Swamp Thing or Man-Thing: The Plot Thickens!

Regular readers may recall a post from
several months back that asked the question:

If you're a new reader, or don't recall the post, click here for the details. To summarize, rival publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics came out with their own spooky swamp creature character at virtually the same time:

Marvel's "Man-Thing":  First appeared in the black-and-white magazine Savage Tales #1, cover dated May of 1971.

DC's "Swamp-Thing": First appeared in House of Secrets #92, cover dated June-July of 1971 (meaning it hits the stands in June).

Since comic books typically took about three or four months to create from start to finish, it's highly unlikely that DC Comics could have turned around a knockoff in only two months.  It wasn't impossible, especially since Swamp Thing's debut was only an eight page story within a larger anthology title, but...as I said...highly unlikely.

Okay, now for the new wrinkle I just came across.  As the original post went on to explain, the two swamp men wouldn't begin appearing regularly until the following year (Man-Thing: June of '72; Swamp Thing: October of '72).  However (and here's the twist), during that intervening year, DC published The Phantom Stranger #14, cover dated July-August of 1971.  Note how the cover date is a mere one month past the June-July debut of Swamp Thing, which makes it clear that DC had not one, but two swamp-men stories in the pipeline during the spring of 1971.

Making the appearance of this cover even stranger (no pun intended) is the look of the monster itself.  Illustrated by Neal Adams, the "Spectre of the Stalking Swamp" is astonishingly similar to Marvel's Man-Thing.  In fact, as you can see from the comparison below, all you need to do is add the tell-tale "carrot nose" and some dangling "carrots" to the existing brow ridge and you've got yourself a twin of the Man-Thing!

So...what was going on here?  It was odd enough that DC came out with their Swamp Thing so close to the debut of Marvel's Man-Thing...but there they were...a month after their own swamp-man with a near-duplicate of the Man-Thing....who himself wouldn't appear in a color comic book until the following spring!  Moreover, the cover date was still a bit too close to Savage Tales #1 for Adams to have (A) seen the Man-Thing artwork or (B) copy the look in time for the Phantom Stranger cover.

Of course, isn't it somehow fitting that the origins of comics' most famous swamp men would be bogged down in a mystery as murky as the swamp itself?

Comments

[Matthew Rees]

Spooky! Not sure that I believe in coincidences that close. Artists and writers talk to each other (and to fans) so ideas could have been exchanged prior to publication.

[Siskoid]

Bogged down?

Or BLOGGED down?

Either way, the Heap forever!

[chris w.]

From Swamp Thing's Wiki entry:

"DC Comics rival Marvel Comics had a strikingly similar rival to Swamp Thing in the 1970s with the Steve Gerber-scripted Man-Thing (Dr. Theodore Sallis). Due to the close premieres of each comic (Man-Thing appeared a month earlier; DC has longer lead times but the Olsen story was routine rather than a new character launch, which would take longer), it is unlikely that either comic was directly derivative of the other -- although in an interview Gerber noted that Wein and Man-Thing co-creator Gerry Conway were roommates, and had simultaneously came up with similar characters by coincidence. Gerber later asked Wein to describe the premise of Swamp Thing, and rewrote it to be as different from Wein's creation as possible. In between the Olsen story and the first Holland story, Wein wrote the second Man-Thing story, with art by Neal Adams. It was intended for Savage Tales #2, but when that magazine-size Comics Code-free comic went on hiatus, it was delayed until Astonishing Tales #12, after a relaxing of the code made Man-Thing (far less human and more violent than Swamp Thing) a permissible character, and after Swamp Thing #1 appeared. Holland's origin is much more similar to Sallis's than Olsen's, though Sallis was presented as a much less moral figure than Holland, particularly as the series went further into his backstory. Man-Thing, too, was depicted in the Parliament of Trees."

[Mark Engblom]

"In between the Olsen story and the first Holland story, Wein wrote the second Man-Thing story, with art by Neal Adams. It was intended for Savage Tales #2, but when that magazine-size Comics Code-free comic went on hiatus, it was delayed until Astonishing Tales #12..."

Which only makes the story MORE interesting with Neal Adam's involvement with the second Man-Thing story (having also drawn the cover of Phantom Stranger #14).

Curiouser and curiouser! Thanks for the info, Chris!

[googum]

Man-Thing? More like Man-BLOCKER. Stupid swamp monsters, killing my action...

[Robby Reed]

Didn't THE HEAP appear before any of them?

[Mark Engblom]

"Didn't THE HEAP appear before any of them?"

Yeah....I got into that in more detail in the original post, and you're right, the Heap was the first comic book swamp man as well as the one who edged Swamp Thing and Man-Thing out by a month or two in the early 70's.

[Pat Curley]

Hmmm, there's a joke about orgasms and man-things in there somewhere. I always thought the most unintentionally funny title ever for a comic was "Giant-Sized Man-Thing". ;)

[the Phantom-Longbox]

While I am a huge Man-Thing fan...er... wait...

I must correct you that THE HEAP came out in the 1940's.

Many years back (in the dreaded 1970's), my dad had once seen one of my Man-Thing comics and said: "Oh. The Heap?!", which he had recalled reading a few stories back when he was a kid.

Here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heap

X_the_Phantom-Longbox__

[Mark Engblom]

I should clarify: Yes, the Heap did debut in the 1940's, but a revival of the Heap beat both Swamp Thing and Man-Thing to the stands in 1970 (click on the "here" link below this post's title card for the full story).

[RYAN]

I heard that the same guys who created swamp thing created man-thing for marvel....they pitched the man thing idea to marvel and marvel said "no...horror comics are not doing so hot anymore and shelfed the idea" so the creators went to DC and pitched a similar idea "swamp thing" and DC said go ahead and do it...Marvel found out and decided to release man thing at/around the same time....So man thing was created first by writers...BUT Swamp thing was the first to hit the presses and be arranged in stories by DC. Hope that makes sense.

[cecil]

Not everyone believes in a "zeitgeist" or a common symbol or discovery occurring independently at about the same time---but something special emerged, and both of these characters feel very much like something Jung might have called archetypal.
The gifts of Mike Ploog and Bernie Wrightson cemented both these characters in comics history---and in different decades, two of the most brilliant writers in the medium worked on each character.
With my guest star, Ovid, I wrote a Valentines Day piece I hope you'll enjoy.

http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2011/02/happy-giant-sized-man-thing-day-guest.html