Alan Moore’s legendary run on Swamp Thing from 1984-1987 set a lot of trends in DC’s burgeoning mature comic book market but perhaps no better example of Moore turning the industry on its head exists than the time he had Batman get knocked out by the plant monster. Evolving the character from a one-note horror monster into a hero with the power to control all vegetation-based life, Moore showed he wasn’t afraid to play with the more blockbuster elements of the superhero genre, despite his oft-highbrow approach.
Swamp Thing is a character to whom Moore seemed to relish building a life around, particularly exploring his inhuman yet empathetic forms of sentience, friendship and love. Drawing up comrades like John Constantine or reinterpreting old ones like Kirby’s Demon Entrigan, the stories of Moore’s Swamp Thing run are simply teeming with ideas ranging from philosophy, sexuality, prejudice and psychedelia. Some might even call it so strong as to be as impenetrable as classic literature.
However, what’s clear looking back on the Northampton writer’s early work is that he took some particular joys in deconstructing superheroes at their most “iconic” level, and at heart he did indeed have some love of the genre itself. Perhaps no story exemplifies this ethic better than the time he had Swamp Thing go up against one of DC’s most iconic hero, Batman. Keeping with the dark, mature tone he’d set with his earlier arcs, Moore ends up delivering on the big showdown slugfests comics were sold for in quite fitting fashion.
Moore was particularly interested in exploring moral/ethical issues in his work at the time, as evidenced by his famous miniseries Watchmen written during the same period. To this effect, Swamp Thing’s wife, Abigail Arcane is arrested for sex crimes in their hometown of Houma, Louisiana, after a peeping tom photographer catches the two of them canoodling together in the swamps and sells it the local paper. At risk of losing her job as a caretaker at the Elysium Lawns home for troubled youth, she flees on bail to Gotham City to get away from local harassment, where she is almost immediately arrested after being mistaken for a prostitute. Can’t say Moore wasn’t progressive in his depiction of feminist drama.
Upon returning from a mission in the Spirit World (like, the afterlife), Swamp Thing discovers his wife has been incarcerated and goes berserk, demanding she be released and the charges be dropped. He goes so far as to teleport himself into the courtroom during her preliminary hearing and challenge the authorities before Abby begs him to stop. Not satisfied with anything less than total exoneration, "Swampie" unleashes his power on Gotham, causing all the vegetation in the city to grow wild, and turning it into a paradise-esque rainforest while grinding the city to a halt. So commences a campaign of terror.
This does not please Bats, and, facing a threat that no doubt tops any of the villains of his rogue’s gallery, the World’s Greatest Detective decides that he’s going to fight to uphold the rule of law. So he decides to confront the big green monster armed with his trusty flamethrower-y, bat-defoliator. Because how else you gonna kill some pesky weeds?
Might’ve been a good strategy if Swamp Thing hadn’t connected his powers with the elemental force of nature itself. While one or two of his bodies are swiftly defoliated, Swamp Thing simply makes a few dozen more and swiftly beats ol’ Bruce into a pulp, handing him one of his most brutal defeats. As daring as the Caped Crusader might be, he clearly didn’t think this particular tactic through.
Ultimately, Batman sees the wisdom in compromise and, despite Swamp Thing’s terroristic activities and the general threat he holds against Gotham (Swamp Thing even posits he could use peoples’ intestinal flora to kill them from the inside), and convinces the Mayor to call the White House in order to issue a pardon. He reasons that, with the number of non-human/human romances in the DC Superhero catalogue, including Superman, it’d be best to not push that kind of legal precedent.
Swamp Thing, meanwhile, has become a hero to the people of Gotham who, reveling in the carefree lifestyle of their new garden of Eden-ic proportions, grant Swamp Thing acceptance and love despite his monstrosity.
The story ends with Swamp Thing being “killed” on the steps of Gotham Courthouse by the US Government upon seeing Abby released. This would kick off Moore’s final romp through the mainstream DC Universe with a space odyssey epic as Swamp Thing journeyed from one alien planet to the next on his quest to get home. But few times in the pages of DC did Moore ever attempt such a classic superhero throw down as he did with Batman vs. Swamp Thing.
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