SWAMP THING (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

By 1991, both Alan Moore and Rick Veitch (and artist collaborators) had turned the SWAMP THING into an opus dedicated to metaphysical and psychological speculations. But as far as other media were concerned, there'd never been any Swamp Thing but the two live-action movies, loosely based upon the original 1970s comic series. 

The 1990 live-action teleseries, budget-restricted though it was, at least stayed in tune with the dramatic feel of the first movie. This cartoon series-- consisting of just five "tryout" episodes-- sometimes resembles the overtly comedic RETURN OF SWAMP THING, but without enough jokes for the cartoon to register as a comedy. So I have to deem the 1991 show an "adventure" series, since the emphasis is on turning plant-mutated scientist Alec Holland into a swamp-dwelling crusader, complete with a bunch of crime-fighting gadgets (some of which certainly must have made it into the SWAMP THING toy line).

This swamp-hero also has a small coterie of friends: a couple of kids, a young woman named Abigail (with no romantic angle attached), and two diverse but still bland adult action-guys, Tomahawk (Native American) and Bayou Jack (Black). I think the animators could have switched the dialogue-tracks for the two guys and no one would have noticed any difference. Since the two movies featured mad scientist Arcane as the Thing's only opponent, he appears in all five episodes as Swampy's regular enemy, complete with a gang of mutated henchmen, one of whom is named "Weedkiller." The voice-actor for Arcane gets the short serial's one good line: observing the fall of a radioactive satellite into the swamp, Arcane says, "I love radiation-- it's so INTENSE."