Grow, Rise Up and Meet the Sun

"Grow, Rise Up and Meet the Sun" from Saga of the Swamp Thing #24 (DC, 1984) by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben

Initially very much a continuation of what the 70s volume of Swamp Thing was doing, everything changed in Saga when Alan Moore came on board and operated a deft alchemical transformation on everyone's favorite swamp monster. No longer a man transformed into a plant, he was a plant that thought it was a man. Brilliant, creepy stories resulted, random issues of which freaked me out as a kid, so much I couldn't make it a monthly thing (I read most stories later in the black and white Essential Swamp Thing Vertigo reprints, which really brought out Bissette and Totleben's detailed work). And despite the creep factor pushing the boundaries of newsstand comics, there was also a sort of joy to book, especially in Swampy's eventual acceptance of his true nature. We'll see a lot more Swamp Thing by the time I'm done with this alphabetical look at the DCU, but later. Think of Saga (which was retitled as simply Swamp Thing with issue 31) as a mere teaser.