the most requested history of episodes over the past year has been Swamp Thing so many of you guys have asked for this episode that we've lost count while your time has arrived my friends your months of patiently waiting has paid off because today it's all about the avatar of the Green Swamp Thing made his debut in House of Secrets issue 92 in 1971 and he was created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson the character has gone through many changes over the years and the Swamp Thing that first appeared back in 71 is pretty different from the Swamp Thing we're familiar with today the first or original Swamp things real name was Alex Olson but when DC realized that he was becoming a pretty popular character he was quickly updated by his creators and changed to Alec Colin in Swamp Thing issue one in 1972 which of course is the Swamp Thing we are most familiar with today Swamp things first ongoing series also established a number of mainstays into his mythos like his wife Abigail Holland and villain Anton arcane among others but it wasn't until his second series which was originally called the saga of Swamp Thing that writer Alan Moore took over the title and transformed Swamp Thing into the amazing character we've all come to know with one of the most loved and praised runs in comic book history speaking of that leads us to his comic book origin now there have been several different characters that take up the mantle of Swamp Thing over the years but I'm gonna focus on Alex Olson and Alec Holland as they're the most popular and in my opinion the most important when it comes to understanding how the character has evolved over the years let's start with the first and that's Alex Olson whose origin is simple yet tragic Olson was a young and very talented scientist in Louisiana during the early 1900's and was married to a lovely lady named Linda things were going great for Alex until his best friend and assistant Damien Ridge who was secretly in love with Linda plan to kill Alex and use Linda's grief to get her to marry him so that bastard of a friend messed with Alex's chemicals and caused an explosion in an attempt to kill him but Alex survived the blast so Damien secretly took Alex's battered and bloody body deep into the swamp and buried him there I think you see where this is going burying Alex in the swamp is where Damien made a serious mistake because the mixture of the chemicals from the explosion and the elements in the swamp turned Alex into a humanoid plant better known as Swamp Thing however by the time alex was turned into the creature known as Swamp Thing he was too late to stop Damian from carrying out his plan to manipulate and marry Linda having said that Linda was starting to piece together on her own that Damian killed her former husband when Damian realized that Linda had become suspicious he started planning to kill her also by using a lethal injection but before he has a chance swamp ting crashes through the window saves Linda and kills Damian for what he did to him and what he was about to do to Linda he then turns to his former wife with open arms but not surprisingly she doesn't recognize him he tries to talk to her but he can no longer talk she just looks at him and screams in total fear so Swamp Thing does the only thing he can do and that's walk away heartbroken but unable to even cry and returns to the swamp alone as a monster sad and messed up right but now let me shift gears and give you Alec Holland's origin as Swamp Thing it's pretty short and sweet though as it was as mythos and powers that were greatly expanded on much like Alex Olson Alec Harland was a scientist from Louisiana who was working on a bio restorative formula in his lab when an explosion happened that doused him in chemicals in a panic Alec jumped into the swamp and died well because chemicals are the secret ingredient for some sort of powers and comics nine out of ten times Alec later emerged as Swamp Thing but this is where it gets tricky and his story really expands under Alan Moore's pen swamp ting was reinvented as a elemental entity he was literally described as quote a plant that thought it was Alec Holland a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec haulin end quote so what that means and what we find out in issue 21 of the saga of Swamp Thing is that Alec Holland didn't transform into a plant and become Swamp Thing instead after the exposure to the serum Swamp Thing actually absorbed Holland's body made a copy of his consciousness and became Holland so the reason why Swamp Thing looks humanoid is because it's the plants attempt to try to look human and for all of you who aren't familiar with Swamp Thing it probably just blew your mind to find out that he's way more complex than you may have thought but wait there's more we also find out that there has been a bunch of other swamp things before Holland and that Swamp things are defenders of the green which is basically an elemental force that connects all forms of plant life on Earth this was also Moore's way of explaining the existence of the first swampthing Alex Olson I also want to say that Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing was the first mainstream comic to ditch the comic codes authority and explore more mature themes which I guess is not shocking because Alan Moore does what he wants but on that note story arcs Swamp Thing has appeared in five different self-titled series to date his first series ran for 24 issues in 1972 like I said earlier it was in this series where Abigail Holland was introduced but also his friend turned enemy Matt Cable in the last two issues of this series Swamp Thing was turned back into a normal man and had to fight one of his last villains as just the man he wins of course and the issue ends with the caption saying next issue Hawkman vs. Swamp Thing but the series was canceled before that ever happened next we got the saga of Swamp Thing series which gave us the same alan moore Swamp Thing run I mentioned previously starting with issue 20 of the series and running through issue 64 Swamp things third series in 2000 was written by why the last man Runaways and saga writer Bryan cave on in this series we find out that FA is a human plant elemental hybrid that has incredible power and we see here struggling to control it and use it for good or evil after this we got Swamp things fourth series in 2004 this series strip Alec Holland's human consciousness from Swamp Thing which leads them to seek to restore balance to the natural world by destroying his own daughter who's a powerful elemental herself if that sounds interesting you'd be right the next major time we see Swamp Thing after this was in DC's brightest day event in this story the white Lantern's made a new Swamp Thing based on the body of Alec haulin but this time instead of just thinking it was Holland it was actually Holland then the new 52 gave us the 5th self-titled Swamp Thing series where famed Batman writer Scott Snyder essentially gave us the brightest day version of Swamp Thing in the sense that Snyder's version of Swamp Thing was also Alec Hall and turned into Swamp Thing and not just a giant plant thinking it was Holland after that Swamp Thing got a six-issue miniseries written by co-creator Len lean in 2016 and lastly and most recently we got an 80-page Swamp Thing winter special which I haven't read all of it yet but I did read a sin fav ox portion and man is it awesome now with all that covered let's see what this elemental is capable of [Music] first and foremost the avatar of the Green has elemental control what does that mean exactly well it means that swampthing has complete mastery over all forms of plant life and can command vegetative matter to do what he wishes because of this he's in constant communication with the essence of the earth and serves as the plant elemental for the entire planet basically he makes the Jolly Green Giant look like a chump Hollan has even gained control over earth water air and fire on top of plant life you know the benders from Avatar they've got nothing on this guy Swamp Thing also has super strength and since his strength level is directly tied to his connection to the earth with more power supplied by the green his strength level is immeasurable it's kind of ridiculous how strong this guy can be he's also somewhat immortal as long as there's some sort of plant life on earth alik will always have a vessel to store his consciousness again making him nearly immortal with that said you can't really kill Swamp Thing either to kill him you would have to get rid of all plant life on earth which basically just means you have to destroy the entire planet and unless your Galactus why the heck would you do that one of the scariest powers he has is chloro Kinesis which is a fancy word for being able to talk to plant life and control its growth and form so not only can he open up the swamp and have it swallow you or have vines tear you apart but he can also control any microscopic algae inside a person's body and use that algae to attack them from the inside out Swamp Thing can also grow to massive sizes if need be as he just draws from the green in the new 52 he was also able to grow wings and fly altogether he has more powers and abilities than I can even mention but the point is he's definitely a heavy hitter in the DC Universe [Music] if you want some good swampthing reading which I'm sure you do read house of secrets issue 92 saga of The Swamp Thing book 1 & 2 Swamp Thing vol 1 raised them bones Swamp Thing by Brian cave on volume 1 and Swamp Thing vol 1 the root of all evil [Music] first up for Wednesday March 7th we have the amazing spider-man issue 797 the Green Goblin is back and he's scarier than ever here we have venom issue 163 after revelations about Venom's past and questions about his future a dangerous new adversary makes its presence known in the Marvel Universe next we have Batman issue 42 poison ivy has taken over every man woman and child on the planet and only Batman and Catwoman have escaped her influence and finally we have Batman White Knight issue 6 plain and simple this else world tale is my favorite comic book series currently coming out so I say you have to read it and just like that that's gonna bring another episode of variants to a close but remember links for all our social media like our Instagram our Facebook our Twitter and our website is in the description below and if you liked today's episode be sure to subscribe and then hit the bow next to it so you're notified whenever we upload a new video but I'll see you guys next time when I talk about all things comics

Channel: Variant Comics

Views: 733,520

Keywords: comics, DC Comics, Geek, Nerd, comic books, comic reviews, comic book movies, comic movies, marvel, dc, Image Comics, comic con, superhero, superheroes, movie reviews, graphic novels, graphic novel, Swamp Thing, Alec Holland, Justice League Dark, Alex Olsen, Justice League, Origin, Shazam, variant, variant comics

Id: HCU5jZeZKn8

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 08 2018