Random Happenstance

Maybe it's because I personally have never lived near a swamp--well, OK, unless you consider all of America a swamp, sure--but I'm at best a casual Swamp Thing fan. Not even sure I have a proper Swampie action figure anywhere, which, gasp! And yet, I saw the movie in theatre as a kid, I have at least one set of DVD's from his older show, and the local shop put a bunch of old issues on the cheap spinner and of course I scooped them up. From 1974, Swamp Thing #13, "The Leviathan Conspiracy" Written by Len Wein, art by Nestor Redondo.

This was pre-Alan Moore, so at this point Swamp Thing still spent a lot of time trying to cure himself and return to being Alec Holland; and he begins this issue fighting three monsters that seemed have been mutated like he was. As he beats down Swamp Snake, Swamp Frog, and Swamp Gator; he considers a theory: there was something in the swamp itself, a chemical imbalance maybe, that affected those animals and changed him as well. (Or, at least facilitated his change.) Before he can follow that train of thought, he is immediately netted and covered with foam, by "Matt Cable and his merry men." Swamp Thing is taken to a military academy outside of Washington D.C, which neither Matt nor Abby Arcane are happy about: Abby already obviously feels sympathy for Swampy; while Matt is convinced he was a witness to the murders of Alec and Linda Holland, a case he was still working. But Matt was more of a stand-up guy than I was used to (at least at this point!) since I remember the G-man/army types chasing the Hulk, Man-Wolf, Morbius, etc. as just being dicks.

Swampy breaks out of his cage, but then Professor Degrez is caught in the crossfire by some overzealous guards and killed. Swampy is recaptured and put in a cage with more lasers. Cable goes in alone, to try to talk to the creature, which he knew had saved his life on multiple occasions. Alec is uncertain, not wanting to say anything and maybe give up the secrets of the bio-restorative formula, but if he kept quiet they'd figure it out from his corpse, so he breaks his silence and tells Cable his story. (I thought Swampy had been mute at that point!) Cable tells Abby, and together they bust Swamp Thing out; with a brief confrontation with another of Cable's men, Bolt: they let him in on the story as well, but otherwise make it look like a terrorist attack and ensuing fire had destroyed the swamp creature...

Later, the night after Professor Degrez's sparsely-attended funeral, Swamp Thing busts out of Degrez's coffin--wait, Degrez's body had been in there too, nobody noticed the coffin was well over 200 pounds heavier? Probably more than that? Well, we don't see who lugged it to the gravesite, so OK. Lurching through the cemetary, though, Swampy encounters the graves--or, at least, headstones--of Linda and himself. After feeling just hated-by-God miserable over that, he then considers, why was he going to meet up with Cable and the others? To drag them down with him? Nah. Back to the swamp, then...

Of course, you probably know things went way downhill for Matt Cable in Moore's run, then he would become Morpheus's Raven in Sandman. (Perhaps fittingly, I've read it, but it always falls out of my head like a dream; I think I'm surprised every time I see that!) Oh, and he's on the cover of Showcase #96, taking Negative Woman away from the then-new Doom Patrol!