Roots Of The Swamp Thing: Heritage Auctions Partially Reknits Patchwork Man's Lost History

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

Forgotten Lore
Unpublished tales

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.



Heritage Auctions Partially Reknits Patchwork Man's Lost History by Rich Handley *June 7, 2010* Heritage Auctions recently auctioned five pages of a Swamp Thing-related comic tale that is often cited as having never been published—even though that's not the case. In March 1976, DC Comics published the first part of what was intended to be a multi-chapter arc in the pages of The House of Secrets, in issue #140. The story, entitled "Reprise—The Patchwork Man," picked up where Gregori Arcane's story left off at the end of Swamp Thing issue #3 (series 1). Having seemingly fallen to his death at the end of that tale, the Patchwork Man had been assumed dead. His story, however, didn't end there, as House of Secrets #140 revealed that he survived the fall. The plan had been for the Patchwork Man to become a recurring character in that title, on the run from Dr. Elijah Chomes, of Mount Good Hope Institute's Department of Mental Sciences. Chomes wanted to capture and study Gregori, which he did in #140. That tale's cliffhanger ending left Gregori's fate up in the air, unfortunately, as DC, for whatever reasons, opted to drop its planned ongoing story after only that single chapter. But as it happened, a second chapter, "Night of the Rat" (a reference to "Night of the Bat," Alec Holland's first encounter with Batman, in Swamp Thing #7), had been written and illustrated, but remained shelved until 1983. That year, Swedish comic anthology Gigant, in issue #3/1983, reprinted all of the Patchwork Man's appearances up to that point, and included a special bonus: a translated version of "Night of the Rat." This issue was released only in Sweden—and only in Swedish—leaving English-speaking audiences largely unaware of its existence. Gigant #3/1983 is rather difficult to track down, and remains one of the more obscure Swamp Thing-related tales out there. Sadly, DC has never dusted off "Night of the Rat" and published it in English, so even if you did find a copy of the Gigant issue, you'd have to speak Swedish to understand it. Over the last few months, however, Heritage Auctions has been selling original artwork from "Night of the Rat." This makes the first time that any of this forgotten tale has ever been available in its original English. And although only five of the pages have yet surfaced, we can now have hope that the rest could eventually turn up as well. In the meantime, enjoy the following brief glimpse at what would have been, courtesy of Heritage Auctions, and revel in the glory that is Nestor Redondo's artwork: Click on the following thumbnails to view larger versions of the pages: Archived News >

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.