Today, we learn how The Sandman's Matthew the Raven started his comic book life as a Swamp Thing character.
In "Our Lives Together," I spotlight some of the more interesting examples of shared comic book universes. You know, crossovers that aren't exactly crossovers.
It is funny how often I will just forget about a feature for a few years. I last did a "Looks Like I'm Moving," a feature about supporting characters moving from one book to another back in 2019. It's a fun feature, though, so I hopefully will do more with it. I thought that this article would apply, but after looking into it some more, I realize it really doesn't make sense, since the character in question really was no longer a supporting character by the time he was picked up by another book, so instead, it'll just be an interesting look at some shared continuity, which is "Our Lives Together."
In any event, as we all know, Neil Gaiman's brilliant series, The Sandman, which is being adapted into a Netflix series currently, owes a lot to the magnificent DC comic book work that Alan Moore did in the 1980s, where Moore essentially laid the groundwork for other creators to be able to tell darker, richer stories also set in the DC Universe. Moore's Swamp Thing run was groundbreaking and writers like Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan and others followed suit with outstanding comic books.
One of the things that these writers all had in common was the ability to look towards older comics and pull out interesting older characters to do new twists on. One of these characters that Alan Moore did this with when he took over Swamp Thing was Matthew Cable, the man who would eventually become Matthew the Raven.
WHO WAS MATTHEW CABLE?
When Swamp Thing was introduced by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson in House of Secrets #92, it was just a one-off horror story, The character had legs, though, so DC gave Swamp Thing his own series and Wein and Wrightson basically re-told the events of the first story (with the Alec Olsen of the first issue now becoming Alec Holland). However, since it was now an ongoing series, Wein needed supporting characters, and in the first issue, we meet Lt. Matthew Cable, who is in charge of protecting Alec Holland and his wife...
Cable was a nice enough guy, but he definitely had a bit of an edge to him, like when some bad guys threaten the Hollands and he explains that the formula that they're working on is so valuable that there are plenty of people who would rather just kill them than let the United States have access to the formula...
Well, that's exactly what happens later, as Alec Holland is seemingly blown up, but instead, he transformed into Swamp Thing (well, that's what we THOUGHT happened, at least). Cable takes Linda Holland back to the cabin to continue the work, as now it was all down to her. Then the Swamp Thing shows up, and Cable goes to investigate. He is assaulted by one of the bad guys who tried to kill Alec, and the bad guys kill Linda.
Cable blames Swamp Thing, and vows revenge...
Cable tracks Swamp Thing for the next couple of issues,
In Swamp Thing #3, Swamp Thing fights against Anton Arcane and, for the first time, meets Abigail "Abby" Arcane. Cable thinks that Swamp Thing is about to hurt the young woman he has in his grasps (not knowing that Swamp Thing just SAVED her). Swamp Thing hands Abby to Cable, who then asks Cable if she can work with him...
He and Abby then travel the world, while Matt keeps hunting down the Swamp Thing, even though Abby points out that Swamp Thing keeps, you know, saving their lives...
However, even Cable can't deny that Swamp Thing isn't all that bad when he KEEPS helping people, and by Swamp Thing #11 (art by Nestor Redondo), Cable has finally conceded that Swamp Thing IS a good guy...
Two issues later, Swamp Thing finally reveals to Cable that he IS Alec Holland...
However, in Swamp Thing #20 (by Gerry Conway and Redondo), there was a duplicate made of Swamp Thing. He attacked Cable, and this made Cable and the others think that Alec Holland had snapped...
This double was then destroyed, leaving Matt and Abby to think that Swamp Thing was dead. So they stopped trying to capture him, and Cable stopped being a Swamp Thing supporting character...
Paul Kupperberg and Joe Staton briefly used Cable in their revival of the Doom Patrol in the late 1970s...
But generally speaking, it was comic book limbo for Abby and Matt.
THE TWISTED RETURN OF MATTHEW CABLE
Abby and Matt's exile into comic book limbo ended in Saga of the Swamp Thing #17 (by Martin Pasko, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben), when Swamp Thing ran into Abby, who was now Mrs. Abby Cable...
However, it seems that Matt had become an abusive alcoholic since their marriage...
As it turned out, however, he had been experimented on, and now had the ability to create matter from his mind, which was a problem, since he was now trying to drink himself to oblivion to deal with the fact that he could now create matter with his mind...
When Alan Moore took over writing duties, he had Abby be pulled more to Swamp Thing, while Matt got darker and darker, creating visions of Abby to entertain himself...
In Saga of the Swamp Thing #26, Matthew crashed his car, presumably drunk driving...
In the next issue, he was offered a way to save his life by Anton Arcane...
Matthew accepted it, and now Arcane took over his body, which was super creepy, since Abby was his niece...
Eventually, Arcane revealed his evil plot to Abby (and then murdered Abby)...
Swamp Thing fought Arcane-in-Matt's-body in Saga of the Swamp Thing #31 (by Moore, Rick Veitch and John Totleben), and did enough damage that Matthew was able to fight back and drive Arcane from his body...
This, though, returned Cable's body to the shape it was after the car accident...
He had enough power left (from his mind-over-matter abilities) to heal one person, and he chose to heal Abby instead...
Swamp Thing had to still go get Abby's soul back, which he did in the Swamp Thing Annual of that year.
In Saga of the Swamp Thing #34 (by Moore, Bissette and Totleben), Abby visits Cable in the hospital. As it turned out, he didn't die, but he is in a vegetative coma...
Abby would return to visit Matthew occasionally over the next forty issues.
HOW DID MATTHEW BECOME A RAVEN?
In Swamp Thing #84 (by Rick Veitch, Tom Mandrake and Alfredo Alcala), Abby learns that she has to pay for all of Matthew's medical bills (which are massive, of course). Meanwhile, we learn that Matthew has been spending this time in his coma in The Dreaming, as he meets Morpheus (this was just a few months into Neil Gaiman's run on The Sandman, so this was one of the earliest appearances of Morpheus outside of the pages of The Sandman) and the two make a bargain for Matthew's next step...
Abby signs a deal that allows Matthew to be experimented on in exchange for the medical bills being waived, but she is disgusted at the twisted experiments that are being performed on him, so she decides that she will pull the plug, even if she goes to jail for it. Shockingly, Matthew wakes up to pull the plug himself, sparing Abby from having to do it...
He then dies, begging her to forgive him and then forget about him...
However, since he technically died while still in The Dreaming, in The Sandman #11 (by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg and Malcolm Jones III), which came out about eight months after Matthew's death as a human, Matthew was reborn as a raven...
A few issues later, he notes how much he hates hospitals (having been in one for years before his death) and how he did some bad stuff before he died...
Gaiman kept things pretty vague for a long time about Matthew's background. It was clear if you knew the deal, but if you didn't, it wasn't, but eventually Gaiman was a bit more explicit about Matthew's origins. It's just a really cool bit of shared continuity by Gaiman.
Okay, folks, if you have a suggestion for another interesting piece of shared continuity, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!