In "To Quote a Phrase," I spotlight memorable quotes from comic books.

I continue a month of "To Quote a Phrase" by spotlighting the stunning statement in Saga of the Swamp Thing #21, by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, as suggested by reader Jay T.

At the end of Alan Moore's first issue of Saga of the Swamp Thing (art by Dan Day and John Totleben), the Swamp Thing is hunted down and seemingly slaughtered in a hail of bullets...

That leads to the following issue, with Bissette taking over on pencils from Day. The issue opens with Jason Woodrue, the minor DC supervillain known as the Floronic Man, thinking about how a murder would be taking place right around now, as he looks back upon...the Anatomy Lesson!

As we see, Woodrue was hired by General Sonderland (the main villain of the Sage of the Swamp Thing up until this point, a general who was in charge of a corrupt company that messed with Swamp Thing and his friends) to do an autopsy on the Swamp Thing, due to Woodrue's expertise in the realm of botany (which led to him becoming a supervillain), with an eye towards seeing how Swamp Thing's body could be monetized...

Woodrue makes a major revelation to Sonderland by explaining that when Alec Holland was an in an explosion, rather than being transformed by the chemicals in the explosion to become the Swamp Thing, it instead saw some plants come to life to become Swamp Thing, taking on the memories of the now dead Holland...

Sonderland dismissed Woodrue's theories and fired him. Woodrue got his revenge by making it so that Swamp Thing could get free (as Woodrue correctly theorized that you can't actually KILL a living plant in the same way that you kill a human) and that the General would be trapped.

It would only be a problem, of course, if Swamp Thing read the notes that Woodrue conveniently left behind (which Woodrue knew it would), and learn that it is not Alec Holland and, in fact, "NEVER WAS ALEC HOLLAND."

Learning that news made Swamp Thing temporarily snap, leading to Sonderland's murder, giving Woodrue his revenge and completely turning the world of Swamp Thing upside down...

The Alec Holland line, of course, is "the" line.

Thanks to Jay T. for the suggestion!

Okay, folks, if you care to suggest cool comic book quotes that you'd like to see spotlighted here, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com. There's a decent enough chance that if you think the quote in question is super cool than I, too, will find it super cool and feature it here. Not a 100% chance, though, of course. Let's say roughly a 60% chance. I do need a whole month's worth of these quotes, after all!