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Swamp Thing Rather Than Nothing
2.4k Plays1 year ago
BEHOLD!! The Swamp Thing Rather Than Nothing Episode!!
WITH!!!! Special Panel:
Curious wisdom-speaker and plant-woman Em Grebner-Gaddis appears.
Painter and eccentric gatherer Swamp Ken (Kenneth Nicholson) speaks to history, body-horror and early 90s bizarro.
Craig Randall thinks of living-thru-doom, hope and plants from the fertile crescent of the Pacific Northwest.
The guiding question and idea behind this fervid inquiry: Why is Swamp Thing Important?
Host Ken Volante corrals most tendrils of this wonderful panel to: explore the brilliance and radical edge of Alan Moore; the connection of Heather Locklear's foot and Midsommar; The Swamp Thing DC movie Universe speculated upon; the Wes Craven film (1982) dismantled and apprehended; the omnipresent threat to women in the films; Kudzu vine Swamp Thing biology theory; the (in)humanity of Alec Holland; the alien-transcendence of orchids; mental health, loneliness and alienation; and, so you know, SWAMP THING in a JEEP - this actually occurs in The Return of The Swamp Thing
Enjoy!!!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Panel Setup
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Volante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. Hey everybody, this is Ken Volante, host of Something Rather Than Nothing podcast with a special panel. The Swamp Thing Rather Than Nothing episode, which has been a few months in the making.
00:00:29
Speaker
and have some wonderful podcast guests from the show going back. We'll serve on this special panel.
Guest Introductions and Swamp Thing Interest
00:00:41
Speaker
I wanted to first introduce Em Grebner-Gaddis, host of Rooted Pod. And Em, welcome onto this panel, and we appreciate your expertise, but tell us about that expertise and why Swampy?
00:00:58
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Ken, for having me. I was introduced to Swamp Thing when I was a bit younger. I was probably 18 or 19 at the time. And I had been really into other kind of, I guess some people would call them B-tier superheroes. So think like the red B and...
00:01:18
Speaker
Aquaman but when I found Swamp Thing it really connected with all the things I love about plants and nature and just really like considering who we are and what our role in nature is so I've loved him ever since.
00:01:31
Speaker
Love it. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we got two Ken's on this panel and the great painter Kenneth Nicholson, educator in the arts. He is within this episode known as Swamp Ken, and he assumed that moniker in pre-programming very, very quickly.
00:01:54
Speaker
and wears it well. So Swamp Ken, besides it being part of your name, why Swamp Thing? What gets you on this panel? I mean, your enthusiasm and knowledge, but tell us about it. Well, thanks for having me. Swamp Thing's always been
00:02:15
Speaker
incredibly interesting to me. The first, my introduction to Swamp Thing came from the 1990s cartoon. So for as
00:02:29
Speaker
fascinating as the animation style and just the kind of a bonkers nature of the show. I've always been interested in finding new iterations of Swamp Thing, whether that be the comic books or the live action films as well. It seems as I've been developing my own tastes and preferences in the art Swamp Thing has always found a way to be part of whatever I'm obsessing over at the time.
00:03:00
Speaker
really enjoy it, really love it. And folks, just so you know, Swamp Ken and I have talked a bunch about some future work on The Thing, The Thing, the movie, which I believe is just about one of our, if not our favorite movies, shared equally. Swamp Ken and Ken, your host.
00:03:23
Speaker
Hey, Craig Randall. Craig, it's nice to see you. And lend us your voice as to why Swamp Thing? What pulls you into this zany panel? Oh, man, what about I think I saw
00:03:41
Speaker
the original TV series that came out in like 90 and 91, you know, being a kid, you know, back when cable was a thing. And I was just developing, I think, my absolute obsession for monsters in general. And then I, you know, grew up with Batman and Superman and like, even as Em said, like kind of the A-list heroes. But then all of a sudden I saw this thing that was like, wait a minute, he's kind of a hero and he's kind of a monster.
00:04:09
Speaker
And he's super obscure. And I just fell in love instantly. And then from that show, you know, I'd seen all the films and everything over the time, but it was really the comics that over times kind of drew me in more. I write, you know, novels and poetry. So I think naturally that written word part of it drew me in. And then I'd read the Alan Moore run years and years and years ago amidst other things. And then
00:04:34
Speaker
I just reread that whole thing again, and it was interesting how 15 years later, reading it as an adult, having a much firmer understanding of Sonam, some of the big four issues of the world, kind of made me realize like, holy smokes, he's more important now than he's ever been as a character. And I'm excited to see how that continues to develop. So happy to be here in this absurd corner of the world with you guys. Yeah.
00:05:03
Speaker
love it. And, you know, overarching the question we'll be hovering around is, you know, why Swamp Thing's important.
Swamp Thing's Cultural Impact and Alan Moore's Influence
00:05:12
Speaker
And some of the comments that Craig just made about, you know, why more increasingly culturally, I mean, within the
00:05:20
Speaker
the DC universe having a Swamp Thing movie, which is, I mean, just fantastic to think about the scale of it and to be scared of, you know, what happens, like what would happen with that. But yeah, so and I think with the Alan Moore, you know, just so listeners, not everybody's going to be as jacked on Swamp Thing as we are. But Alan Moore, I mean, for me, is a visionary writer, both in writing his novels,
00:05:50
Speaker
And for truly just busting apart the comics form newer comic horror, right? Sandman, Doom Patrol, Shade the Changing Man.
00:06:07
Speaker
And so folks know anybody who's not really into comics, during the Alan Moore run, there were shocking issues, shocking in content, which could not have been, could not have passed the comic code authority at the time. During that run, you didn't see the code on there, which was a radical and dangerous move within
00:06:35
Speaker
the the the publishing so Alan Moore within the the the medium in the genre has a big when you talk in Swamp Thing it's it's you're talking big about Alan Moore and of course um Len Wien and Bernie Reitzen um so um just when I see a lot of uh you know um responding to um some of the things about Alan Moore uh
00:07:02
Speaker
Anybody on the panel have some additional comments about Moore or some of what the comics did to create what we see as kind of like this genre? Well, it's interesting. Alan Moore, I didn't realize until reading through it, and even Swamp Can mentioned Constantine and Hellblazer, some of the other more
00:07:24
Speaker
It's interesting that those names kind of became bigger, right? Had their own larger runs, more popular runs, but more created those characters in Swamp Thing. Like I did not realize, I was introduced to Constantine through Sandman.
00:07:39
Speaker
I did not know that Moore created Constantine in this run, in his run of Swamp Thing, but it was like a MacGuffin character. He's like, I just need this Obi-Wan Kenobi character to come along and teach Swamp Thing what he's actually capable of because he was bored of the previous two runs and he wanted Swamp Thing to evolve to be something bigger.
00:08:04
Speaker
And he's like, oh, I'll just create this magic guy, like in the corner of the DC universe to like coach swamp thing. And it's just interesting how,
00:08:14
Speaker
And then more did a lot of things with race. There's an entire 25-page issue where swan thing in this human woman have plant sex. And it's awkward. And it's really strange. And I think that was the one that was they split like, kids can't read this. So and then we had Vertigo and all these other companies just split the comic book industry.
00:08:38
Speaker
And then ironically like every single iteration of not ironic at all actually every iteration we see of something in movies and comics is more based on the more one because he was the one that kind of open the character up so most of our familiarity with something outside of different comic book runs is actually.
00:08:57
Speaker
more based on Alan Moore. I'm intrigued about the new movie. I want to see where they take it, which character they borrow from. Because there are very different names. There's different characters. They all become a swamp thing. They all have different stories. Some of them retain their human nature. Some of them lose it entirely. I have some questions for Em later down the road. Just that idea of
00:09:24
Speaker
There's this spectrum of Swamp Thing where my favorite version, which is the more one, by the end of his run, his humanity is all but gone. He's just the champion for the world, like the green, the plants. I love that because I think it would piss a lot of humans off who see themselves above plant life.
00:09:48
Speaker
But it asks this question of like, what is life? What's more important? I don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really excited to get into that. I think there's a lot of really interesting ways we can even tie into like what my theory of what I think Swamp Thing would be made of fits into that kind of unrelenting force of nature and where we fit into that. So yeah, thrilled to talk through that with you. Yeah, well, let's make sure we dive into that and who knows
00:10:19
Speaker
When and like I told you, I mean, any of you let's let's jump in because I found it difficult and even thinking about prepping for this program, not because your capabilities or anything, but my thinking of how many swamp things I have in my friggin head.
00:10:35
Speaker
because i haven't read overtime of looking at the original ten issues so which which have many key elements to the story but is of a different era and of a beautiful. Different old older comics vibe horror vibe on.
00:10:54
Speaker
But one of the things I wanted to say when it comes to just like this whole idea of what Swamp Thing is, is that whole relationship with like humanness or humanity, which you could see within the film and you can see in other places or whether as the plant avatar.
00:11:19
Speaker
And one of the most fascinating elements I found, and I was listening to various podcasts and some videos, and one of them was trying to assess Swamp Thing's power. Like how powerful is Swamp Thing? And what I found deeply fascinating is that there was a story thread
00:11:39
Speaker
that now I'm going to sell it. I'm obviously going to sell it. I'll say that because of the name of the show. But they were they were talking about a power of creation, right? And so when you start to think about that, you try to start to think about, OK, you know, like kind of the question of something round enough, like, where does everything start?
00:12:00
Speaker
Why does an explosion of something happen? Or whatever, however you decide to answer that question. But the story was following the threads of going all the way back to like the Big Bang, like the Swamp Thing. And they were going over certain aspects of what Swamp Thing has done on the basis of power, and it is nothing less than godlike when extrapolated from its source.
00:12:30
Speaker
And yes, true, and intuitively true in my head, but I hadn't fucking thought of that. I hadn't been like, yo.
00:12:40
Speaker
He is swamping God. Well, I think that raises a lot of interesting things when we look at it from an ethnobotany perspective because throughout time in a lot of cultures, plants and mystical beings or gods are inseparable and plants are directly tied to gods. So I think that's really an interesting way to look at it.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, but I was like, when you were describing that at first count, my first thought was almost like, like, God, like a deity. But then it's like, wait a minute, that means Swamp Thing is the deity. I can almost imagine, like, when you talk about, like, indigenous species, like, him being, like, the representation of that worship.
00:13:25
Speaker
There's an interesting story running there. Yeah, um, uh, Swampkin, um, we were talking in general about the Alan Moore run and all this there. And I, I, I noticed, you know, you responded to that. I just wanted to hear your thoughts about how, you know, that, that big more thing, cause that, that pulls you in like many of us here, everybody on the panel, the more run, what, what's going on there for you? Well, I think.
00:13:50
Speaker
like anything with Alan Moore, I am going to be, like I was introduced to the work, usually I would be interested with something like the Watchmen, which is like the visuals. And then even though I came for the visuals, I stayed for just what you said, that evolution, the story, how it unfolds and always has so many, not even like twists and turns, but just such an immense amount of
00:14:18
Speaker
detail and information, even with something like From Hell, it's just like a tome of information and even something like Swamp Thing, where we might look back on it as being like he is absolutely a B tier kind of like superhero, but
00:14:37
Speaker
There's so much more, not even kind of like lore, but just so much character there as well. And I think more did such a great job showing how vast that particular story could be. It's massive. You know, he's more as a universe creator, right? So.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, like just on a creative level, like I didn't realize again, it was reading all, I love the newest version of the more run, the saga of the Swamp Thing has all these introductions by all these other, you know, history of it. And I didn't realize, I thought he wrote that and finished that. And then went and wrote all the seminal work, like as Swamp Ken was saying, like the seminal, you know, Watchmen made comic books credible, like to the general populace, right? And like,
00:15:25
Speaker
I didn't realize that I was reading through that. He wrote every one of those major things from Hell v for Vendetta Watchmen intermittently as he was writing Swamp Thing and like Revolutizing. He did it all at the same time. And I'm just like, what a wonderful psycho. Like, how do you? So. All right, we've gotten to the massive heights of the thought that you can find in Swamp Thing.
00:15:53
Speaker
but I'm going to start talking about the movie in 1981. OK, is Swamp Thing God to Swamp Thing 1981 directed by Wes Craven? OK, folks, I want to say it's going to be tough to describe, but what I want to do is kind of give listeners and my general summary of what I think this movie is and
00:16:23
Speaker
It's filled and riddled with problems. Some which could make it unwatchable for some. And matters the attitude that you bring into it. And Swamp Hen, I must affirm, is raising
00:16:43
Speaker
his hand and what's interesting about this is swamkin prior to recording kind of let us know that this is not his favorite movie at all but in all fairness swamkin and everybody i want to tell you what i think it's about and uh... kind of frame us during the time i watched it i
00:17:03
Speaker
I want to tell you, I thought of at least six or seven subtitles that I wanted to have under Swamp Thing, and I want to tell you two that I started with.
Swamp Thing Films: Camp and Critique
00:17:14
Speaker
One was, a monster was born. That's great, right? This other one is, oh shit, there goes the neighborhood.
00:17:23
Speaker
which was a catchphrase that I think towards the end of that movie. But this was directed, written by Wes Craig, a famous film director within the horror genre and has Louis Jordan as arcane, the enemy representation. And I find Louis Jordan's performance and his dialogue
00:17:50
Speaker
to be one of the more confounding mysteries in cinema. I don't know what to make of it.
00:17:57
Speaker
I don't, it is, it feels very movie-y, an actor trying to do a movie-y type of thing that is tongue in cheek. And the outcome of that, I don't know. Also starring Adrienne Barbeau, a famous actress in the late 70s and 80s. I believe she makes a reprise on the newer TV show, which I'm not as familiar, but I believe Adrienne Barbeau is a part of that cast.
00:18:27
Speaker
Adrian Barbeau spends much of this movie being threatened, running, fleeing, being captured, fleeing, being threatened, being drowned, being ignored, being shot at, being karate chopped across her neck. Adrian Barbeau plays the character Cable.
00:18:51
Speaker
who is a new agent coming into the swamp and the bayou. So what has happened at the beginning of this movie is you feel something goofy is going on. There's these kind of 1980 rogue type of military elements coming into what seems to be a government compound, a small government compound in the swamp research station. Cable is flown in. This is Adrian Barbeau.
00:19:14
Speaker
And she comes out and she's in a, I'd say Washington DC 1981 professional Washington business suit. And she's going into the swamp. Now it seems right off the bat that the people who filled her position previously were eaten by crocs or something weird has happened. I mean, this is like a high death rate. She's replacing somebody who just died. They're looking at her being like, don't get too used to her. She might not be around soon.
00:19:44
Speaker
Very quickly, we're introduced to a wonderful, in my opinion, wonderful performance by Ray Wise of Twin Peaks fame, who played Leland Palmer. He plays Alec Holland, who, of course, within one iteration of Swamp Thing, there's an explosion there. He runs out, is into the water, and there's some sort of transmogrification or connection with the swamp, some water which creates Swamp Thing.
00:20:11
Speaker
Ray Wise is the scientist, and I tell you, for me, Ray Wise performs. He rings every, every, every little piece of juice out of every line, doesn't overdo it, says, I think this is what this character is, and he hits it. There's a way too fast romantic entrance as soon as Adrian Barbeau Cable comes into
00:20:33
Speaker
And there's also a misdirection where you think that Holland's sister, the other Dr. Holland, is his sister. And you think for a little bit, if you miss something that that's his wife. So it's a weird little romantic, weird thing going on there. Everybody, you good so far, panel?
00:20:54
Speaker
I just want to add real quick when you talked about how quick that romance was established with Ray Weiss. I think it's even more pronounced because he's acting batshit crazy the entire time. I think for like as charismatic and as handsome as Ray Weiss is, he just has like this
00:21:20
Speaker
Maybe it's just like the Twin Peaks up at all, and I can't shake it off, but he just has this sinister nature to him that even when he's playing the protagonist, I can't. You can't get there, right? Because here's the thing with this movie and watching it so many times, and I watch it with a keen focus when you kept looking at it, is this pervasive 1980s cinematic threat to women. It's like,
00:21:50
Speaker
It's like, okay, one foot's coming out the door and I'm gonna be insulted and called abroad of what she's doing here and the last person died before here, you're not dressed for the swamp. And the most confounding piece that drove me nuts when I first saw this movie in the theater and then on cable television eight billion times, probably about 25 to 30, was that
00:22:15
Speaker
There's a table is going around and there's a section, there's a section three there's a rudimentary radio shack security system, and sector three. She's introduced to the plant and for me, I'm not familiar with the security but sector three is buzzing.
00:22:32
Speaker
It's going, bah, bah, bah. And every time you see Sector 3, like, I'm not an expert. I'm like, the thing that's saying, pay attention to me, something going on in Sector 3. She has brushed off with her concerns at half a billion times, maybe six times, seven times. Hey, what about Sector 3? Oh, the guy was out there trying to fix it, and that's what went wrong. Hey, can we go to Sector 3? Well, go on a boat. Maybe somebody will take you on a boat to go see Sector 3. I'm concerned about the Sector 3, nothing.
00:23:02
Speaker
So nothing ever happens. It's a tough role. Now, one thing with regards to cable, and here's where I had hoped and it's never realized in the movie. There's an early scene when you see Adrian Barbeau being fucking badass.
00:23:20
Speaker
Adrienne Barbeau. And there's a couple scenes in a row where she like fights the captor, knees him. And I'm like, holy shit, she's gonna be like Sigourney Weaver, like, like she is going to like, she's gonna be overcome. She's dealing with a group of like aggressive men, but, but that completely disappears like that, that potential for development where she's just like, um, so, you know, she's,
00:23:45
Speaker
Captured and escapes captures and escapes. I have a note in right here. It says barbo kicks ass and she does For a few minutes. Is that just the reflection of the time? like You watch it's funny watching older movies with my like now 10 and 8 year old and you're just like, oh that's a terrible depiction of
00:24:07
Speaker
of women or this or that. And it's one of the reasons I'm intrigued with the 2025 upcoming Swamp Thing movie. I'm like, what is Abby Cable's role going to be in that? How are they going to update that? Because she, in the comic book, she's pretty, it's that same thing, even more, brilliant more, there's kind of this victim mentality, right, to that character.
00:24:34
Speaker
I mean, you almost have to look at that lens like Wes Craven trapped in the 80s mentality, but also it's in the source material. And I think we even look back at Wes Craven in some of those earlier films. And one of the things I was kind of surprised about with Swamp Thing was that it still seemed to have that kind of like mean spiritedness that is just like,
00:24:58
Speaker
and built into those early Craven films, which always kind of confounds me. Because I always think about Nightmare on Elm Street, and you get this just like savant of a director who feels so effortless with how he is elevating the material past just like a genre film. But you go back into some of those earlier films, like Last House on the Left, it's like, there's like just, or Hills have eyes, like,
00:25:26
Speaker
just a real nasty, nasty kind of, yeah. And almost like real nihilistic, especially when it comes to women that just makes it, it's real rough to watch. Almost like vindictive or purposeful, right?
00:25:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, no. And you don't think we've done with intention and that's not okay. Like, I think Wes Craven too, from what I've read, like, tried to, I think it's just like of the era, especially within the seventies, that he was trying to sometimes make comments or
00:26:04
Speaker
like a reference, like the United States is like treatment of women and kind of through his like- Shot culture, shot culture. Kind of, but it just doesn't land. And I don't know if the, like you said, like if it landed better at the time, but it seems there's like an odd kind of clunkiness with that, that kind of is throughout this film. Probably would have been overlooked at the time.
00:26:30
Speaker
Exactly. I don't think I didn't notice shit. I'm just a nine-year-old boy in 80s America I mean at my you know, my mom's enlightened and I like to think I'm smart But I didn't know fucking jack shit. I didn't notice shit like just was I'm just watching Swamp Thing, you know, yeah, it wasn't like I'm like, oh, I'm just like, okay the women's in peril and she'll be in peril the whole movie I don't know
00:26:55
Speaker
I almost wanted to throw it into the two cans. I love even the dichotomy you guys are of loving this film versus, let's leave it behind. But I think there's something really powerful. Because if I were to watch that movie right now for the first time, even as I love Swamp Thing, it would be like, oh yeah, this is garbage, right?
00:27:20
Speaker
There are movies that I watched when I was a kid that I, when you couldn't tell if something was garbage yet, you know, you don't have the taste yet or anything to compare it off of. And it's funny how like, even like Batman and Robin, like the movie that killed the Batman franchise, it is one of the worst movies ever made, but I was still however young enough to not know that when it came out. So I can still watch that movie and be like, it's terrible, but I love every second of it.
00:27:49
Speaker
which is a weird thing to think about, but there's almost something pure about that, Ken, that I love. It is such a staple for where you were, and that almost makes me love it more. Now, when I go to watch the movie now, I'm going to sit there and my lens is going to be, Ken Volante loves this movie. Therefore- I want to tell you about this, and I want to ask him something. I want to tell you about this, though, too. With regards to the movie, I would say that
00:28:20
Speaker
let let's keep in some we're territory now get to it of you know enjoyment and and the fact that i believe and i'll tell you what i like about the movie too i'll get to that but i'll tell you what is it to enjoy components where there is a heart of darkness in the middle of it and the reason why i say that is the one thing when uh... swamp can mention this nihilism i hadn't put that work together but it goes back to these like
00:28:48
Speaker
clumsy ass lines uh... from arcane which is for me when i heard them and being a philosopher this is like on nazi nicha right like not to get the whole like nicha philosophy i mean i i i adore nicha's philosophy i have a particular take on it but this when you're hearing these lines this is the heart like this is the heart the piece that i think really annoys swamkin is like i wrote it down
00:29:15
Speaker
I wrote down the ethos of the movie as a Nietzsche as Nazi ethos of like the evil or that's
Philosophical Themes and Iconic Scenes
00:29:22
Speaker
around. It's like it's the misinterpretation. It's the powerful man. It's the stomping out and God forbid if a woman tries to.
00:29:31
Speaker
exist in this kind of nihilism, in this kind of constant threat. What about this, Em? You sort of can't be elements of this, and I'm not telling you what, you know, like, what the hell's your take on all this? So it was interesting, Craig, when you mentioned, like, being able to watch the movie and kind of have that lens of, like, this is Ken Delonte's, like, there's a soft spot in his heart for this film, and for why, because, like, he watched it when he was younger. That was my experience of watching this movie, so I watched it probably
00:30:01
Speaker
Gosh, I want to say three weeks ago. And if I had not known that this was like near and dear to Ken's heart, I don't know that I would have given it the grace of seeing the camp because there were parts that like, as a woman, especially a woman who's very interested in science, it's hard to watch her get forced to like, tromp around the swamp in a business suit, and constantly be told she doesn't know what she's talking about.
00:30:22
Speaker
and then like fall in love with the scientist because like essentially he's just framed as a big hottie and not like someone who's smart and capable of caring about her and then just kind of watching her get literally thrown around the swamp forever by various people like that was hard to stomach but at the same time knowing that
00:30:42
Speaker
Ken loved this movie and kind of picturing like what would it have been like for me as a child watching this movie? I can definitely see like the kind of like funnier campy aspects that I think come with a lot of that 1980s kind of old school lower budget horror. Yeah and here's the piece, here's some of the things I want to tell you about it and because I think it's super complicated like this whole area because
00:31:12
Speaker
I think there's part of me in that the early cable fighting element is so important to me because that's how I sort of developed. And then I saw her being just over-matched by this environment. But I know any twist to turn
00:31:34
Speaker
to the best of her ability, she's going to try to fucking think of how to get out of this shit or how to meet somebody in the balls or swim or whatever. The environment's horrible, but the environment's the environment. I want to mention one of the characters I love is Jude, who's over by the convenience store.
00:31:57
Speaker
And so again, I'm younger when I'm watching this, I don't know, Jude, not that I lived in or had friends that ran, seemingly run a convenience store in rural South Carolina. I believe this was filmed in Georgia or South Carolina, I forget. But anyways, Jude for me was like, he's like,
00:32:22
Speaker
a black napoleon dynamite before there's napoleon dynamite kind of like dynamic right i don't know if it's his glasses um he's trying to pop lines like there goes the neighborhood you know like i just jude for me was um jude was on the screen but he was my friend six blocks away outside of uh running his own convenience convenience store apothecary or
00:32:52
Speaker
Anyways, one of the most amazing parts of this movie, as we mentioned, is that it's a constant chase.
00:33:02
Speaker
And there's some amazing pontoon chases that involve, that feels better when they involve Swamp Thing, because you know Swamp Thing, if he gets blasted, he's running through, they're trying to chase him, hunt him down, because Cable has, the character Cable has this last book for this regeneration formula.
00:33:31
Speaker
that has been created by Holland. She's important. She's being chased. Swamp Thing is being chased. And there's this really interesting part that I love. And here's a part that I love, right? Simple minded. It's the oh shit part, right? So the pontoon is chasing down trying to hit Swamp Thing and the pontoon flips.
00:33:57
Speaker
And it's just very clumsy, awkward, uncomfortable. Oh, shit. As the guys crash into the water. And again, for me, when I experienced that the first 30 times, it's a very satisfying scene. Again, I'm younger when I'm watching. It's ridiculous. But what's also interesting is I had sent the panelists, just so everybody knows, the picture of Swamp Thing,
00:34:24
Speaker
that I took a still of right before this scene. And it had to must have done with a special prop or the colors, but it's a different swamping mask that I felt bad for sending the rest of the panel because that shit scared me the more that I looked at it.
00:34:44
Speaker
on their pontoon explosions this movie is a combination of uh... maybe a nod back to the nineteen fifties monster movies they say sixties monster movies it's uh... a comic book movie it's maybe can't be unintentionally
00:35:01
Speaker
uh campy it's a rambo type movie it's a type of movie where you can have a swamp you can have that there's always these rogue elements infiltrating an area um double agents um i want to tell you another piece of this movie and we got a probably five and ten minutes on my take and then we're gonna bring swampy out of 1981
00:35:26
Speaker
But one of the things that meant a lot to me, and this is going to be overblown, was through various events, and I'm obviously not covering all the plot of this movie, but Swamp Thing is detained. And there's a lot of detention in this. And in this realm, Swampy is detained, and Cable is detained. And there's this moment where now Swampy, through battle,
00:35:56
Speaker
had his arm, his swamp arm, green arm, cut off. And there's a recognition cable and otherwise that sun is the power. It's what gives you life and what brings forth the green. And this power, this was like magic for me as a kid. I'm like, he's growing his arm back. The power of regeneration, the magic of people dying. And it's fine because Swamp Thing's going to do it.
00:36:25
Speaker
I love that stuff. I want to tell you some more subtitles that I have for Swamp Thing. Everything's a dream when you're alone. That's the Swamp Thing reference. Now, remember Swamp Thing is a very lonely character, right? Used to be a man upon reflection and conversation with Cable. Cable realizes that this is
00:36:51
Speaker
the man that she had very quickly fallen for whatever's going on with that dynamic. And that swamp thing who still Alec Holland, the chemist, the scientist in his head is trying to do chemistry. And you probably noticed this with the beakers. Now, what can Swamp Thing do? His hands are vegetable heavy. He can't do the finery.
00:37:19
Speaker
of this, but cable in a very beautiful line says, now I can be your hands. Maybe I can be your hands.
00:37:29
Speaker
I'm not sure what that means. But what happens is that the movie also starts to move into a doomed romance, your beauty and the beast. The first scenes you would see in the rights and in lean comics would be the carrying away. This kind of folktale beauty and beast can't be together.
00:37:58
Speaker
The sex, because it's structured in this particular way, I think the main way to most properly understand any sex that happens here is some type of Jesus Christ-like take of the body communion.
00:38:23
Speaker
where swamping will pull out a piece of swamping. And I believe this creates a hallucinogenic separate connected state between the souls or the energies. And when that withers away, they go back to each other and they've been able to commune or consummate the plant human and the human.
00:38:48
Speaker
Do I have that right? Did I capture that right to everybody's understanding from. That's how it makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Like in reading the comic version of it, which again is is very graphic for like 20 pages. Yeah. But I remember thinking like I can see why this was banned from like the average comic reader. But at the same time, like I couldn't help but there was like something wonderfully poetic about it. Like it seemed.
00:39:14
Speaker
Like when she eats his fruit, right? That he kind of picked off his body and then she was hallucinating. It's almost like she was invited into the green, right? And this is where I was like intrigued to hear what Emma or Emma had to say about like the connections of plants and stuff and how they communicate because like to me it was almost like, whoa, this is like so much more intimate than
00:39:43
Speaker
it would have been if they were still two humans. They were literally sharing the same mind space. They weren't even physically touching, but it was so much more connected. It almost gave this picture of what
00:39:57
Speaker
Like unconscious life is on the planet, right? Like jungles, forests, plants, and like almost, I mean, now that we have like movies like Avatar, you almost get that sense, right? Of how interconnected these things are. And she was invited into that depth, which was really cool.
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I mean, I think that's something that we as humans can sometimes take for granted is like, I mean, we're not like eating plants and then having sex with them. That would be kind of a lot, obviously. That would be weird. Hey, I'm in Oregon. I'm in Oregon. Speak for yourself. You're right. Okay. I'm not trying to, I'm not saying if that's what you're into, you know what? I'm not, no judgment here. Okay. Everyone is consenting
00:40:43
Speaker
whatever you want to do. But we do regularly ingest plants, and that is an important part of them giving their life force for a greater good. They've developed fruit with the intention of people, animals eating that fruit to be able to spread their seed and therefore continue the cycle of nature. And I think
00:41:03
Speaker
that's easy to lose sight of. But I also think there's these interesting things that happen with plants and the ways that they can really impact and change our brains. So obviously I think the most obvious one with that is when you eat a mushroom with psilocybin in it and the ways that that can literally like chemically change your brain, which is really interesting. It's interesting that you brought that up because I was going to ask you if you had seen the episode of the TV series Hannibal, where they have the mushroom
00:41:32
Speaker
Absolutely. OK, so it was when Ken was talking about how he interpreted Alan Moore's approach to the union of these two characters. It made me think a lot about how in that episode of Hannibal, they talked about the mycelium reaching out for you as you step on the ground or that kind of interconnectedness that we're not even aware of.
00:42:00
Speaker
Yeah, man. Yeah, no, I could talk about this for hours. We have an episode on Rooted where I actually had some different guests come on and we talk about mushrooms in film. And that's a big thing we talk about is the ways that we're all still very connected with nature and the ways that nature is still very much connected with itself and the different ways that we've all co-evolved without us even really having to consciously think about the ways that we've co-evolved with nature and continue to.
00:42:28
Speaker
I didn't think about my own day-to-day experiences, how much more connected and better I feel when I'm in nature, when I'm eating a more plant-based diet, when I'm engaged in
00:42:41
Speaker
uh it's just interesting like i mean thinking of it in the context of swan thing here right and especially at that scene like the more intimate i get involved with nature the more uh just better i feel and even like like ken and i were talking i think on the episode that i came on your show and like most of my poetry
00:42:59
Speaker
that came out of this really, really horrendous mental period of my life. And it's interesting that I started looking to nature, right? Poetry, just day-to-day things, rain, all these things, plants, and how many lessons there are in nature, that if we just follow those rhythms, we are better. Yeah.
00:43:21
Speaker
And we are more at peace. We've forgotten that as a people. And I feel like there's an indirect backdoor here to that overarching question of why is one thing becoming more relevant? I wonder if there is a piece of that we're starting to recognize.
00:43:37
Speaker
We're better. I think culture has evolved, you know, especially at like colonial culture in America. Like we squashed out the indigenous population, but then the more and more evolved we get as a culture, it's like all these big things in popular culture right now are kind of like, oh, they had it right. Let's go back. It's just interesting to me, so.
00:44:02
Speaker
Man, we're getting to some lofty area and I tasked myself with the 1981 movie. I'm going to end up finishing up that recap, but I'm going to jump all the way to what I call the end, the end of the return.
00:44:18
Speaker
of Swamp Thing, which I've also reviewed in. I don't think it's necessary to traipse too long in that, but I want to jump all the way to the end of that movie and your rooted podcast and the mushrooms, because Heather Locklear, who plays Abby Arkane in The Return, the end of that movie around consummation, again, with the animal plant,
00:44:45
Speaker
plant has a flower or like a sprout start to come out of her foot, like that scene in Midsomer. And I remember in Midsomer and the scene if folks have seen it with the
00:45:04
Speaker
put the flesh disappearing into the plant. And so anyways, I saw that if you stick around to the end of the Return of Swamp Thing, you see a trial, a trial of that early Mitzo Marzine, I think. Let me finish up the first movie. The higher heights of Swamp Thing are beyond the movie. I wanted to finish up and give a quick summary recap of the first movie.
00:45:32
Speaker
uh... it's it's it's it's all over the place uh... but as i mentioned on trying to find the last part of the secret regeneration formula that alec holland uh... now swapping had been working on regeneration formula every aspect of the generation we see with this movie powerful as hell brings the dead back to life regenerates parts so pretty popular uh... in in useful formula
00:45:58
Speaker
This formula is still in the experimental stage when it comes to the human. And arcane, the enemy is set up to swamping is getting a better handle on getting this formula.
00:46:15
Speaker
Upon completing this formula, there is a special massive dinner at Arkane's now-looking-like-a-1980s Playboy Mansion Hall. There are extensive TNA cuts. The movie feels really weird at this point because it's just hanging out in this leering area.
00:46:35
Speaker
And of course, the cable is cabled to her cheer. She is tied to the cheer. And it's a grand betrayal here because Bruno, who is kind of a maybe Eastern European looking tough with a tight white turtleneck as part of security forces, Bruno unwittingly has been served
00:47:03
Speaker
this this serum as an experiment as the guest of honor so Not good to be the guest on her at this dinner. Okay, so we have cable secured there we have this going on Bruno turns into a horrific beast and This one Fried itself into my brain when I was kid because when I watched it again, I was like, holy shit That's what happens to Bruno. He's kind of
00:47:28
Speaker
just changes and transforms and jumps around. And there's this really insulting line that comes after it that it's like the serum, you know, this formula will show what's deeply inside of you will be reflected physically. And I'm like,
00:47:48
Speaker
This was like the one guy who was always like morally question Bruno was like looking around be like, I'm not comfortable with like shooting everybody or he's showing some doubts. And then I'm like, this is the only like one, the only morally like potentially redeemable like aspects of this. And they're like,
00:48:05
Speaker
say that he transformed into what he really is, which was just bizarre and wrong. It's like as a reflection, I'm like, the point was the opposite of that. So that part really upset me. And what happened to Bruno upset me, although Bruno helps
00:48:21
Speaker
move the story along and helps Swampy and Cable get through this later peril. I'll tell you in this movie that I always wanted cable to cable. I wish cable cabled the way she was capable of. That's the way I always felt through it.
00:48:42
Speaker
Get towards the end, the bad scene. There was a part here, M, where Bruno is engaging on a lot of funny lines and puns as he's trying to get away and disrupt the security that's there. It's like, hey, have a nice trip. And Bruno is really disrupting the progress and helping Swampy and Cable. We get to the last major battle scene.
00:49:10
Speaker
Folks, this is weird, right? If you've seen the movie, you end up with Arkane having transformed into, I don't know, Swampkin. Try to describe what Arkane looks like in a movie, if you can remember. It's a wolf man or something? It looks like something from Nothing But Trouble, if you've ever seen that movie. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Just. Hardly out of place, not
00:49:40
Speaker
intimidating other than just being unsettling. And I think the ears aren't the ears like. The ears haunted my dreams. They're off. Yeah.
00:49:55
Speaker
The ears are awful. Um, like, here's the thing that kills me in the final scene, right? And obviously all of us sitting here, we want fucking like the universe battle and we want like, like CGI right now. I want to see like plan versus meat versus like whatever's going on. But we don't get that. We get wolf, like scary ear monster holding a sword.
00:50:25
Speaker
a sword. It would be interesting to be a fly in the wall and see how they came to that conclusion, right? It's terrible. Yeah, go ahead, Swamp Kent. I don't know if this was like, because it just like confounds me with Wes Craven. I don't know, like you go through some every once in a while, like someone's filmography, something's just like,
00:50:50
Speaker
how are you capable of something that bad? When I've seen when I've seen you achieve? Like, so I don't know if he was checked out. I don't know how far this was from West Craven still making adult films. And if that was like his bread and butter at the time, because I know that's where he started out under 81. It's early on still. Yeah, so
00:51:16
Speaker
Because you would think, but then again, comic book movies were not the same thing. So this might not have been thought of as an opportunity. This might have just been, it doesn't feel like he's anywhere attached to that film. Just like you said, the way it unfolds, it's so boring for being a swamp thing to film. What it should be. Yeah, biggest thing against it is that it's just uninteresting.
00:51:46
Speaker
Well, and maybe to the two Ken's or M2, because the comics, one of the things I love about Moore's run is he really leans in and pushes the horror element, right? And it's Alec Collins. So much of those early films in most of his iterations are pulled from those comics, but it almost seems like the only thing they pulled was Alec Collins and Swamp Thing. And then everything else kind of
00:52:14
Speaker
I mean, is the werewolf there to try to lean into the horror side? Like I don't like you watch those movies and I don't personally think horror, especially 80s horror. You know what I mean? You know what I mean?
00:52:28
Speaker
They just kind of took the bare bones of it. Yeah. None of the substance. There's two pieces in there that really speak to me on it being in horror, even though it's not quite, but they're tripping out on Friday to 13. Well, it's actually one year later. They're tripping out on Friday 13th, 1980. And I tell you how they're tripping out on that stuff. It's a swamp. It's a forest. Doesn't matter. It's all green around. Right. So there's danger around there.
00:52:55
Speaker
and there's an encampment, so there's some interior type of scenes. Also, Harry Manfredini does the soundtrack. He did the soundtrack for all the Friday the 13th, though the audio and the sound and the soundtrack, whether you want it or not, you're thinking of Friday the 13th as well. It is a variation of a Friday the 13th. I'll tell you one more.
00:53:18
Speaker
That is Friday the 13th is the huge buildup where of course cable being threatened in this particular instance, I think by being drowned in the lake.
00:53:31
Speaker
uh... in the in the box and when swamping you waiting waiting she's pulled down you like uh... you know you they're you like something's gonna happen right now it's building up swamping comes out not quite like but like the last scene in friday the thirteenth with jason popping out of the water shock
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah, okay. It's not the same and it's almost a little bit better because Swamp Thing's like, boom, take my freaking plant hand and whoop, I'm gonna whip your ass out. So the piece with it being about a year and maybe Friday the 13th is maybe part two is somewhere right around this time.
00:54:11
Speaker
It's weird because there's two horror attempts, maybe. There's a horror attempt to duplicate what's going on within the genre right there, and there's a horror attempt with the kind of creature from the Black Lagoon, campy 50s. This is what we're cutting to, and we're doing this. It's like trying in both ways, in my thinking.
00:54:34
Speaker
Right. It's really fascinating to me about that how we're kind of like trying to connect the dots between what was made around that time. We think about like so the year before that this was like 1982 and 81. We already got the second Halloween where Michael Myers kind of becomes this otherworldly figure. We get the burning which is like all in itself like a
00:55:01
Speaker
big cash in on Friday 13th in terms of like the like the format. We get something like Fun House, which is kind of like always back and forth on people kind of like how they see Toby Hooper with that. But at least it's kind of like him creatively kind of trying to move outside of
00:55:28
Speaker
what he was known for. But we also get the first Evil Dead in like scanners too. So it's weird to me like when we look at this film, like kind of all the influences that were bubbling up at the time and perhaps Hollywood stirring to kind of see how lucrative horror films can be when you put a bit of time into them or at least a little bit of like faith. But man, it just even then when we start looking at those other films, this one just
00:55:53
Speaker
land so much more awkwardly. It's like even on the thematic or the content or the writing or the lines or the omnipresent nihilism's potential sexual assault. I mean, the women in it are always
00:56:13
Speaker
subjected to that threat near immediately, whether it's degradation of what they're doing. And, you know, there's some to be said about like the piece that's just unsavory of like, why still so embedded, right? Like the tonal, like the tonal piece, like why
00:56:34
Speaker
Why is there no space to even exist within this? And it's probably even just the patriarchal payoff of swamping, you know, doing it at the end. But like I said, I got attached to a cable that never existed in this movie.
00:56:55
Speaker
We got a boom beyond the movies what I want to say about the quickly about the return of a Swamp thing is that I believe us want Kenny said you like this one a bit better than the other my guess and you could comment on this would be that
00:57:14
Speaker
What it was attempting to do, it might have more successfully landed. What I would say early on is with Heather Locklear, one of the strangest opens in a movie that you'll see. You're thrown into this. Now, you know it's the return of Swamp Thing, but it's you're in the 80s LA flower shop.
00:57:41
Speaker
where Abby, you find Abby arcane, her stepdad is arcane, has flowers. There's a slightly annoyed, distracted African-American woman friend, or she might work at the store watching TV or watching her stories.
00:58:03
Speaker
And Abby has groups of flowers with names on them. And if you do this, I'm just totally fine. No worries. Groups of flowers with names on them. So they have identities and they have grouped identities. And she's talking to them as an audience about guy problems or people problems.
00:58:24
Speaker
So it seems as in this dynamic, the one who's not paying attention, the African-American woman watching her stories that her audience is these flowers. And this is kind of like the cold, like open of of introduction, this character. And you can only say, whoa, whoa. All right. What's going on here? That's how it started. It ended with the Midsomer thing.
00:58:52
Speaker
mind-boggling casting of Heather Locklear in that part. But I think what I love so much about this movie is like for all the decisions
00:59:03
Speaker
that don't seem to be anywhere in line with the subject matter, like the source material, at least it's interesting in this one, that it does kind of veer off into so bad it's good with it. I'm not even sure who directs this film. I have to go check that. I thought I had that down. Swamp Thing drives a fucking jeep. Yeah. He drives a jeep. Get away.
00:59:33
Speaker
In this, we get these explosions, boom, any reason for an explosion, even more than the pontoon boats, which excited me, still exciting me from the first one. Explosion, cars almost spontaneously exploding to blow through the budget. Swamp on a Jeep. There's some aspects on there. It felt good to me. It felt wrong.
00:59:55
Speaker
It felt wrong. I mean, even just hearing it like this is so I'm really struggling to picture what's happening. Oh, and you can smell the petrol. It's all terrible. But there's some part like it's like I'm going to I'm going to do something dirty. I'm going to watch this dirty thing with Swamp Thing, him fucking burning fossil fuel, fucking rescuing the heroin, taking bazooka shots like that. Yeah.
01:00:23
Speaker
James Cameron, action approach to Alien, right? It's like, we're going to shift gears here and now we're just going to go all on Schwarzenegger. I gotta tell you, before I leave all the movies behind and we get into the good territory, this is the last, last piece of it. The Return of Swamp Thing is
01:00:43
Speaker
a truly bizarre movie and it's really different than the first one there's these kids in it that are perpetually like yelling and angry and bad acting and drinking soda and looking at porno mags and dealing with like monsters and trying to get this shot of swampy with the camera always yelling at each other in in in just upset and this movie forgets about him
01:01:12
Speaker
So every time they pull them back in, you're like, oh shit, the kids have been out there for 40 minutes living on their own. Where the heck are they now? They keep trying to pull them back in. So I don't know what to say about the two movies, but I will say that
01:01:36
Speaker
Return of Swamp Thing feels like quite the romp. Heather Locklear truly diving into Damsel in distress. She has some pluckiness, but it's mostly with her wit.
01:01:52
Speaker
She's trying to solve a Southern LA humor in the American South, and they're not digging the California girl. There are threats to her, including some backyard bayou boys. The American South is depicted in a horrific caricature, and so the Southern
01:02:18
Speaker
American might not take two elements of this film. Those are the two films, folks. I'm trying to hack my, well, I want to hack my way through that with the machete. I would carefully maneuver between all plant life to get through that slog. I just tried with those. I want anybody to say anything about the movies and let's talk Alan more.
01:02:45
Speaker
Just what I think is really interesting about the first and second movie is that when you look at the trajectory of the careers of the guys who directed them, they are polar opposites of each other. So we think of Wes Craven, who like started out doing like low budget adult films to kind of like make his bones as a director and then over the years,
01:03:07
Speaker
became this really lauded and respected. Even when he was working within genres, we always kind of thought of him as being able to be exceptional with how he used the genre. Jim Wenorski, I guess, the exact opposite
01:03:25
Speaker
career to where his first couple films are going to be what he is remembered for. He did like Chopping Mall in the second Swamp Thing. He made Sorority House, Masker 2, like all these films that are kind of in his cult canon. And then as he developed his career, he started doing like more and more like soft core adult films for like Cinemax and like HBO and stuff. And it's
01:03:53
Speaker
Like just the exact direction of like up there because it's like you go through his trajectory. It's just early off like late 90s early aughts like Skinemax is just like his filmography.
01:04:09
Speaker
And I think that goes into a lot of how he approached this film is that he had such a kind of slapstick camp way about the material that it didn't feel as out of place, even though he's giving the thumbs up and driving a Jeep and everything like that. There's like a real playfulness to it that I think ages so much better than some of the kind of morose aspects of the first one.
01:04:38
Speaker
All right, come on, tell us what's going on in that being of yours. What's going on? I mean, I haven't seen the second one. I'm honestly still just trying to picture like Swamp Thing driving a Jeep that has really thrown me. That's going to be like a thing for the rest of my day. Thank you.
01:04:59
Speaker
Uh, but that's really, I mean, we can get into like the plant theories I have. You have the, you have to now. Okay. Now, like, well, we've been like, I had to, had to get through those movies in a complicated movies. Let's, let's, there's a lot there. Let's, let's talk. Okay.
01:05:17
Speaker
Okay so my biggest theory is what is Swamp Thing? I mean we all know he's kind of supposed to be an amalgamation of like all the things of the swamp but my brain can never just like leave it there. A weird fascination I have is like breaking down fictional plants into like what their realistic planty counterparts are or would be. So of course I have to do it with Swamp Thing, I can't not. So my biggest theory is that he's actually comprised of
01:05:46
Speaker
Kudzu vine, which is this very specific vine. It's known as the vine that has engulfed the South. It takes over everything. So we actually got it as a gift from Japan as part of, I believe, one of the world's fairs. And it was really popular for a very long time as kind of a ground cover plant because it's truly unstoppable. Can you mention carefully maneuvering plant matter? Not this thing. You could burn it. You could chop it. It doesn't care.
01:06:14
Speaker
It will continue growing. It's more prolific than bamboo even. And bamboo at its most vigorous growth can grow probably like a couple inches a day. This stuff can go even further than that. It's wild. And so it literally has
01:06:31
Speaker
engulfed like full buildings and in some instances if it was allowed to like it would engulf full towns so there's an old Japanese folklore kind of tale that goes around that the reason you need to close your windows at night is because if you don't the kudzu vine will crawl up into your house and like take over your house and there are like buildings in the south that are absolutely covered with this stuff
01:06:55
Speaker
and it's prolifically invasive throughout all the American south including in the swamp. So for that reason obviously we know he can kind of regenerate really quickly and gets a lot of energy from the sun and can kind of exist anywhere obviously most comfortable in the swamp but he's able to kind of walk on water and like get out of the water and do that kind of stuff so
01:07:19
Speaker
For that reason, I think that's the most likely plant. He could also be a Virginia creeper if we want to stick with like native plants to the swamp, which is a different, it's kind of a variety of ivy, essentially, but it's still a prolific vine. But I think he's katsubine and he is therefore an unstoppable force. Wow. I don't know what to do with this revelation.
01:07:46
Speaker
I mean, this is this is a humble podcast. I mean, we always strive for the highest things. But whoa. Connecting Swamp Thing to that old Japanese folktale, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's an unrelenting force. People in the South warned their close your windows at night. Otherwise, the Swamp Thing will come get you. We'll get you. Yeah.
01:08:10
Speaker
I listened to Em's episode on Bamboo. And it frightened me when she was talking about the tortures of bamboo growing through people. Thank you, Em. You thanked me for a couple of things, including the first swamp thing directed by Wes Craven. Thank you. I can thank you for that one. The bamboo growing through people is a torture.
Adaptations and Vertigo's Influence
01:08:34
Speaker
And I immediately thought about horror films I want to make. And I'm like, shit.
01:08:39
Speaker
I mean, fingers crossed in the new Swamp Thing thing. Maybe they'll show him like shooting vines over people and like growing inside them as some kind of scary body horror. That will scar me. Actually, I take it back. I take it back. I don't want to see that. I think the show had elements of that. I haven't seen the show yet. There's like two cuts, I think, from like the
01:09:04
Speaker
more family friendly cut and then the one where it's like rated M.A. for mature because he's because they'll kind of see you'll see in like the fight scenes they kind of putt fairly quickly. But I think in the kind of like underrated version, he is like kind of ripping people in half and kind of like leaning much more into that kind of like Cronin-Bergian part of the story.
01:09:32
Speaker
Which I know is delightful and terrifying. Yes. And like the the animated DC universe.
01:09:42
Speaker
He definitely leans into more. This was like Justice League. He's a member of Justice League Dark. And he's one of the officially a Justice League. I love that team. I love that. And and he's just an absolute badass. And it's almost going back to the nihilism, though. It's almost like interesting. Like that character is absolutely, I think, pulled from the more version of it. But then at the later end, we're like at the end of
01:10:08
Speaker
At the end of Moore's run, it's only Abby Arkane that is maintaining any sense of his humanity. If it wasn't for her, he would disconnect and just leave humanity behind. But it's interesting in those cartoons, he could care less about the world. It's a lot of it times as John Constantine tricking him to care about humanity. Like, hey, the humans are going to die.
01:10:32
Speaker
It sounds like John Constantine. Yeah, exactly. Well, in that case, he's just completely manipulating him, right? Well, in that case, then he's like, if the humans die, the plants will be great. So this is a win. And then he's like, yeah, but then the plants will go after that. And then he's vines just going into the machines and just ripping things apart and destroying the industrialization, right? Which ends up helping the Justice League or the Justice League Dark.
01:10:59
Speaker
But that is my favorite part of John Constantine. He's just. I love that that that group, you know, the Justice League, Justice League Dark. And one of the one of the things I found fascinating is I I read more. I read more issues, more content.
01:11:24
Speaker
of Hellblazer Constantine than I have Swamp Thing. And I didn't realize that because I had read a bunch of Swamp Thing when I was younger in different type of periods, but I was so into Hellblazer Constantine that I almost forgot it was like a Swamp Thing. Like I always knew, but I was almost
01:11:42
Speaker
so into all of that Constantine. I went through a heavy period with that, so in my head they reconstituted or you look at Justice League Dark and the recombination of Swamping and Constantine. I love that. I mean, Constantine's fucking great, even if you hate him, because
01:12:00
Speaker
You know he's smoking, he's drinking, he's having sex, he's doing the best possible like spells you can fucking imagine. He's a trickster. He's kind of bad or having to do something dirty to kind of get things done for the greater good.
01:12:15
Speaker
a ton of fun. And when I was looking at the Alan Moore and seeing Kane and Abel in the House of Mystery and Secrets, I hadn't gone back after all the gaming stuff and Sandman and Kane and Abel characters who show up House of Mysteries, House of Secrets.
01:12:35
Speaker
I love how Gaiman just plucked them out of that more. Like you look at them and sometimes it's not the, he's making a creative choice. I ain't taking these characters and how they are. And now they're in my universe. And I fucking, I just love that. Right. When I thought I would have guessed that Gaiman created them.
01:12:56
Speaker
I held that in my head of ignorance for a certain amount of time. When I read Sandman years ago and then reread it, even when I heard the show was coming, I'm like, oh, these are such brilliant creations and this is game and just plucking from the Bible or mythology. And then finding out that Alan Moore actually created them. And I think it was because of Alan Moore when the switch, right, when DC had to create Vertigo, like the adult comic, right?
01:13:24
Speaker
And then the woman that was editing Alan Moore's comic book took that over. And then Alan Moore was like, oh yeah, you should meet this guy, Neil. He's a pretty great writer and he's got a cool idea for a story. Like Alan Moore is the reason we have Sandman. And it's interesting how much more elevated Sandman grew and became, right?
01:13:42
Speaker
Absolutely. I think we always, or at least like when it comes to conversations on comic books, it's interesting to like think that Marvel, Max and Vertigo are sometimes kind of considered like the more like edgelord offshoots of, and they were, but man, for like the time that they came out, they were so incredibly
01:14:11
Speaker
do I want to say they were kind of like the catalysts for like all of these kind of like more edgy or maybe like more adult themes but just like the kind of creativity that the like the directors and artistic minds took those like like because you would have some like when I would read like the Punisher man there's like satire and subtlety
01:14:32
Speaker
kind of and that comic is really just about like the brutality of watching this character but like you would have different like Constantine especially when it came to like just talking about smoking and cancer and that's going to be the whole crux of one of the stories it really really fascinating how they kind of like not even elevated the medium but showed you
01:14:57
Speaker
the possibilities of it. Yeah, well, like all this commentary started becoming a regular thing, right? And like it became not just, and I think that's what separates even the Swamp Thing run before to Moors, right? And then why Moors run became so pivotal. And even like Swamp Thing, different iterations afterwards, you read different, like people, and some people are just like, oh, I want to go back and do this wonderful nod to the original, which is great.
01:15:24
Speaker
But then it like doesn't go down, but it kind of sidesteps what Swamp Thing became. I think Scott Snyder did a good job with the new 52 reboot. I didn't even realize because I just read his Batman run, right? I didn't even realize until years later what he did. He rebooted Batman Swamp Thing and like two others and like at the same time. And it's just brilliant. I like Batman and Swamp Thing. It always feels like kind of weird, but it always feels like
01:15:53
Speaker
Since it was in Batman, it was one of the early comics to incorporate the early issues into the universe. Em, you dig on Hellblazer Constantine stuff? Not quite as much. I read Alan more, but I read more like Watchmen V for Vendetta after Swamp Thing. I think just because I was in college and that was like what I had time for. But going back, I probably will do more of a deep dive into these others.
01:16:21
Speaker
One of the things I love about, but I think I cut someone off. No, I was just saying that pretty.
01:16:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think especially with the newer iterations of Hellblazer, they get to play with things that had been touched on before, like constantly being bisexual, which was something that I think they kind of like worked through earlier on in the comic, but now they kind of like in ways of kind of exploring it without being exploitative of what they're trying to do. It's really, really fascinating. Yeah.
01:16:57
Speaker
What is interesting is you mentioned like the Vertigo label earlier, the newest rerelease of like the saga of the Swamp Thing with more is the first time any of the Swamp Thing more and post more has ever been published by DC that doesn't even have the Vertigo label on it. It's like, yeah, it's just a weird thing. Like in the comic book industry, it's like it took however many years and now it's like, okay, now we can officially call this DC. It's like,
01:17:27
Speaker
yeah it's like not nearly as um you almost like kind of think back to like the difference between cartoon network and adult swim at the time there had to be that kind of split it's just like what they packaged it as where else people would kind of freak out same channel but after this point in time like the shows are going to be more alternative and it's interesting now that it's just like the
01:17:53
Speaker
Like if you go on like Adult Swim's app, there's like two network shows. But it's interesting that I think just looking at like what Alan Moore had to work through at the time in terms of like what kind of like obstacles or like creative limitations he might have in terms of what he wants to talk about. Now it's kind of just.
01:18:14
Speaker
bedrock of good storytelling is how he kind of laid out those, those stories. Really, really enjoyed the discussion and the editor Karen Berger. Yeah. Looked to create the Vertigo imprint and some of the things with Swamp Thing and some titles I mentioned, Shade the Changing Man, you saw Constantine Hellblazer. And what I endured is that there was something so cool going on, maybe still is going on yet incredible.
01:18:43
Speaker
Art covers, dynamic art covers, psychedelic, shade the changing man, revamping of characters you had, just some good mature writing, good writing about life and characters.
01:19:01
Speaker
So those things were important. They were important for me at that time, and it's so deeply connected to this. And I think even creatively, too, I've never kind of apprised for myself how important those things have been of having Sandman number one when I first started getting into it. I get a death tattoo. Yes. You know, peachy keen tattoo from
01:19:25
Speaker
from from from issue issue eight in how prominent so i want to tell you the practically how prominent uh... that uh... that neil gaiman and his ex-wife amanda pomer bent me and that neil gaiman a couple times he had written his book good old man's i met him in boston kind of kind of like meet near your like literary uh... god and but also uh...
01:19:50
Speaker
with Amanda Palmer and her influence on me on the show of her book, The Art of Asking, and going in and asking questions and being the philosopher and taking risks and going into places where you might get booed and you know like kind of like rejection type of like going all in and
01:20:13
Speaker
So I think about them too like two people in that part as far as the influence Creatively, you know, and it's around a swamp thing discussion It's around like the you know, like the comic books and the potential for Creativity and the thing is what comics for me? You know comics are super strange geeky whatever but for me comics were always mine
01:20:40
Speaker
in my world. And it was almost like, like new music you listen to being like, yeah, I want to share it, but I don't want it to get fucked up. Like, I just want to, I want to enjoy my, I want to enjoy my thing. Is that you mentioned earlier, almost being worried about the new film. Is that part of it?
01:21:00
Speaker
well sense when you're sensitive to your characters and i don't get of like in this whole kind of fan debate like it i just don't participate in it but i could now on that question i feel myself towards it cuz like i would say like it's the type of thing when you have to comics and you see the comics movies right so you any of us could might be able to talk about these characters in a very particular way and other people who know the the movie tv type of thing what are you talking about that's not part of the
01:21:29
Speaker
what I saw in the movie, part of who they are. So like the who they are part of it. I think Swamp Thing is such an incredible character that like you won't
01:21:43
Speaker
at the end, you can't mess him up at the end of the day. Unless like you're completely like willful being like, I want to eradicate the usefulness of this character. I am worried though, maybe as a fan or something. I guess part of me was like, I was blown away when I read the, when I, you know, I heard that the DC had released the slate of all the movies are going to make for their first part. And I'm going through and I was like, that makes sense. That's cool. Oh, that's interesting. And then I get the swamp thing and I was just like,
01:22:12
Speaker
what like massive directors too um i don't remember the like big like i'm gonna if they're gonna fill fit it in between one of the new star wars type of things so i'm forgetting i think it's james mangal
01:22:27
Speaker
who may, you know, he's made some incredible, you know, he's done the Logan, like one of the best, you know, superhero movies, maybe more recently. But it was just, I thought it was rad, like, it opened up, like, if they're going with if they're making him so prominently, to me, it was like,
01:22:45
Speaker
as we're talking about kind of the obscure corners, right? Like Neil Gaiman. What I love about Neil Gaiman is like his stories are so freaking weird. Sandman, all of these things, when they were coming out, they were edgy and weird and it was obscure. They're so weird. It was like punk rock not intended to become popular, right? Like...
01:23:02
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, every one of Neil Gaiman's stories is being made into a film or a TV show. And like Alan Moore, the popularity is like explosive. And like all the things I loved as a child that were kind of like made fun of are now actually cornerstones of pop culture. And it's like exciting, but weird and
01:23:22
Speaker
But if they're bringing swampy into it, that's just the door that opens up this massive corner of the obscurity of the DC universe, which has never really been explored. And maybe that's what James Gunn and what's the other guy's name we're trying to go after, right? We'll see. Hey, Swampkin, after this question that I'll lodge at M, I want you to talk about what I
Symbols and Unique Merchandise
01:23:45
Speaker
know
01:23:45
Speaker
less of as the animated series after I asked and this question. So now here's some of the things I noticed within the orchids in Swamp Thing and in the movie and you see all the flora and such within the comic book.
01:24:07
Speaker
So with that, when I was watching the Swamp Thing movie, my head could not get around in Twin Peaks, the character that Laura Palmer visits, oh, I'm forgetting his name right now, who is attending to the orchards very delicately and the orchards representing the Laura Palmer's kind of the delicacy of it or something like that.
01:24:36
Speaker
Orchids are big and of course the quick seduction scene between Cable and Alec Holland out on the boat getting the tour is expositions about the orchids and the grand beauty of the universe and love. In one scene I saw a swamping huffin
01:24:59
Speaker
I call it Huffin. He was really getting in there to sniff that orchid. There's like freaking orchid. So we can't leave the territory of the swamping discussion with about some of the orchid necessary information and what you saw.
01:25:17
Speaker
Yeah. So well, first the orchids they use in the movie, I just want to be real clear. Those are not native orchids. Okay. They definitely got those at like Trader Joe's, like slapped them into the ground. It was very distracting for my brain because I was sitting there going, what orchid is that? And like, do you think they just left them there?
01:25:37
Speaker
my husband had to literally be like, please watch the movie, like we're not here to discuss the orchid conundrum you've now gotten us involved in. But those are not native orchids, but we do have orchids that are native to several different regions within the United States. In Louisiana, I believe out of all the different counties they have, 60 of 65 have native orchid species.
01:26:01
Speaker
which is very interesting given the range in that state of climate types and obviously like as we get into Florida and much of the American South that is where most of our native orchid species live and orchids have always perplexed us partially because they are so beautiful and delicate but they're also very resilient in their native habitat so I think
01:26:23
Speaker
They become widely used as a symbol of the delicate balance of nature, where when everything is right and balanced, it can be really, really beautiful and extremely unique. But it's also very delicate. It's very delicate balance. And so we have to be careful about keeping our conditions balanced to be able to support that beauty. And I think that's kind of why those orchids make sense. And that movie is really about kind of balancing that dichotomy.
01:26:50
Speaker
the orchids in there. And it wasn't because of the scientific basis, which made it probably difficult for you to watch or to somehow get through that amount of time. But when they show up on the screen, I'm like, those things look like they're from outer space, man. I don't know. It's like the color scheme. It's like, you know, there's this cool, you know, swampy. And when the cuts in there with the graveyard or the kind of flooded out, they kind of like creepy area. And then there's like
01:27:19
Speaker
alien flower look like. Yeah, no, and I think that's what's so interesting about or kids. They never really look normal or in place and they're also different. So I think that's one of the reasons that or kids perplex so many of us is they always kind of look like they've been dropped.
01:27:35
Speaker
out of space into nature. Especially if you haven't, I would encourage you to do like a quick search of native orchids in Louisiana. A lot of them look very scary. And there's the ghost orchid, which I think is like everyone's orchid. If you're an orchid fan listening, hello.
01:27:52
Speaker
But ghost orchids don't even have leaves. So they photosynthesize just through their roots and most orchids don't have roots that go on the ground. So they all have aerial roots, they grow from like the humidity in the air. That's why that's so important to them. And that's why if you have an orchid, you have to get that special medium is because they go through aerial roots and these roots have evolved to just photosynthesize themselves so they don't have
01:28:16
Speaker
leaves of any kind, which is so what are you telling us him? I know. They're so cool. They're so cool. We'll talk about them on the show at some point. I won't take like four hours on them. But they're really interesting. They bring us a lot of really interesting things like vanilla bean is famously from orchids. So yeah, we could talk about I could talk about orchids for like eight days. But wow.
01:28:41
Speaker
We have the problem of trying to figure out how to handle material over time, but I am fascinated by what I heard. And maybe there's more to the orchid than just a seduction technique by a creeping, lurking doctor.
01:29:01
Speaker
over the new recruitee from Washington, D.C. after the last two operators, workers got eaten up by crocodiles. Hopefully it's much more than that. I think certainly it's much more than that.
01:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely is getting us back out of that realm. Swamp Ken, does the animation, the cartoon that you know well do justice to the delicacy of the orchid, or is this a different enterprise? No, I think it's 100% in line with all of the intentions and ideologies of the orchid.
01:29:47
Speaker
now when i first listened to the and i did watch some of the animated show um was the theme along the lines of wild thing except it was swamp thing yeah incredible uh like going back and watching that show you can see how clearly it is just them saying let's take captain planet and mash that up with the toxic avenger series because it's that's all it is and it's
01:30:17
Speaker
It could be better. I watched a few episodes this morning and was just waiting for it to get sick of it. It didn't happen. I could just have it on loop. And it's probably what I did when I was younger and why I was so enamored with it. I think the drawing and animation style,
01:30:44
Speaker
really, really lovely. And just like the approach to storytelling is just boneheaded and just what they lean into what the show is supposed to be, which is just like early 90s, just explosions, kind of like X-Men fights. It was awesome. I would recommend it. It's on Pluto TV, so it's free.
01:31:12
Speaker
I was going to ask, I want to go watch it right now. Yeah, I think, yeah. And the theme song is Wild Thing. So they paid the rights to get Wild Thing. That blew my mind, because it's just the song. It's a swamp thing. And I'm like, that's cool. I'm thinking. And it's bit in my head, like every then I remember it. And then it's in my head all day. And they like do they rewrite the rest of the song because I think they have like
01:31:41
Speaker
Versus in like the outro that they yeah, it's rewritten. It's like I I mean I was startled You know and I'm like cuz I immediately thought of the rights question Which is probably not the aesthetic thing that they want me thinking of me how the fuck you do that? No, it's a lot of money just to throw in You know a good portion of the good portion of the of the of the budget. Um, I
01:32:06
Speaker
It's a weird time for animation. I think you would agree Swamp Ken and maybe others early 1990s in the elements that you're talking about being.
01:32:15
Speaker
attempting to be combined in that type of way. I wanted to tell listeners just for the quick piece, I had told the panelists about my Swamp Thing Funko Pop. And what's really strange about it that I told and I still know is a bit disturbing to our incredible expert, Em, but the Swamp Thing Funko, well, it's not plastic, right?
01:32:45
Speaker
No plastics went into the making of this Funko Pop. It's a weird green, felty, dust catching. It's not a very practical, useful item.
01:33:00
Speaker
Its special feature was smelling like a glade or carpet freshener that you put on your carpet, highly artificial, and it smells that way. And I've had this for five or six years, and I told the panel that if you scratch it, unlike some of those little children books where you had scratched and sniffed all you ever could, this swamp thing still smells, which makes me shudder at the chemicals involved.
01:33:27
Speaker
with this, the avatar of the plants, the great protector, maybe the reason why there's something rather than nothing smells like a carpet.
01:33:38
Speaker
I don't know. So Swamp Ken, thank you so much for directing us towards the animated. I wanted to mention some pieces maybe for our thinking, kind of telling the some listeners, you know, things we were talking about back behind this.
Legacy, Relevance, and Future Topics
01:33:57
Speaker
The Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing is a famous run. We haven't gone into a lot of back history. Maybe we'll do that in the future. But the early issues from Len Wien
01:34:08
Speaker
and Bernie Wrightson, which created a swamp thing and some of the canon stories and characters and names you'll find beautiful, incredible work. Many writers that we respect have had their hand at this. Brian K. Vaughn,
01:34:28
Speaker
who's known for the saga, incredible saga comic series, Mark Millar of kick-ass fame and other titles. Jeff Lemire, one of my favorite comic book writers period had a hand at swamping in a series called
01:34:50
Speaker
green hell when it comes to Hellblazer some of the comics that I mentioned I truly adore Peter Milligan's writing on Hellblazer and Constantine The animated series that Swamp can refer to Craig went deep into into Alan Moore this Swamp thing return of the Swamp thing we're talking about DC you a movie coming out
01:35:19
Speaker
When I dropped into this and trying to talk about Swamp Thing, I did not know how much was there. I was really surprised. There's the Justice League Dark with Swamp Thing on it.
01:35:35
Speaker
I wanted to just kind of mention some of the things in the background of everything we're talking about here. Any other pieces, any of the panelists bumped into or feel worthy of mention besides my other weird Funko Pop carpet freshener swung thing? I think they made a novelization of each of the movies too, which is like so counter like,
01:36:04
Speaker
If the movies are such a simplified version and then they just make that back into a novel. So it's. I am deeply fascinated by the novelization because what if.
01:36:20
Speaker
The cable that I want exists in those written words and the Wes Craven trap and what they wanted to do with great actress fighter Adrienne Barbeau was not up to all her capabilities and what it should have been. I am going to look for those novelizations. I've been reading comic books around this era and it popped into and I'll share these pictures with the show.
01:36:44
Speaker
pictures of how this was advertised in comics, the Swamp Thing. I got a beautiful kind of smaller paperback collection of the original run, kind of a tough item to find in black and white. So it bumped into a lot more of wonderful things. But I think what will be interesting is when we see that single movie and some of the dynamics, we talk about what
01:37:12
Speaker
what might happen. I think it would be so cool to have like somehow corral all the power and everything a swamp thing. And I haven't talked to him about this any writing or
01:37:27
Speaker
consultant work that needs to be done regarding plants. I'm sure M. Grabner Gaddis would be interested at any sort of union rate work regarding consultation for plants on this or other aspects of the lore. I want to ask each one of you in kind of looking to wrap up here. I'm going to start with Craig.
01:37:57
Speaker
Why is Swamp Thing important? I think for a lot of reasons. I think on a, not even a shallow level, but on maybe a more personal level that I think we've all expressed. I think he and other characters like him, I always think about, especially as a writer and someone that loves stories, I think about why certain characters are in culture more than others and why they're important.
01:38:25
Speaker
Like, I think Batman is probably one of the single most famous superheroes, right? Why do his movies make more money? Why has he sold more comics in history than any other character? I think there's an element about him, and this is going to Swamp Thing. But, you know, I think he represents a lot of our human plights. Like, he is this frail or kind of cracked bean in a shattered world. I think that kind of reflects us. But Swamp Thing, I think,
01:38:56
Speaker
kind of almost represents this obscurity in culture. So like lovers of that like us. And then as you know, he's kind of coming into popularity. I think the culture is shifting a lot, right? And we're seeing kind of, he's also this really awesome nod. I meant to mention this earlier. He's an incredible nod to like classic monster stories. Whereas you were comparing Ken to,
01:39:21
Speaker
like the other horror movies of the era. And it was interesting, because in all the other ones, that monster is the bad guy. But in Swamp Thing, one of the things I love about Swamp Thing is that he's the monster, but he's the hero. He's... And I think there's something innately actually human about that, regardless of how much he loses his humanity. But I think in more kind of...
01:39:45
Speaker
terms maybe with more gravity, like in the world we're living in today, right? We're in an era like the Anthropocene that's one of the driving forces of the modern world is humans' relationship with nature. And are we destroying it? Are we going to finally reconcile and do that? And part of me wants to believe that Swamp Thing's becoming more and more relevant because he is the champion of the green, the forest.
01:40:14
Speaker
And he is actually pretty indifferent to people in a lot of iterations, right? And there's this element of, like we were talking in some of the cartoon movies even, where it's like, hey, the people are going to die. And he's just like, that's great. Plants will thrive. But here we are. We have this being that's part human, part plant, literally the physical embodiment of that. I'm excited and thrilled to see where that type of story goes.
01:40:43
Speaker
as we try to reconcile that. And, you know, as we try to thrive as a species. And then there's this dark reality to it. Like, I've been thinking about since, you know, coming on here with you guys is, well, even if and when people go away, life will still be here. The world will still be here. Plants will still be here. And there's something scary and profound about that, right? Swamp thing will still be here.
01:41:13
Speaker
yeah yeah word up uh swamp can swamp can uh why uh why swamp thing important oh swamp thing is important to me it's one of the gateways into weird art i think even when this show came out i don't know exactly who they were
01:41:37
Speaker
marketing it to me. But I think at the time there were so many cartoons like The Toxic Avenger, Swamp Thing, Street Sharks. There's just this kind of like love of mutation in like the early 90s, which I don't think we get that much of now. And it's interesting for me to look back on all these shows
01:42:01
Speaker
And even in the approach to drawing, the approach to line and mark making, how much of that has at least stayed when I look at my work now or how it's developed, how big of a part it played and how it seemed to always kind of find a way to influence me. So I think as the character kind of evolves across different mediums,
01:42:31
Speaker
And there's always like different ways to like engage with the story, which I think means a lot to all of us. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks, Mom. Ken, everybody, make sure you check out the paintings of Kenneth Nicholson, the writing and art of Craig Randall. M. M.
01:42:54
Speaker
You drop some straight up truth, forward moving theory, basically potentially about the constitution of swamping in and of swamping self. But why is swamping important to you?
01:43:10
Speaker
Um, well, I discovered Swamp Thing at a time in my life where I was really struggling with my mental health and really struggling to feel like a whole person and I think that's obviously kind of fundamental to him as well as he battles with like his own feelings of humanity and his role in the world as it's changing. So I think that really spoke to me and I think it speaks to
01:43:30
Speaker
a lot of us not only on the panel, but just in general as we get more confident and open talking about our mental health and as we're forced to really reckon with how humanity fits in with nature and how it can be so beautiful to evolve in nature and be a part of it and how we feel great when we're a part of it, but also see like the kind of threatening or scarier side of nature and the fact that it is an unrelenting force and it will go on with or without us.
01:43:58
Speaker
So I think that's kind of why we're seeing it become more and more relevant today. It's really powerful too and I even connected in my head because we end up bouncing around it but you know like thinking just more deeply as far as the constitution of who we are I get you know I've been a I've been a vegan for 27 years and this might sound like the strangest thing in the world but I haven't thought about like
01:44:22
Speaker
That or within the context of this discussion, I'm thinking about like constituent properties like I am more plant or like, you know, like that that type of idea and tied to
01:44:35
Speaker
Um, like just kind of like the environmental, uh, components in that indifference, right? Like thinking about Swamp Thing having an indifference. It'd be fucking lame if like Swamp Thing was like, Oh, I have no like direct connection anymore. But those, you know, fumbling fools deserve my like pity and symphonies. Like, like you were saying, uh, Swamp Can, like,
01:44:57
Speaker
Hellblazer going in, like, let me trick you, like, care about these people because, like, they're fucking everything up, right? But no, I really, I really, I really enjoyed the discussion and thinking about
01:45:17
Speaker
Um, the mental health, I thought about, there's a piece there that no matter what, I think whether it works or not, but even with the movies or any of the stories that are told around swamping is that loneliness, right? Is that like, when we think about humanity, less humanity more is like, we can kind of maybe giggle about it, you know, because if it seems schlocky, but underneath it, like everybody's looking at and being like, okay, what's this nice, like seemingly, you know,
01:45:48
Speaker
Powerful figure who's trying to regenerate give life and trying to protect like You know like what do you do? You know and um, I don't it seems rather rather rather fertile and Jeez, uh here it is Swamp thing rather than nothing
01:46:13
Speaker
Um, this, this, this is, this is the episode, the panel episode. I want to thank you artists and creators so much for your contributions to what I called at the beginning. This is going to be a monster. Okay. This is going to be a monster. And, uh, I think we, we, we got it. Want to thank you for all your thinking, uh, about swamp thing, uh, future episodes thinking about the, the thing or.
01:46:42
Speaker
Hellblazer, Constantine. Goodness gracious, I heard it mentioned at least two or three times the greatest superhero ever from Northern New Jersey, the toxic Avenger. Yes. As I won't even say anymore, but coming out of this conversation, the strongest, most durable protector of Northern New Jersey, the toxic Avenger, that could be a topic.
01:47:11
Speaker
Thank you folks. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, Swamp Thing Rather Than Nothing episode. Peace out. This is something rather than nothing.