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

Collected In

Weird Mystery Tales #17
(Australian reprint)

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.

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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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In the Swamplight
The Unexpected #152

Story Title	Pub. Date
"The The Dark Secret of the Swamp"	Nov. 1973

Writer	Artist
Mike Fleisher	Alex Nino

Cover	Editor
Nick Cardy	Murray Boltinoff


Chronological Breakdown
• Late 1973: Convict Frank Mandrill searches the Louisiana bayou for Chuck Haney, with whom he escaped prison. He finds a house atop a narrow precipice at the edge of the swamp, surrounded by grotesque statues. Pretending to be a writer in search of solitude, he asks the old couple living there for a room. Overly hospitable, they take him in. Frank pretends to be friendly but secretly plots to kill them and take the house. One day he sees a statue resembling Chuck and asks the old man, Manfred, if he uses people as models. Manfred says the statues are based on his own imagination, not on the living. After a hobo stops by the house for a handout, Frank follows them out into the bog and sees them drop the hobo's body into quicksand and fish him out. His body, as with anything dipped into this part of the swamp, has turned to stone. Realizing he's next, Frank runs for cover. The couple spot him and give chase, but the boat up-ends, feeding them to the hungry swamp. Frank gleefully claims the house as his own, but Nature has its own plans. That night, a violent storm causes the house to slide down the hill and into the quicksand. Frank tries to save himself but is impaled on a weather vane and suffers the same fate as the couple. Some time later, a fisherman hooks the weather vane (and Frank's body) and sells it to a local curio shop, where Frank becomes a novelty item up for sale.

Trivia
• This classic tale is not directly connected to the Swamp Thing mythos. Still, the similarities in storyline and theme are enough for me to consider it part of the saga.

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