In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, see how close DC came to killing off Swamp Thing's wife and daughter.
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COMIC LEGEND:
DC made Nancy Collins break up Swamp Thing's marriage, even if that included killing off Abby
STATUS:
True
When we last left our discussion of Swamp Thing in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Doug Wheeler, the comic book writer who was just starting his career in comics when he was effectively thrown to the wolves as the replacement for Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano when those two writers refused to follow through with their initial plan to succeed Rick Veitch as writer on Swamp Thing after DC fired Veitch mid-story over objections about Swamp Thing meeting Jesus Christ in a time travel story (that DC had previously approved), had just been fired himself after a year and a half run on Swamp Thing.
New Swamp Thing editor Stuart Moore brought in novelist Nancy Collins and her run quickly established a Cajun flavor (pun unintended) for Swamp Thing's adventures, as seen right away in her first issue (Swamp Thing #110, with artists Tom Mandrake, Bill Jaaska and Kim DeMulder)...
Collins drew praise for how well she handled Swamp Thing's wife, Abby, and their daughter, Tefe (here they are drawn by Jan Duursema and Kim DeMulder in Swamp Thing #117)
However, Collins also introduced Lady Jane, a representative of the Parliament of Trees and it soon became evident that the Parliament of Trees, believed that Swamp Thing should be placing the "Green" above his wife and child...
Swamp Thing came up with a variation on the old sitcom trick of trying to take two different dates to the big dance by creating a substitute version of himself to stay with Abby while he went off to do a mission for the Green. When Abby found out two weeks later in Swamp Thing #131 (by Collins, Scot Eaton and DeMulder), it did not go well...
Abby left Swamp Thing...
and Swamp Thing had some rebound elemental sex with Lady Jane...
And then Collins' two and a half year run on the book was cut a bit short. However, what's interesting to learn is that Abby's departure was force upon Collins by editorial and a separation was not DC's only idea on the topic.
In a great interview with my buddy, Rich Handley, who edited a collection of essays about Swamp Thing supporting character, John Constantine called From Bayou to Abyss: Examining John Constantine, Hellblazer (along with co-editor Lou Tambone) that had essays from Nancy Collins and, well, me, as well, in it, Collins explains how her second year on the book included a directive from DC:
I was told at the start of my second year on Swamp Thing that DC wanted the story arc to end with Swampy "on his own again," as they put it, and didn't care how I got him there. They even told me they were "okay" with me killing Abby (again), as well as the baby. That truly horrified me. I'd spent a lot of time making Tefé a fairly realistic toddler, with her own unique abilities and personality. The idea of killing her simply "for sales" was genuinely offensive to me. I had just undergone a divorce from my first husband, and you can see some of that reflected in Abby's response to the situations Swampy puts her and the family in.
And, lets be frank—no woman in her right mind would put up with the bullshit Abby Holland was subjected to on a regular basis. (In fact, the first time I spoke to Alan Moore, he commended me on giving Abby the guts to walk out of an unworkable relationship.) So I decided to end the story arc with the death of Swamp Thing's "marriage" and parental rights, as opposed to the murder of his wife and child. I admit, it was the equivalent of Pete Townsend smashing his guitar before leaving the stage, but hey, divorce is better than dead, right?
Wellll… not in comics, it would seem. Fans are used to characters being killed and brought back from the dead on a regular basis, to the point where it has lost all meaning. Characters getting divorced, on the other hand—there's no coming back from that, apparently. I guess it's because fans have never truly experienced death first-hand, but a good number of them have endured a divorce, and they know that shit's final. I got hate mail for months! And, in the end, my efforts to "rescue" mother and child were for naught, as the New Earth versions have been changed beyond recognition.
Well, I appreciate you keeping Abby and Tefe alive, Nancy!
Thanks so much to Rich and Nancy for the information!
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OK, that's it for this installment!
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