INTRODUCTION

Swamp Thing, a character from the DC Comics universe, provides a fascinating window into the turbulent environmental politics of the 1980s. Len Wein introduced the half-human/half-botanical creature in 1971. During the time Alan Moore helmed the comic starting a decade later, the character achieved its greatest popularity. Under Moore, the comic reflected the growing Culture Wars of the era. Although not fully articulated until James Davison Hunter's Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (1991), the seeds for the current flavor of conservative/progressive divide were sown during the 1960s and 1970s, reaching prominence during the twelve-year period marking the presidencies of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and George H.W. Bush (1989-1993). One battleground upon which this struggle consistently played out: the environment. In large part, the ascendency of ecological concerns in the American political landscape involved new insights regarding human impact upon the environment. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) paved the way for Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf (1963) and a host of other texts calling attention to ecological issues. The 1970s was a decade of increased environmental awareness. Through satellite imagery, the Landsat Program demonstrated the appalling rate of deforestation in the Amazon basin. Earth Day debuted, and Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law. Woodsy the Owl ("Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute") and the Crying Indian ("Keep America Beautiful") were born as was Swamp Thing, an elemental, botanical creature of comic books and later film, television, and video game adaptations. 

During a time of heightened environmental awareness, Swamp Thing fought for the preservation of nature against human encroachment. Although the character originated in the early 1970s – and continues to appear in one form or another to this day – its greatest cultural resonance came during the period 1982-1993, largely coinciding with the maturation of the Culture Wars. During this time, Alan Moore took over the comic, two film adaptations were released, and two television series aired. These texts appeared during an era of upheaval for environmental concerns. Many viewed James G. Watt – President Reagan's Secretary of the Interior from 1981-1983 – as openly hostile to environmental protections, and a series of events occurred during the decade that generally yielded an apocalyptic vision about the destructiveness of man: the end of the Sagebrush Rebellion; the sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior; the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster; fear over acid rain; the discovery of a hole in the Antarctic ozone layer; and the invasion of Africanized "Killer" Bees, to name a few. This article examines manifestations of Swamp Thing during this period (1982-1993), situating the environmental degradation and protectionism they explore, contextually, within a time of eco-political turbulence. Analysis involves multiple forms of media, seeking a broad-based understanding of not only Moore's comic but also the cinematic and television adaptations within 1980s environmental developments. As such, the analysis is as much historical as it is textual. Although numerous ecological issues are addressed, the botanical is privileged due to Swamp Thing's plant-based nature. 

CONTEXT AND CRITICISM 

First appearing in the DC collection House of Secrets, the initial iteration of the vegetal hero ran for twenty-four issues between 1972 and 1976. Although at this point more a tale of gothic horror than ecological protectionism, the contextual impact of environmental concerns cannot be denied. Coming less than a decade after Silent Spring and Carson's focus upon the ravages of DDT on the environment, it is no surprise that the origins of Swamp Thing involved chemicals. Furthermore, such pollution continued in the news during the late 1960s and early 1970s. As early as 1966, debate over the use of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange by the US Army during the Vietnam War had reached the United Nations. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River Fire in Cleveland illustrated that chemical saturation of an environment involved more than just distant battlefields. Interest in Swamp Thing may have faded during the mid-1970s, but during this time the seeds for resurgence were laid with the Landsat Program, a joint effort by NASA and the US Geological Survey to photograph the earth from space. The first Landsat satellite launched in 1972 – although it was not until 1975 that images were taken of the Amazon basin and the amount of deforestation became evident. Subsequent images taken during the rest of the decade and into the 1980s demonstrated that such habitat loss was proceeding more rapidly than anyone had previously suspected.

Despite a diversification of ecological focus during this decade, flora took center stage with deforestation and the impact of acid rain upon trees becoming cause célèbre issues of the era. Even the fear of the "Killer" Bee invasion revolved around botanical concerns, the threat to personal safety a hyped-up sideshow to the real anxiety that such bees would disrupt normative pollination. Fictional characters such as the Lorax – a Dr. Seuss creation who "spoke for the trees" – and the Swamp Thing were even more resonant than when they had first been written into existence. Wes Craven optioned the cinematic rights to the DC character, releasing the film Swamp Thing in February 1982. Due to its success, Martin Pasko resuscitated the comic in a second series – The Saga of the Swamp Thing – with the first issue released in May. A few years later, Alan Moore took over the reins from Pasko, which lead to the most popular and critically acclaimed run for the character (1984-1987) although the series would continue after Moore's departure under different authors until 1996. 

Numerous critics have explored the political dimensions of Swamp Thing, particularly in the context of Alan Moore's contributions to the character. Maggie Gray has sought to understand Moore from a political and aesthetic context. Still others – including Jack Bushnell, Annalisa Di Liddo, and Brian Johnson – have moved the discussion into the more purely environmental. The latter notes the transformation under Moore from a Gothic horror tale to one more invested in environmental concerns. In his essay "Libidinal Ecologies," Johnson explains, "In a range of stories focusing on toxic dumping, biological weapons development, environmental apocalypse, and the rise of green activism, Moore transformed Swamp Thing from a Gothic monster serial into an ecologically-conscious horror comic whose more conventional chills now became closely intertwined with non-recycling suburbanites" (Johnson 16). Johnson links Swamp Thing to "deep ecology" – a concept promoted by Arne Naess in the early 1970s – taking a more ethical and political than strictly historical approach to the character. Hans Staats also focuses upon the combination of gothic aesthetics with environmental concerns – which he terms the "ecogothic" – likewise noting the importance of Naess in this combination (Staats 82, 85). Staats does, in fact, explore historical trends resonant with Swamp Thing, but ones that are more large-scale in nature, for example, climate change and nuclear weapons (83). He references no specific historical episodes. 

Several critics do come a bit closer to linking Swamp Thing to specific historical and political moments. Maaheen Ahmed dedicates a chapter to the comic in his study Monstrous Imaginaries. Specifically, Ahmed notes Swamp Thing as a proxy character facilitating awareness of environmental degradation: “Notably, the violent acts against the Swamp Thing are often also acts of violence against the environment. This exemplifies the destructive potential of humans, which is embodied by mutant creatures such [as] Woodrue and Nuke-face, who are outcomes of a combination of technological hazards and social issues” (58). Much as with Johnson, Staats, and others, Ahmed does not engage specifically with the environmental scene of the 1980s. Hindi Krinsky operates in the same general vein – exploring the more overtly political turn taken by Swamp Thing during the Moore years but generally avoiding a discussion of the historical episodes providing context for this character's resurgence. Other political frames have also been explored such as eco-feminism, a revival of Romanticism, and more recently the Anthropocene, but most have been strictly theoretical and thus hesitant to explore specific historical moments. This article addresses the lack of specific historicization during the decade in which Swamp Thing proliferated into different forms of media.

ALAN MOORE TAKES THE REINS

Len Wein's Swamp Thing reflected as much Gothic traditions of horror as it did environmental concerns. The second series, however, highlighted the latter. Although all six writers responsible for the comic during the second series focused upon ecological issues – notably, horror author Nancy A. Collins – Moore's forays into environmental issues remain the most celebrated. Although still early in his career, Moore had acquired a reputation for merging perceptive political commentary with his aesthetic vision, most conspicuously in V for Vendetta. Jesse Schedeen notes that Moore inherited a "vegan-friendly Hulk," but the writer reinvented the creature in an "epic tale of angst and existential milieu." Indeed, from the moment he took over the series, Moore imbued Swamp Thing with an authoritative gravitas albeit an inability to solve all societal ills. Some problems have no easy fix. Moore's progressive environmental agenda was tempered by a reality that solutions require significant levels of commitment. An urgency is hardwired into the world-building in the form of the Parliament of Trees, the governing body of all global flora employing Swamp Thing as their mouthpiece. Moore situated this entity in the Amazon Basin during a time of increased concern about deforestation and, in the issue "Parliament of Trees," depicted the Amazon in the process of being hit by an asteroid-like object (Book Four 113), perhaps presaging another extinction event. The nobility and wisdom of the Parliament of Trees stood in marked contrast to an era in which the wounds of Watergate were still fresh and political entities not exactly celebrated.

References to deforestation continued throughout Moore's oeuvre although not all his musings on ecological loss involved flora. In "Revelations," Neanderthals, Dodos, and dinosaurs dot the landscape, each one evidence of an extinction (Moore, Book Four 86-87). A woman wears a coat of fox stoles, a reminder that animals are slaughtered for frivolous reasons (Moore, Book Four 95). The botanical, however, remains the primary consideration. In "Roots," Moore focuses upon the chainsaw. He notes the object's importance in horror films as it acts out on humans what they do to trees, perhaps an acknowledgment of Len Wein's original, more Gothic vision (Moore, Book One 121). Even Batman wields a chainsaw, and defoliants too, in "Garden of Earthly Delights" (Moore, Book Five 57). In his defense, the caped crusader attempts to remove a forest choking Gotham, one that Swamp Thing created as a defensive measure after being pursued around the city. Still, the message is clear: if even Batman has no apprehension in cutting down trees, what hope is there? A quote in "Swamped" about the paucity of redwoods appears to be a reference to Ronald Reagan who once stated: "I mean, if you've looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees – you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?" (Reagan qtd. in Mikkelson). Moore took another jab at the then US President in "Garden of Earthly Delights" in which the mayor of Gotham paraphrases Reagan in denoting trees as a source of pollution (Moore, Book One 82; Book Five 59). As the comic arts blogger Darren Mooney notes, in its denouncement of racism and misogyny Moore's work exists as a site of resistance spanning the middle period of Reagan's presidency. “There’s the casual sexism which still exists, even in the post-feminist era," Mooney explains. He continues, "There's the racism that we like to tell ourselves is long gone but is really still there bleeding in at the corners of society. Social relevance is perhaps the key to classic, iconic horror...and Moore has crafted a suitable horror for Reagan's America" (Mooney, "Alan Moore's Run"). In titling this issue "The Garden of Earthly Delights," Moore invokes the dark vision of Dutch Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, specifically its right panel, which depicts a hellish, degraded landscape. As a talented artist, Moore intertwined several strands of political and historical commentary within his aesthetic framework.

THE VIETNAM WAR AND TOXIC WASTE

Moore referenced other events, often subtly, during his time as the lead writer. "Loose Ends" references the Vietnam conflict with helicopters shooting rockets into the swamp and a group of flamethrower-wielding soldiers yelling "Let's get some!" as they burn up the landscape (Moore, Book One 29-31). Swamp Thing fights to save his home amidst an orange-upon-green hell, which invokes visions of napalm (Krinsky 237). This weapon is also used against him in "Garden of Earthly Delights" (Moore, Book Five 94-95). In "Loose Ends," however, the association is more symbolic. A caption at the end of this issue might refer to the power of nature to fight back or possibly to the success of the Viet Cong in defeating a numerically and technologically superior foe: "This morning I watched a beetle that had gotten itself in trouble with some ants. First there was a beetle, then there was just a beetle-shaped pile of ants. The beetle was bigger and stronger and more clever. But I guess there were just too many ants" (Moore, Book One 31). In a later issue, Moore's reference to the ecological blowback of runaway greed is anything but subtle. In "The Nukeface Papers, Part One," he references the Centralia mine fire, an infamous coal mine closure in Pennsylvania. Stephen R. Bissette – who along with John Totleben penciled and inked issues for Moore – explains:

Centralia was literally damned to hell when an underground mine fire erupted in 1962. It spread unchecked through the extensive network of tunnels underlying the town, and it continues to burn to this day. Working from reports of accidents in 1981 involving a boy being rescued from a fiery pit that opened up in his yard and residents being hospitalized after inhaling deadly fumes, John and I researched the disaster as best we could. (Moore, Book Three 7) 

The fire, projected to burn for another 200 years, forced the abandonment of Centralia. Viewed as a "dirty" energy source, it is no surprise that the long-term dangers of coal mining would find outlet in Moore's fictional world. 

The most pungent critique during Moore's tenure, however, involved the fear of nuclear waste. In "Nukeface Papers, Part One," two men in the woods make a fire, burning newspapers that carry headlines about nuclear power plants, toxic fumes, and the like (Moore, Book Three 13-25). Workers dump barrels of toxic waste into the swamp while Swamp Thing has a vision of wandering through a blasted wasteland: "The soil is curdled and all that grows grows wrong. In a skin of black cinder, puddles reflect fire, red and wet and glistening like sores" (Moore, Book Three 23, 27). Bissette acknowledges that, while working on "Nukeface Papers," he and Moore found no shortage of newspaper articles about this topic:

All those newspaper clippings I pasted into the penciled pages weren't pulled from an archive of similarly themed stories. I took them solely from my daily newspaper during the eight or nine weeks I spent penciling those two issues, and I didn't have to look hard to find them. Accidents, nuclear power controversies, toxic and nuclear waste spills, leakages and cover-ups were a constant in the news. (Moore, Book Three 8) 

Indeed, Bissette lived near Three Mile Island in 1979 when the reactor nearly melted down, and also near a train full of chemicals when it exploded (8). Clearly, the ecological disasters of the day influenced Moore and his team. In a long-arc storyline, Swamp Thing squares off against Nukeface, a walking embodiment of nuclear waste, chemical pollutants, and other deadly toxins, testament to man's carelessness in such matters. As Krinsky notes, "While Swamp Thing is able to regenerate, the reader is told of others, both people and places, who have been irrevocably damaged in the name of progress" ( 233). The stakes are high; in the absence of proper human stewardship, Swamp Thing represents the only hope for the environment. 

THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

Moore consistently situates the primary threat to the environment within mankind. Indeed, in featuring Pogo Possum, the issue "Roots," in its entirety, represents a tribute to Walt Kelly, the politically engaged illustrator whose phrase "We have met the enemy, and they are us" served as the motto for the first Earth Day in 1970 (Moore, Book One 110-133). Colin Beineke believes that Moore's utilization of Pogo deepened the former's critique of mankind (Beineke). Moore also did so in his use of villains although, admittedly, that practice preceded his involvement with Swamp Thing. In a DC canon populated by villains with superpowers, two of the three primary villains across the various Swamp Thing iterations are humans with no powers above and beyond those evident in our own society. Dr. Anton Arcane represents the excesses of science while General Avery Sunderland personifies entrepreneurial profiteering in service of military conquest – the embodiment of the military industrial complex. In "Loose Ends," Swamp Thing tells Arcane: "It's a new world, Arcane. It's full of shopping malls and striplights and software. The dark corners are being pushed back a little more every day" (Moore, Book One 21). In "American Gothic," a storyline that would run across multiple issues, Moore returns to this imagery by employing the supermarket as the quintessential expression of Americana, but also of excess-driven capitalism. In its thirst for possession and profit, mankind has drifted ever distant from its nature-based origins. Humans are the monsters, typified in people like Arcane and Sunderland who seek power no matter the consequence.

The third primary villain, Floronic Man, represents an aspect of nature against which humanity must be protected. Much like Swamp Thing, Floronic Man is a hybrid human/plant. In a two-issue arc, this character becomes unhinged and attempts to extinguish humankind. In "Another Green World," Floronic Man describes his epiphany: 

I am one with the wilderness. Its will works through me. For I asked of it, saying "What would you have me do?" And it said, "Purify." And it said, "Destroy. Destroy the creatures that would destroy us, that would destroy the ecosphere with their poisons and their bulldozers. Cut them down like blighted wood. Let us have another green world!" (Moore, Book One 107)

Floronic Man's subsequent manifesto from "Roots" rationalizes his plan for encouraging all global flora to increase oxygen output tenfold, killing humanity: "You have waged bitter and undeclared war upon the green, gutting the rain forests mile after mile, day after day. But know this: the war has come home. It is man's turn to embrace the scythe" (112). Unlike Swamp Thing, Floronic Man cannot countenance a world where the human and the botanical co-exist. As Beineke notes, "The Floronic Man's actions and words serve to reinforce the separation of nature and civilization into separate spheres, spheres that are unable to exist cooperatively." Beineke continues, "His desire to wipe out humanity reflects some of the darker, misanthropic elements of deep ecology."  In the end, Swamp Thing defeats Floronic Man by employing scientific rationality, invoking the carbon cycle by pointing out that without mammals – including humans – to produce carbon dioxide, all plant life on earth would soon perish (Moore, Book One 123-124). 

Moore does not create a world in which humans are merely victimizers. He notes in numerous issues a symbiosis that exists between humans and plants. This relationship is symbolized in the consummated union of Swamp Thing and Abigail Arcane, the mad scientist's niece. As Richard George notes, Abigail serves to moderate Swamp Thing, "Moore creates a strong sense of savagery and anger in the creature…it is only through love that the creature is tamed." The "taming the monster" trope may appear to push the narrative toward the realm of Disney, but Moore cultivates another agenda. Portrayed as Swamp Thing's lover in iterations both comic and cinematic, in Moore's "Rite of Spring" Abigail takes on an additional role when she experiences a psychedelic trip after eating a tuber produced by Swamp Thing. The comic depicts her in a sexual position, straddling the globe, as she states, "Beyond him I wrestle the planet, sunk in loam to my elbows as it arches beneath me, tumbling endlessly through endless ink. We are one creature" (Moore, Book Two 216). Not only should humans stop destroying nature in pursuit of lumber and other resources, but they must also return to the symbiotic, gendered relationship that man and earth once shared. Moore's fascination with the concept of the earth mother leads him to dedicate another issue – "The Curse" (Moore, Book Three 134-157) – to female empowerment, channeled through the character of Phoebe and symbolized by the act of menstruation. According to Moore, "This story was about the difficulties endured by women in masculine societies, using the common taboo of menstruation as the central motif" (Moore, Alan Moore's 6-7). Megan Condis denotes the body feminine of Phoebe as a mirror image of Swamp Thing and believes that "Moore's willingness to sneak a feminist critique into the boy's club atmosphere of the corner comic book store is certainly laudable" (Condis). In a larger sense, however, Moore's digression into earth mother territory showcases yet another facet of environmental stewardship. His representation of humanity's impact upon nature grafted nicely onto anxieties surrounding gender following the decline of second-wave feminism during the early 1980s. 

SWAMP THING ON THE BIG SCREEN 

Moore's Swamp Thing may have been the most well-known iteration of the 1980s, but others are just as relevant when exploring historical and political context. Two films featuring Swamp Thing came out during the decade: Wes Craven's Swamp Thing (1982), positively reviewed by most, and the universally panned The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), directed by Jim Wynorski. Much as with its early-1980s graphic counterpart, Craven's work indicates a lingering fascination with Vietnam. As the movie begins, the sounds of the swamp quickly gives way to the thrum of a helicopter, a technological invader in this pristine wilderness. The movie suggests that such unspoiled places are few and far between and not at all safe from profiteers in search of one resource or another. In this case, the invader is Arcane (Louis Jourdan), who hires a group of mercenaries to find Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) and steal his research. In the early 1980s context of this film, these mercenaries are likely Vietnam veterans; indeed, references to that conflict abound. Wearing their jungle greens, these commandos attack Hollan's compound, which kills most of the workers and causes the chemical accident that will result in Holland's transformation into Swamp Thing. David Hess portrays the mercenary leader, Ferret, at one point pulling a Cottonmouth out of his tunic to execute one of the workers from Holland's compound. Intriguingly, the villain wears a bandana similar – albeit in a different color – to the one worn more famously by Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo in First Blood (1982), released six months after Swamp Thing. Ferret leads patrol boats through the swamp looking for Swamp Thing – recalling swift boat patrols in the Mekong Delta – and, pursuant to Arcane's directive, "No bodies, no witnesses," dumps the corpses of those he kills into the swamp and burns Holland's compound, a scene reminiscent of the My Lai Massacre.

Neon Green – the chemical Arcane seeks and the one that causes Holland's transformation – serves as a referent to Agent Orange as an engineered monstrosity. Much like the latter – which kills plants by stimulating their growth centers and causing them to grow more rapidly than can be sustained by photosynthesis – Holland designed his concoction to increase crop yields. As he tells Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) – a government agent who has arrived to monitor his progress – his research nears a breakthrough in creating "tomatoes that can grow in the desert, soybeans that can thrive in Biafra, and corn that will grow in the U.S. in 2001, when there will be 6.5 billion hungry people on earth." Holland's flaw involves hubris; Arcane's, something much worse. The latter attempts to steal the formula as he wants to control the world's food, the film in essence anticipating criticism against Monsanto and other companies involved in bioengineering and patenting agricultural foodstuffs. Although Arcane and his mercenaries precipitate the crisis, the root cause remains Holland's attempts to control nature. In responding to Cable when she asks why he saved her when it means he would be captured, Swamp Thing paraphrases Robert Frost: "The only way out is through." This quote works on many levels, not only on the purely narrative in forcing a confrontation with Arcane, but also in the film's resonance with the ecological dimensions of the Vietnam War. Citing a poet well known for his environmental sensibilities also underscores the film's musings on the importance of conservation. Toward the end of the film, Arcane consumes Holland's formula, growing into a fur-covered atrocity, a violent, marauding creature symbolic of an American political entity that has become monstrous in its foreign policy – as epitomized by the Vietnam War – and irresponsible domestically in multiple avenues of environmental degradation. In their final confrontation, the Arcane creature uses a sword, a weapon that – although archaic in a time of guns and other forms of superior technology – is man-made. Swamp Thing opts for a vegetal weapon, a cypress knee. Not too surprisingly, Swamp Thing wins, the botanical prevailing over the technological.

Unlike its predecessor, in The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) an aesthetics of camp largely obscures political commentary although Greenpeace did sponsor a PSA about littering timed to the film's release (Lamar). Largely, the film served as a vehicle for Heather Locklear, who had just finished her run as Sammy Jo in Dynasty (1981-1989). Louis Jordan returned as Dr. Arcane, the only actor to appear in both films. In and around the goofy action and cheesy dialogue – for example, when Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) tells Abigail (Locklear) he cannot date her because "I'm a plant," she responds with "I'm a vegetarian" – occasional references to environmental issues appear. Even coming seven years after the original film – and sixteen years following America's withdrawal from Vietnam – references to this conflict occur. Once again, helicopters and watercraft are employed by Arcane to locate Swamp Thing. This noise mars the tranquility of the swamp and introduces destruction, in this case from dynamite dropped from above. Arcane's goons, Mr. Gunn (Joey Sagal) and Miss Poinsettia (Monique Gabrielle), share little with the Vietnam-era mercenaries of the original film. Mr. Gunn can best be described as an uneasy combination of Burt Reynolds and Che Guevara. In hunting Swamp Thing, Mr. Gunn employs a byproduct of the chemical defoliant. Noting that "Agent Orange is for Nancy boys," the mercenary instead opts for a much more powerful agent, suggesting the progress made in biochemical engineering during the 1980s. The entire plot revolves around gene splicing with Arcane kidnapping humans to experiment upon in a clear reference to H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) and its experiments with animal/human hybridity. Once again, the plant world prevails as Swamp Thing defeats both Mr. Gunn and Arcane's chief scientist, the latter of whom, after mutating into a fearsome creature, does battle while still wearing his checkered sweater and lab coat. Amidst a general trend of the continued invasion and exploitation of the natural world, the avenging angel of the swamp once again beats back the profiteers who would strip mine it. 

SWAMP THING ON TELEVISION

Although it ran for three seasons and seventy-two episodes, the television series Swamp Thing (1990-1993) struggled to find an audience on the USA Network. Years later, it developed a cult following due to the campy nature of the storylines as well as a 2008 DVD release of forty episodes. Each episode opens with a voiceover as the Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) solemnly intones: "The swamp is my world. It is who I am. It is what I am. I was once a man. I know the evil men do. Do not bring your evil here! I warn you. Do not incur the wrath of…SWAMP THING!" The character of Swamp Thing never demonstrates a sense of humor in any of the iterations, but this episode embraces a singularly cheerless mien, keeping an even keel no matter if he is speaking with friends or violently dispatching enemies. His interactions with Jim Kipp (Jesse Zeigler) – a kid symbolizing the innocence of youth who has not yet been conditioned to fear or exploit nature – are bizarre, vacillating between dispensing existential wisdom – "The more I tell you about myself, the less you know" – and committing borderline emotional abuse – "Only dumb kids dream." Despite its many shortcomings, the series contains perhaps the widest diversity and most forceful of all the ecological criticism within the Swamp Thing universe, albeit not as elegantly stated as in Moore's comic. Some of these messages are general, such as in "Treasure," which features a storyline serving as an inversion of the maxim "one person's trash is another's treasure." Swamp Thing finds a briefcase full of money and throws it into a dump where the antagonist gets gunned down by a mutant pig-man toward the end of the plotline. "Treasure," in part inspired by The Night of the Hunter (1955), serves as a rejection of humanity's acquisitive nature, the trash heap a fitting burial site for a villain who shoots a woman in front of her young son and, by abstraction, those who would destroy the environment in furtherance of short-term, material gain. The episode "Grotesquery" also displays this message. Swamp Thing discovers that barrels of toxic waste have been dumped in his swamp; upon opening one, the fumes incapacitate him. Two workers hired to clean up the swamp talk about the destruction of the environment, one of them finishing a beverage, burping crudely, and tossing the can aside. The message: it is unacceptable to pollute the natural world with refuse of any kind. The episode's political commentary proliferates from here, as those who find the unconscious Swamp Thing sell him to the circus. Throughout the entire series, most of the humans Swamp Thing meets are out to make a buck, case in point Simon (Jacob Witkin), the greasy, sadistic, half-mad P.T. Barnum figure who runs the circus. This character cares so much about making money he chains up who he calls "freaks," creatures who may not conform to societal expectations but who are clearly sentient. Fortunately for them, Swamp Thing proves more than a match for Simon, freeing all of those trapped in his cages.

Numerous environmental threats provide the centerpiece for episode after episode, including the following topics: genetic engineering ("The Hunt," "Blood Wind," "Changes," and "Patient Zero"); bio-restoration ("Living Image," "Touch of Death," "Chains of Forever," and "Mirador's Brain"); machinery ("Birth Marks," "In the Beginning," and "The Watchers"); and scientists run amok ("Poisonous" and "The Handyman"). Several episodes are standouts, however, in their linkage to environmental contexts of the time. The episodes "Mist Demeanor" and "Future Tense" involve the dumping of chemical waste and other toxic trash into the swamp, perhaps influenced by the following real-life events: the complete evacuation of Times Beach, Missouri, due to dioxin pollution (1982); the discovery of mercury contamination near the uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (1983); the Union Carbide disaster, which although taking place in Bhopal, India, was widely covered by American media (1984); the travels of the Mobro 4000 garbage barge, searching for a country or state to accept its toxic waste (1987); the so-called Syringe Tide of medical waste washing up along the Eastern seaboard (1987-1988); the Alar Scare involving carcinogenic pesticides used in apple farming and other fruit-based agriculture (1989); and, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which dumped nearly eleven million gallons of crude into Alaska's Prince William Sound (1989). Although it came a year after these two episodes aired, the 1993 discovery of hexavalent chromium in the groundwater of Hinkley, California – of Erin Brockovich fame – serves as a nice cap to this list of toxic dumping and runoff, neatly bracketing the ascendancy of Swamp Thing as a cultural icon during the character's multi-platform, 1982-1993 run. In "Mist Demeanor," Swamp Thing notes that in their search for profit, Arcane (Mark Lindsay Chapman) and his kind "have turned the groundwater into a chemical cesspool." As many corporations clearly did during this period, Arcane responds with a view of the environment as worthwhile collateral when it comes to scientific progress as he cites the "benefits and the potential advancement of knowledge of mankind." Of course, Arcane stands to benefit financially from such initiatives, which colors his view of progress.

Several other episodes are worth mentioning here. In featuring a poisonous fly released into the swamp, "Natural Enemy" resonates with the 1989 Medfly crisis in California as well as other historical episodes involving invasive species. The attempt to arrest the Medfly's spread with chemicals – in particular, the insecticide malathion – sparked a debate that raged for a full decade before sterilized flies were bioengineered to supplant spraying as a strategy. The "enemy" of the episode's title is not the poisonous fly, however, but instead as Swamp Thing succinctly states: "People." The episode "Tremors of the Heart" was clearly inspired by the Loma Prieta earthquake (1989). Although the plot involves an earthquake machine that Arcane attempts to sell to Avery Sunderland (also played by Jacob Witkin), in its focus upon man-made earthquakes the episode anticipates the debate surrounding hydraulic fracturing or fracking as a method of oil extraction and its relationship with earthquakes (as well as massive habitat destruction in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and, particularly, the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta). Not all episodes featuring political commentary are readily linkable to their political context. Focused on recycling, the episode "Better Angels" indicts business leaders who pay lip service to protecting the environment through showy initiatives but only do so as a smokescreen for their actual, self-centered aspirations. Whether out of true enlightenment or territorial frustration at the encroachment of an outsider, Arcane informs a would-be profiteer that the swamp will fight back, which it does, quite literally consuming the unfortunate man. Dr. Holland's admonishment and paraphrase of Abraham Lincoln from earlier in the episode goes unheeded: "In our quest for knowledge, we should let ourselves be guided by the better angels of our nature." In Swamp Thing, that advice is true for both scientist and entrepreneur alike.

Throughout the series, Swamp Thing competes against humans who would do him, or the swamp, harm. Avenues for resistance exist beyond the purely martial, however. In episode after episode, the character uses diplomacy to help smooth over conflicts between nature and man. Colin Beineke notes that the notion of Swamp Thing as intercessor can be traced back to Moore: 

The Green Man is often assigned the duty of uniting the spheres of nature and civilization – to serve as an intermediary and mediator between the two. While we indeed see elements of this in Moore's Swamp Thing as the Green Man, there is no ignoring the fact that the Green Man is first and foremost a representative of nature – nature that has suffered much at the hands of civilization, and is thus often inclined to become an aggressive nature, a defender of natural spaces.  

Sometimes, in trying to blunt nature’s wrath, Swamp Thing appeals directly to the swamp. The agents of justice seeking to attack the humans who enter their domain take numerous forms, including birds, insects, plants, viruses, mists, and all manner of mutant hybrids. The most bizarre figure of recrimination is a sort of "justice panther" that, in the episode "Eye for an Eye," coldly and brutally metes out punishment. Perhaps due to declining ratings, Season 3 – which contained more episodes than Seasons 1 and 2 combined – punched up these fanciful elements, with storylines involving vampires, mummies, ghosts, and poltergeists. Seemingly grasping at straws, an entire episode – "Romancing Arcane" – parodies Romancing the Stone (1984), as Arcane gets involved with a beautiful woman and plans to sell fake emeralds. Another episode – "Swamp of Dreams" – revolves around a batch of iguana eggs with hallucinogenic properties. Increasingly, the show lost its focus upon the environment, although there were still episodes centered on the encroachment of humans upon the natural world. Some of these later episodes featured storylines with appreciable political context, but outside of ecological concerns, such as the bizarre episode "Smoke and Mirrors" where, in a clear reference to the Judas Priest trial of seven years prior, Swamp Thing gaslights a heavy metal musician whose depressing lyrics caused the suicide of two young fans.

SWAMP THING ANIMATED

A final version of Swamp Thing released during this period – the animated, five-episode series Swamp Thing (1990-1991) – aired on the Fox Kids network. Once again, the opening credits contain a voiceover, although in this case not in the singularly grim tone of the live-action series but instead upbeat and set to The Troggs' "Wild Thing": "Swamp Thing, you are amazing. You fight everything nasty. Swamp Thing, earth really needs you. Arcane, is back for sure. So c'mon, fight for right. We need you." Although geared toward children and simplistic in its messaging, the animated series nevertheless contained ecological commentary. In "Falling Red Star," a satellite powered by a nuclear reactor falls into the swamp. Arcane (Don Francks) uses it to irradiate his henchmen, making them destructive to both the plant life in the bayou and, for a brief time, Swamp Thing (Len Carlson)  himself. The two decades prior to this episode had seen increased fear over the safety of nuclear reactors, with the following historical episodes perhaps providing context for the show's writers: the suspicious death of Karen Silkwood, a whistleblower for unsafe practices at the Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site (1974); the Three Mile Island incident (1979); and the disaster in Chernobyl (1986), which although in the USSR (Ukraine) generated much media attention in the United States.

During an era of increased air quality due to the Clean Air Act of 1970 – with the disappearance of leaded gasoline, the emergence of catalytic converters, and the ban of chlorofluorocarbons all playing important roles – the episode "Experiment in Terror" still decries urban air quality. Finding himself in the city, Swamp Thing walks down the street, gasping: "Uh, the city smog. It's as bad as weed killer defoliant. The city is no place for growing things!" Finally, the episode "To Live Forever" follows Swamp Thing as he journeys to the Amazon Basin to stop Arcane from destroying the rainforest. Here, Swamp Thing teams up with the grandson of a local shaman (Harry Atkin), who describes a "fierce machine with jaws like knives" destroying the forest. After defeating Arcane with the help of Amazonian animals, the shaman exults: "Guardian of the earth has saved the rainforest!" Swamp Thing replies: "No, I've only given the trees a second chance. Only mankind can truly save the rainforest. We must all be guardians of the earth." This statement works for the audience for which it was designed: children. Swamp Thing cannot fight all the battles. This message underscores a plot point in Moore's comic from earlier in the decade during which Swamp Thing contemplates ending world hunger, but ultimately decides he cannot bail humankind out of its problems ("My Blue Heaven"). The animated Swamp Thing may be simplistic, but the messaging is on point for children. The animated series highlighted personal responsibility in local environmental affairs coupled with a greater awareness of global problems. In this regard, it reflected a quote from the 1970s environmental movement resuscitated during the Culture Wars of the early 1990s: "Think globally, act locally."

CONCLUSION

The character of Swamp Thing fascinates for many reasons, chief amongst them in that he serves as an example of an aesthetic predicated upon guilt during the ascendancy of the American Environmental movement. Linked contextually to numerous ecological disasters, policy developments, and other factors, and finding success in multiple forms of media, Swamp Thing exists as a text of the Anthropocene, a conceptual epoch in which the ecological ministrations of humans have terra-formed the face of the earth in profound and lasting ways. Many brought their vision to Swamp Thing during the 1980s, but Alan Moore remains primarily responsible for the character's resurgence. Darren Mooney identifies Moore's comic as so significant "that it actually extends its influence backwards," impacting the way Len Wein's original vision has subsequently been interpreted (Mooney, "DC Comics"). 

This decade was transformative for not only Swamp Thing and the American Environmental movement, but also the stage upon which such aesthetic and political trends would play out. It is no coincidence that the Culture Wars gained maturity right at the end of the Cold War, during a time of decreased tension with the USSR. The twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, most often associated with Mikhail Gorbachev, extended from the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 through the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a time frame that coincided with the period of Swamp Thing's ascendancy. Into a void of anxiety that resulted from the end of the Cold War, the Culture Wars introduced new arenas for contested ideology. The environment served as one such intellectual battlefield and has continued as such to the present, with ongoing arguments involving climate change and human complicity in global warming. The Swamp Thing franchise has continued to resonate culturally, with four comic runs since 2000, several limited comics – including The Swamp Thing, a sixteen-issue miniseries from 2021 – and a television show released in 2019, canceled after a single season despite strong ratings. During the character's multi-media run of greatest cultural resonance (1982-1993), the Spotted Owl and California Gnatcatcher existed at the center of a debate over land use, officially protected, respectively, from logging interests in 1986 and urban development in 1993. The 1970s may have given birth to Save the Whales and Greenpeace, but such movements and organizations matured in mainstream consciousness during the 1980s. On July 10, 1985, French operatives sunk the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior prior to its deployment to protest nuclear testing in the South Pacific. As a character, Moore transformed Swamp Thing to be readymade for pop culture relevance during an era of environmental upheaval. In a time during which real-life eco-warriors faced all sorts of barriers to success, Swamp Thing's actions bestowed not only satisfaction in defeating unholy unions between scientific, political, and economic forces, but also conveyed hope for a future with greater ecological awareness. As the character threatens in "Natural Consequences":

I have tolerated your species for long enough. Your cruelty and your greed, and your insufferable arrogance. You blight the soul and poison the rivers. You raze the vegetation till you cannot even feed your own kind. And then you boast of man's triumph over nature. Fools, if nature were to shrug or raise an eyebrow, then you should all be gone. (Moore, Book Five 50) 

This quote may seem to indicate Swamp Thing as an avenging angel, but as is often the case in Moore's oeuvre, the character dispenses valuable advice. Moore's carefully crafted dialogue suggests that nature, and not Swamp Thing, may serve as the agent of humanity's destruction. In the real world, Swamp Thing may not exist, but the powerful ministrations of nature are very real. The message from Alan Moore and others during the environmentally turbulent 1980s: the effort that mankind has put into controlling and monetizing the environment must be marshaled towards healing and balance.

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