Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age Volume 2

We sort of swing from the good to the bad here. First up we have the back half of the initial run of Swamp Thing comics, issues #14-24. This has lots of the usual nuttiness, including Swampy fighting demons, robots, and even a clone of himself that grew out of the arm that was cut off in an earlier story (this gives us the awesome Swamp Thing vs. Swamp Thing cover for issue #20 that also fronts this omnibus edition). I especially loved the Dr. Seuss-inspired Ultra-Cerebralociter, a machine that has the power to turn the brains of all the world’s leaders into “mush.” It even comes with a DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE warning label on it. You’ve gotta love this stuff. Then of course there’s the purple writing that was the house style of the time, with Swamp Thing being described so often as a “mockery” (as in a “muck-draped mockery” of a man, or a mockery of life itself) that I was wondering if there was something in the style guide that said the word mockery had to be used a certain number of times every issue.

Unfortunately, sales were really poor so the series was discontinued. Issue #24 was the last, though the script and draft pencils and inks for the never-published issue #25 are included as an appendix with this edition, which is a really nice bonus.

The rest of the book has Swampy (along with Deadman) teaming up with the Challengers of the Unknown, a team of heroes who are now as unknown as their challenges. Who were the Challengers, you ask?

Ace Morgan: Former test pilot – now leader of the Challengers!

Rocky Davis: Onetime champion heavyweight wrestler!

Red Ryan: Electronics expert and world renowned mountain explorer!

Professor Haley: Scientific genius and deep diver into – the unknown!

Oh, and just in case you think this is a boys only club:

June Robbins: honorary Challenger and research physicist.

June is the buxom blonde who Rocky and Red have a falling out over. Yes, it’s that hokey.

Anyway, there are two main Challengers of the Unknown storylines. The first has them going back to the charmingly named town of Perdition to fight the reawakened spirit of the Lovecraft-demon M’Nagalah in a surprisingly yucky bit of horror, and the second has them jumping forward 12 million years to fight a bunch of solar tyrants who are offloading their excess monsters onto twentieth-century Earth. Beginning, alas, with Toronto: “an orderly city. A city of peaceful and pleasant people. A city with one of the lowest crime rates on the continent.” These stories are plenty crazy enough, but Swampy is just an extra, albeit more competent at smashing bad guys than the Challengers. His fight with the Persuader is the highlight.

Also included are a couple of Brave and the Bold team-ups with Batman and a frankly kind of lame crossover that has him fighting alongside Solomon Grundy against Superman (it’s complicated, but Swampy is still a good guy).

I think there are interesting storylines here, some of which had to be left as dead ends when this run was canceled. We never hear anything more about Alec Holland’s brother Edward, for example, a guy who seemed to have a pretty justifiable grudge against his brother. Like his arm restoring itself, however, cutting the series off wasn’t going to be the end of the “mossy man-brute.” He’d be back!

Graphicalex