Swamp Thing can trace his roots — yes, it’s a he — back to “It,” Theodore Sturgeon’s short story that ran in the pulp magazine Unknown in 1940. The story is all about a man — Roger Kirk — who dies and is reborn in a swamp.

This was an influential tale whose roots — pardon the pun — took hold throughout comic books, which were the younger brother of the pulps. In Air Fighters Comics #3, published in 1942, Sky Wolf (a World War II fighting ace given to wearing the mask of a wolf and helping Airboy battle the Axis) the muck-encrusted form of World War I German pilot Baron Eric von Emmelman returned from the grave in the same way that Roger Kirk did two years before.

Thanks to his immense force of will and the help of the goddess Ceres, as the Baron’s body decayed, he became one with the vegetation of the swamp that he was shot down over. Now, he was more marsh than man, and fought Sky Wolf until discovering the fanaticism of his countrymen.

Before long, The Heap was the heroic star of his own backup in Airboy Comics, with adventures lasting from 1946 to 1953. He’d return in 1986 as part of Eclipse Comics’ reboot of Airboy before being bought by Image Comics, where he’s now part of Todd McFarland’s Spawn Universe.

After EC Comics (the creators of Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror amongst others) and other horror comics publishers were taken to task for their extreme material, the Comics Code Authority outlawed all monstrous characters unless they had literary roots. In fact, until the year 1989, you weren’t even allowed to say the word zombie in a mainstream comic book (Marvel got around this by calling them zuvembies, if you can believe that).

As the CCA relaxed its rules at the start of the 70’s, two different characters that  both grew from the Heap started at both Marvel Comics and their cross-town rivals, DC.

Man-Thing was created by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas (who’d go on to write Fire and Ice and adapted plenty of Conan stories, including the one that would be filmed for Conan the Destroyer). A series of conversations led to five different potential origins for the character, with the name being recycled from another character that had already appeared in Tales of Suspense #7 and #81.

Thomas would tell Alter Ego that Lee “had a couple of sentences or so for the concept — I think it was mainly the notion of a guy working on some experimental drug or something for the government, his being accosted by spies, and getting fused with the swamp so that he becomes this creature. The creature itself sounds a lot like the Heap, but neither of us mentioned that character at the time.” Lee also had the name for the character, which would lead to perhaps my favorite comic book title of all time: Giant-Sized Man-Thing.

While you’d think that Man-Thing would be a one-note character — he never speaks and he just kind of shows up in the swamps — but he grew from his first appearance, where he battled Marvel’s Tarzan-esque Ka-Zar to become something much different thanks to the deranged hands of Steve Gerber, who made Man-Thing the center of the Nexus of All Realities, which just so happened to be inside his swamp.

Once biochemist Dr. Theodore “Ted” Sallis and a former co-worker with Dr. Curtis “The Lizard” Connors, the man who would become Man-Thing was working on a version of Captain America’s Super Soldier formula with Dr. Barbara Morse (who would become Hawkeye’s wife Mockingbird, man, I read too many comics as a kid) when techno soldiers from Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) and his betraying wife attacked. The result? You guessed it. Fused with the swamp, no brains and a tendency to wander. That said, Man-Thing also gained the ability to burn anyone who felt fear in his presence, so he had that going for him.

Man-Thing became a story engine for Gerber (who contended that he was just a reporter for the very real tales of the character, as he appeared as a fictional character within the comic), who used these stories to introduce sorceress Jennifer Kale, the barbarian Korrek who emerged from a jar of peanut butter, the serial murdering Foolkiller, Dakimh the Enchanter and Howard the Duck. Yep, Gerber’s Man-Thing was pure imagination writ large across the comic book page. After leaving comics, Gerber would write for plenty of cartoons, including Dungeons & Dragons, which his work had a major influence on.

At pretty much the same time, Len Wein came up with the idea for a swamp-based character as he rode the subway. “I didn’t have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as that swamp thing I’m working on. And that’s how it got its name!” Master illustrator Bernie Wrightson (he drew the comic cover for Creepshow) designed the character’s visual image and helped tell his first few adventures.

The Swamp Thing was once Dr. Alec Holland, who was working with his wife Linda to invent a solution for the world’s food shortage problems. After some thugs blew up their lab, his destroyed body was coated in one of his formulas and grew within the swamp, transforming him into a conscious plant with all of his old memories. Of course, once Alan Moore came on board — after this movie brought the character back to comics — we would learn that Swamp Thing was really the latest in a long line of Earth elementals that protect the Green.

If this all sounds like DC was stealing ideas from Marvel — well, they were all stealing from the Heap who was stealing from Theodore Sturgeon — let me blow your mind a little further. Swamp Thing writer Len Wein and Man-Thing’s co-writer, Gerry Conway, were roommates.

Despite the first version of Swamp Thing appearing in House of Secrets #92, Len Wein would later say, “Gerry and I thought that, unconsciously, the origin in Swamp Thing #1 was a bit too similar to the origin of Man-Thing a year-and-a-half earlier. There was vague talk at the time around Marvel of legal action, but it was never really pursued.”

It was decided that this was just a strange coincidence and after a while, the characters became so different, no legal action was necessary.

If you’d like to learn more about the fascinating lives of comic book swamp men, I recommend TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Creator 6: Swampmen. 

Whew! I told you all that so I can tell you this: In 1982, Wes Craven wrote and directed an adaption of the comic, long before comic book movies were a thing. His intent was to show the major Hollywood studios that he could handle action, stunts and major stars, all while doing it under his $2.5 million dollar budget. Good news — he succeeded.

A top-secret bioengineering project in the southern swamps is dealing with sabotage, so Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau, playing a mix of the comic’s Matt Cable and Abigail Arcade) has been dispatched to replace one of the scientists who has been killed. She soon meets lead scientist Dr. Alce Holland (Ray Wise) and his sister Dr. Linda, who together have developed a glowing plant with explosive properties, as well as a combination animal/plant hybrid.

The real issue is that the secret base is being eyed by the evil Anton Arcane, a paramilitary leader who wants the fruits — and vegetables — of all this labor for himself. He’s played by Louis Jourdan, who is absolutely perfect in the role, oozing menace from every pore while remaining aloof and almost high cultured in his pursuit of evil.

Soon, Arcane’s forces attack, murdering Linda and blowing Alec up real good. However, just like the comic, he now rises as Swamp Thing, played by stuntman DIck Durock (who was also the pie-eating champion in Stand By Me). Now, he must protect Alice and his notes, keeping them both from Arcane.

The movie differs from the comic in that Holland’s formula unleashes whatever dominant personality trait exists within each person. For Holland, it’s the ability to heal and transform his inner strength into outer muscle. Yet Bruno (Nicholas Worth, who played the heavy in plenty of films and lent his voice to the Reaper in The Hills Have Eyes Part II), the biggest of Arcane’s henchmen, becomes a small rat-like creature and Arcane himself becomes a gigantic boar.

Another of Arcane’s henchmen — Ferret, the one who gets his neck snapped by Swamp Thing — is played by David Hess, who was Krug in The Last House On the Left. Also, Karen Price, who plays one of Arcane’s messengers, was Playboy‘s Playmate of the Month for January 1981. I tell you that because it’s her centerfold that appears on the tail of Gyro Captain’s copter in The Road Warrior.

There was one bit of controversy this film caused, more than a decade after it was released.

In August 2000, MGM released this movie on DVD and although it was labeled PG, it actually included the 93-minute international cut, which amps up Adrienne Barbeau’s ample charms and nudity in the skinny dip sequence. Two years after that, a woman rented this film in Dallas for her kids and was shocked and dismayed by what her family saw. Trust me — they should be so lucky!

Durock and Jourdan — along with much of the crew, including producers Michael E. Uslan and Benjamin Melniker — would return in 1989 for Return of Swamp Thing. It’s directed by Jim Wynorski and features Heather Locklear as Abigail Arcane, who heads to the swamp to confront her stepfather Dr. Arcane. He’s been brought back to the dead by the evil Dr. Lana Zurrell (Sarah Douglas, Ursa from Superman) along with an army of mutant Un-Men, all ready to do battle with Swamp Thing.

If anything, that movie gave us more than a series on the USA Network and a cartoon complete with Kenner action figures (of course I bought every single one). It also gave us this, a PSA where Swamp Thing speaks for Greenpeace.

Good news. Today you learned way more than you ever thought you would about 20th century popular fiction involving swamp-based creatures. Would it help even further if I told you that Man-Thing also appeared in a 2005 SyFy movie directed by Brett Leonard (The Dead Pit, The Lawnmower Man, Hideaway)? I sure hope so.

The MVD 4K UHD/bluy ray combo of Swamp Thing include a new 4K restoration — a 16-bit scan of the original camera negative — of the U.S. theatrical PG  and unrated international versions of the film.  There’s archival commentary by Craven moderated by Sean Clark, as well as alternate commentary with makeup artist William Munn moderated by Michael Felsher. Yoy also get a collectible 4K LaserVision mini-poster and a limited edition slipcover.

Special features include interviews with Adrienne Barbeau, Reggie Batts and creator Len Wein, as well as features on drawing Swamp Thing and Craven’s direction. Plus, there’s a photo gallery of the posters and lobby cards, photos from the film, behind-the-scenes photos and a trailer.

You can get it from MVD. There’s also a blu ray edition.

Three women — a housewife named Christine M. (Edda Barends), a waitress named Ann Jongman (Nelly Frijda) and executive secretary Andrea Brouwer (Henriëtte Tol) — have murdered a male shopkeeper in the middle of the day for no reason. No premeditation. And none of them know one another. A female psychiatrist (Cox Habbema) must now discover why.

Directed by Marleen Gorris, who also made the Oscar-winning Antonio’s Line, this film takes us into the lives of each of the women as the doctor interviews each of them as well as the people in their lives, all to learn if this murder was thought through or was simply a random act.

The movie finally shows precisely how the woman led the man to his death without revealing the actual killing. But we do learn all of the negative experiences they’ve had with men throughout their lives and what would lead them to destroy a man, even castrating him and crushing his face. By the end, they laugh about the murder during their trial and their laughter is repeated by every woman in the room. To the credit of the director and her cast, this movie is still so potent more than forty years later.

The Cult Epics Blu-ray release of A Question of Silence has a new 2K HD transfer and restoration audio commentary by film scholar Patricia Pisters. It also features interviews with director Marleen Gorris and actress Cox Habbema, a promotional gallery, trailers and more. You can get it from MVD.

Known as Fuga dall’arcipelago maledetto (Escape from the Cursed Archipelago) in Italy, this Antonio Margheriti-directed and Tito Capri-written film stars David Warbeck as Tiger Joe, a former US Army Special Forces Vietnam Veteran who works with “Midnight” Washington (Tony King, Atlantis Interceptors) and Lenny (Luciano Pigozzi) to airlift all sorts of cargo but mostly guns.

When he gets shot down, he joins up with Kia (Annie Belle, who started her acting career appearing in Jean Rollin’s Lips of Blood and Bacchanales Sexuelles; she’s in so many movies by directors and personalities I’m obsessed with: Deodato’s House On the Edge of the Park, D’Amato’s Absurd and L’alcova, the supposed Emmanuelle Arsan-directed Forever Emmanuelle, Marco Antonio Andolfi’s Cross of the Seven Jewels and the Cannon film Nana) and her companion Datu (Abadeza) to get out of the jungle alive.

This has a lot of cast, crew and shots from the much better The Last Hunter, but I just love Antonio Margheriti. He brings something extra to every movie. Sadly, cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini lost his life in a plane crash while filming the final shot of the film.

May I never ever get tired of seeing bamboo huts in the Philippines blow up. If you want more Margherti in the jungle, check out Tornado: The Last Blood, Code Name: Wild Geese, The Last Hunter, Commando Leopard, The Commander, Indio and Indio 2: The Revolt.

VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the August 9, 2022 episode of the Video Archives podcast and can be found on their site here.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman, and based on the novel by Craig Thomas, Firefox is about a jet that doesn’t exist. The MiG-31 Firefox looks like the SR-71 Blackbird — you know, the one the X-Men flew — but in the book, it was a MiG-25.

How do you make a not-so-real jet look real? You get John Dykstra. He came up with a brand new technique for shooting the plane — which would be against a clear blue sky and not in space like the flying in the Star Wars movies — called reverse blue-screen photography. He coated the plane with phosphorus paint and shot it with harsh light against a black background, then ultraviolet light to create two mattes that would separate the model and the sky.

The Firefox is the kind of plane that could win the Cold War. Radar can’t see it, it goes Mach 6 and the weapons are controlled by the pilot’s brain. The British and Americans decide to steal it, sending former United States Air Force Major Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood, who else?) to steal it with help from the three scientists who made the jet.

I never saw Firefox, but I sure played the laserdisc arcade game.

The game came out nearly two years after the movie. Published by Atari, it used almost thirty hours of real footage that came right from the movie. It was pretty awesome to get to hear Eastwood’s voice while you pretended to be flying this incredible stealth war machine.

After making this film, Eastwood never worked with. his longtime editor Ferris Webster again. He never told him why and they had worked together for a decade. Webster had even moved closer to Eastwood to make editing with him easier.  Supposedly, he died heartbroken.

Craig Thomas, on the other hand, loved Eastwood. When he published a sequel book, Firefox Down, he changed the plane to be more like the movie. The book had the dedication “For Clint Eastwood .. pilot of the Firefox.” Several of the characters from those books also appear in Thomas’ novels Winter Hawk and A Different War.

This movie always seemed like Star Wars to me. I may not have been all that off, as two actors from The Empire Strikes Back show up: John Ratzenberger, years before Cheers, played a junior officer in both movies while Kenneth Colley plays Colonel Kontarsky in this and Admiral Piett in both Empire and Return of the Jedi.

As for the Firefox itself, it was painted white and shows up in Chevy Chase movie Deal of the Century.

I felt about this movie probably the same way I would have as a kid. It’s thrilling when the jets battle in the air and the rest of the movie is waiting for the jets.

Directed by Marius Penczner and filmed by students from Memphis State University, now known as the University of Memphis, this has a very familiar looking stop motion creature in it. If you were watching music videos in 1983, you saw ZZ Top’s “TV Dinners.” Well, that same monster appears in both, as that video was also directed by Penczner.

After landing in Pleasantville, United States, aliens convince two criminals to help them rule the world by using Uni-Cola, the most popular soft drink around. In addition to that monster, the aliens can put people into a zombie-like form, which gives this movie its title.

Made for just $27,000, most people of a certain age saw this paired with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on USA’s Night Flight. Once it came out on DVD, it got ed-edited — 33 minutes less! — and what remains is a really fun film that feels as if it really was made in the 50s.