Roots Of The Swamp Thing: Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, The Un-Men And More

Roots of the Swamp Thing: Your Portal to the Universe of Swamp Thing, The Un-Men and John Constantine: Hellblazer

• Part 1: Before Year 1
• Part 2: Year 1 to 1899
• Part 3: 1900 to 1969
• Part 4: 1970 to 1979
• Part 5: 1980 to 1984
• Part 6: 1985 to 1988
• Part 7: 1989 to 1991
• Part 8: 1992 to 1994
• Part 9: 1995 to 1999
• Part 10: 2000 to Present

Born on the Bayou
A history and introduction

Creature Features
Articles and feature stories

Cover Gallery
Judge the books by the covers

In the Swamplight
Issue-by-issue breakdowns

Elemental Lineage
Past lives and other entities

Upcoming Releases
Coming to a bog near you

What's New Bayou?
Archived news updates

About Me
Portrait of a swamp-nerd

Homepage
Go back to the roots

Contact Me
Comments, corrections & tubers

Thanks to Joe Bongiorno, who first dragged me kicking and screaming into the mucky mythos of Swamp Thing, and to Paul Giachetti, who created the amazing header banner.

Thanks also to reader 'Alec Holland,' whose support has been invaluable; Mike Sterling, for promoting Swamp Thing and this site; and Kevin Church, for his excellent optimization advice.

And thanks to Len Wein, Bernie Wrightson, Alan Moore, John Totelben, Stephen Bissette, Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis and all the other creators whose work inspired this site.

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The Sandman Presents: Marquee Moon
An Unpublished Chapter in Hellblazer History

Full Moon				Interview with Peter Hogan
View the Lettered Artwork				Interview with Peter Doherty

SCRIPT PAGES:					Introductory Essay
p. 1-8	p. 9-16	p 17-24	p. 25-32	p. 33-40	p. 41-48	p. 49-56

British writer Peter Hogan, best known to comic-book readers for his work on 2000 A.D. and The Dreaming, wrote a followup to his popular miniseries, The Sandman Presents: Love Street, in 1997. Unfortunately, The Sandman Presents: Marquee Moon, as the one-shot would have been called, has never been published, even a decade after it was first solicited.

Love Street offered insight into John Constantine's youth in the 1960s, setting the stage for the cynical magician he would one day become. Marquee Moon would have revisited Constantine's early years, showcasing his brief fame as a punk rocker in the band Mucous Membrane. The future mage's prominence in this story, however, would have been reduced, compared to his starring role in Love Street.

Marquee Moon would have chronicled Constantine's 1977 encounter with an American woman with a secret—the main character of the story and the mother of a young girl featured in The Sandman's "The Hunt"—who'd moved to London and discovered punk-rock music for the first time. Had this 56-page one-shot seen publication, it would have featured The Clash's comic-book debut.

With Hogan's kind permission, Roots of the Swamp Thing presents the text to this unpublished chapter in Sandman and Hellblazer history, along with an an introductory essay Hogan included upon delivering the script to Vertigo. This essay provided artists Peter Doherty and Matt "D'israeli" Brooker, as well as editor Alisa Kwitney and Sandman creator Neil Gaiman, a detailed look at the 1970s London punk-rock scene—and is a fascinating read in its own right.

Brooker and Doherty's lettered artwork is also available. In addition, I have conducted interviews with Hogan and Doherty to explain Marquee Moon's background and context. Choose from the links below to begin reading the script and viewing the art pages.

Thanks to Peter Hogan for providing the script and artwork, Peter Doherty and Hogan for answering my interview questions, and Adrian Brown at the Voices From Beyond forum for helping make it possible. An excerpt of this script originally appeared on John McMahon's Straight to Hell site.

This website is for entertainment purposes only.
Swamp Thing, Hellblazer and The Un-Men are
the properties of DC/Vertigo Comics. No
copyright infringement is intended.