Year 1: Roots of the Swamp

ST101 The Birth of Swamp Thing

Where the character comes from, read closely: the eight pages of House of Secrets #92 and the first ten issues of the 1972 series, with the Gothic conventions they inherit and the tools you need to analyse a comic rather than summarise it.

9 lessons 6 units 2 assignments

Introduction

This module starts the degree where the character starts: a single eight-page story in an anthology comic, drawn by an artist who was twenty-two, that DC almost immediately turned into a series. Over six weeks you will read that story and the ten issues Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson made together, and you will learn to read them as a critic reads a text.

Two habits are built here that the rest of the course depends on. The first is recording your own reaction before you read anyone else's: every lesson asks for your first thoughts before it offers any secondary reading. The second is the difference between describing what happens and analysing how it happens and what it means. The assignments reward the second.

You will also meet the monsters Swamp Thing was born among: Mary Shelley's creature, the Heap, Theodore Sturgeon's "It", and Marvel's Man-Thing, who rose from his own swamp within a month of Wein and Wrightson's. By the end you should be able to say, with evidence, what kind of monster Swamp Thing is and why 1971 produced him.

Learning objectives

  • Understand the literary and comics origins of Swamp Thing, including the anthology context of House of Secrets and the swamp-monster tradition before 1971.
  • Recognise major Gothic conventions (the ruined body, the double, the laboratory, the wandering outcast, the haunted landscape) and identify them in the early issues.
  • Analyse comics using both visual and textual evidence: page layout, panel composition, inking, lettering and narrative voice.
  • Distinguish plot summary from critical analysis, and write in the second mode.
  • Construct a basic supported academic argument with evidence from the primary text.
  • Begin developing an independent interpretation, recorded in your own words before consulting criticism.

Lessons

Unit 1: Week 1: Eight pages in a haunted house

House of Secrets #92, read as slowly as it deserves.

  1. Reading House of Secrets #92The story that started everything, and how to read a comic closely.90 min Sample
  2. Origins, twice told: House of Secrets #92 and Swamp Thing #1Wein and Wrightson rewrite their own story. What they keep tells you what matters.90 min

Unit 2: Week 2: The man who wanted forever

Arcane, the Un-Men and the Patchwork Man: monsters made on purpose.

  1. Arcane and the Un-Men: Swamp Thing #2The villain arrives with an offer, and the series finds its central question.75 min
  2. The Patchwork Man: Swamp Thing #3 and the debt to FrankensteinAbigail Arcane appears, and Wein and Wrightson pay Mary Shelley back in full.75 min

Unit 3: Week 3: A tour of horrors

Issues #4 to #6: moors, witches, clockwork. The wandering monster tries on the genre's costumes.

  1. Moors, witches and clockwork: Swamp Thing #4 to #6Three issues, three sub-genres. What the tour reveals about the character.120 min

Unit 4: Week 4: Gotham and the tunnel

Issues #7 and #8: the superhero universe and the cosmic horror it does not usually admit.

  1. Night of the Bat: Swamp Thing #7Batman meets the monster. Two genres in one panel, and what each does to the other.75 min
  2. The Lurker in Tunnel 13: Swamp Thing #8 and cosmic horrorA Lovecraftian entity in a DC comic. What cosmic horror asks of a monster who is also a man.75 min

Unit 5: Week 5: The end of the beginning

Issues #9 and #10, Wrightson's last, and the swamp as a place.

  1. The stalker and the man who would not die: Swamp Thing #9 and #10The last Wein and Wrightson issues, and how to read an artist.90 min

Unit 6: Week 6: Roots

The Heap, "It", Man-Thing: the swamp monster before and beside Swamp Thing.

  1. The swamp monster family tree: the Heap, "It" and Man-ThingSwamp Thing was not the first thing to rise from a swamp. What the tradition explains.120 min

Core texts

Secondary reading

Assessment

Two pieces of assessed work. The first is a close reading of the eight-page origin story, written from the primary text alone. The second is an argued essay across at least three of the first ten issues, where secondary reading may be used but is not required. Both are marked against the module rubric, with the heaviest weight on understanding of the primary text and use of evidence.

ST101-A1: Close reading: House of Secrets #92

How does House of Secrets #92 create horror in eight pages? Analyse the story's use of page layout, panel composition, inking and narrative framing, and argue which of these does the most work.

Length
1500 words (1350 to 1650)
Sources
Primary source only. Primary source only. Build the argument from House of Secrets #92 alone. Cite panels by page and position.

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ST101-A2: Essay: what kind of monster?

Is the Swamp Thing of Wein and Wrightson's first ten issues a monster, a victim or a hero? Argue for one reading, or for a defined combination, using evidence from at least three issues.

Length
2000 words (1800 to 2200)
Sources
Primary source plus optional secondary research. Primary sources plus optional secondary research. Evidence from at least three issues is required. Secondary reading from the module list may be used and must be referenced.

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Source requirements

Assignment 1 is primary source only: the argument must be built from House of Secrets #92 itself. Assignment 2 is primary source plus optional secondary reading: you may use the module reading list, but a strong essay can be written from the comics alone. No source that is not on a reading list or in the Source Library should be used without recording it in your Green Book first.