While the name Alec Holland has a history in comics, and the villainous Arcane has resurrected himself many times to fight a creature he helped create, Swamp Thing as a character and concept has evolved, changed and contradicted itself for decades in the comics, and even more so in other media. Starting out as a scientist turned plant creature in DC Comic’s House of Secrets #92 and eventually turning into a creature who only believes itself to be the once-Dr. Holland under Alan Moore’s guidance, no two Swamp Things were alike as it passed through the hands of different writers. The only constant being that Swamp Thing always fell to the ultimate in comic book villainy, low sales. Yet, somehow, the creature has been able to extend itself into other media repeatedly with pretty much the same amount of success and constant change.

Swamp Thing came to the big screen in 1982 under the direction of Wes Craven. It wasn’t a particularly good film, although it was a decent retelling of the character’s original origins accompanied by Adrienne Barbeau’s impressive rack which is consistently on display. You can at times see the zipper on our hero’s suit. You can see his unstuffed gloves collapse in on themselves and the special effects are largely pathetic. Viewed as the unintentional camp that it is, it can be a great time, but it can not be taken seriously. The 1989 sequel, The Return of Swamp Thing went in another direction altogether gleefully reveling in silliness with Heather Locklear being attracted to our green hero who is now much more mobile and incredibly more muscular in true 1980s' superhero fashion. Both films were far from successes and neither one can be taken at all seriously, and yet the “saga” of Swamp Thing was far from complete. 

In the summer of 1990 Swamp Thing was brought to the small screen on the USA network (which before bringing us hit shows like Monk gave us great cult programming like La Femme Nikita and Duckman.) this time, while Swamp Thing’s story remains relatively the same as the films, the tone of the show is much darker and more serious. Dick Durock reprises his roles from the films as the plant man himself, although now his voice is electronically altered (a move I didn’t care for at first, but I got used to rather quickly), and Dr. Arcane is also back (after surviving both a mutation and an explosion) this time played by TV vet Mark Lindsay Chapman. Dr. Arcane takes on the greatest change from the film version, as the once-approaching middle-age doctor is now an early-thirtysomething still seeking immortality and concocting genetic research, not for the good of humanity, but for fun. Always walking that hair-thin tread that separates gentlemanly conduct from complete insanity, Dr. Arcane is only rivaled in his awesomeness by his helmet head of highlighted hair. It’s awesome and has to be seen to be properly feared.

Shout! Factory’s new box set collects the first two seasons of the Swamp Thing (not that you know that by looking at the cover, blurb or spine. Apparently they haven’t learned from the mistake that is Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.) in the correct order since they were originally aired improperly. It certainly helps the continuity watching the show this way, although it definitely brings about the shows obvious format changes, for example…

The pilot episode titled “The Emerald Heart” has a very mysterious riddle-speaking Swamp Thing befriending a semi-troubled boy named Jim Kipp (Jesse Zeigler) after his divorced mother Tressa (Carrell Myers) moves in temporarily with his grandmother. It’s your standard set up for a television show. You meet the players and you meet Arcane and his henchmen and “glorious failures.” What makes this episode in particular stand out, though, is that Swamp Thing turns one villainous motherfucker into a TREE! Seriously, like Swamp Thing would ever do anything like that. He never does so again in the series either. Partly because it would be difficult to excuse Arcane’s act of horrors from going unpunished, but mostly because it’s just highly out-of-character.

Several changes are immediate starting with just the second episode. Tressa left Jim under the guidance of his grandmother at the end of the first episode. Yet the beginning of the next episode has her coming back after the grandmother’s death. And so begins this “boy-and-his-swamp creature” format that runs throughout the first season. Primarily, the show stuck to Arcane as the main villain and each story had Swamp Thing either trying to save the Kipps from one of his mutations, henchmen or the man himself. Jim routinely finds himself getting into trouble and Swamp Thing always has to bail himself out of it. The season ending episode “The Shipment” is a huge downer as Arcane kidnaps Jim, ships him off to God-knows-where as a slave and makes it look as though he died in a car accident – a plot thread totally ignored in the second season.

While this change essentially removes the main character of the show, it does replace Jim with his half-brother Will (Scott Garrison). An older character (appears in his late teens) Will is not nearly as grating on the nerves as Jim can get, and like him, he befriends “Swampy” although it appears that Tressa still isn’t aware of the once-man that keeps rescuing their family from danger. The second season was a few episodes shorter than the first and also introduced another character named Abigail (Kari Wuhrer, Sliders) who is incredibly naïve, has smoking hot legs and is not afraid to show them off. Her origins are somewhat a mystery that bounces around various episodes but never gets satisfactorily explored. I actually found the second season preferable as the “monster of the week” format gave way to a more “I want to be human again” approach to Swamp Thing. The final episode of the season wasn’t bad by any stretch, but was a tad bit anti-climatic with no real cliffhanger to reel you in for a third year. 

It’s great to see every episode in order as intended, but even marathon watching it there was still confusion in the plot flow due to the frequent changes. I can only imagine how confusing it would have been watching as it was broadcast. Despite this, and the sometimes stilted acting, I really grew fond of Swamp Thing: The Series. For a 30-minute show with an obviously low-budget, it managed to capture a very dreamlike quality with surprisingly decent (for cable television) effects work and make-up. It’s great television for a rainy weekend (which this weekend just so happened to be). My main problem with Swamp Thing: The Series is simply that the show could have been better. Stretch it to an hour, have more secondary characters, develop more about Arcane and have an overall arc to the seasons. All of these things could have been used to better the show, but I get the impression watching these two seasons that the show almost always seemed like it was on edge of cancellation if for no other reason than the costs associated with it. But otherwise, it’s a good show. Nothing groundbreaking, but good nevertheless. 

Presentation
Swamp Thing: The Series is presented in its proper full-frame 1.33:1 OAR as originally shown on USA. The transfer matches probably exactly what was shown. I didn’t notice any compression artifacts or other noticeable problems with the DVD, although the look is very muted, no doubt due to so many scenes filmed outdoors and with low-budget equipment. Audio is a fairly standard television 2.0 stereo mix. I highly doubt that the small-screen version of Swamp Thing can look or sound much better than it does here, but this release simply isn’t demo material. Nothing wrong with that though, as this is obviously a fan-geared release. My biggest complaint here is that there are no subtitles, even English, which limits a great deal of potential viewers or purchasers. This is never a smart move, but typical for Shout! Factory releases. Doesn’t Swamp Thing fight against this kind of injustice? 

Extras
Interview with Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein – (8:07)
This is a great interview where Wein talks about his inspirations, what got him into comics, how he created the idea for Swamp Thing and the initial apprehension at making Swamp Thing into a monthly book and how he felt about Alan Moore’s changes to his initial ideas. Great stuff that comic book fans probably already know, but it was fun hearing his enthusiasm nevertheless. 

Interview with Actor Dick Durock – (10:59)
Wein really liked the humanity that Durock brought to Swamp Thing in both films and the show. Here he talks about how he found a career as a stunt man in the movie and television industry and how he kind of fell into the role of Swamp Thing practically stealing the show from Ray Wise and turning the character into a decade long career. I really enjoyed his talks about the difficulty acting in the suits and particularly the changes that the suit took over those films and the show.  

Previews
On the first disc there are a couple of bumpers for Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story and various The Film Crew DVDs. 

Easter Eggs
Here’s some interesting stuff. On the first DVD I found an interview with Len Wein called “These are the Days of our… Justice League?” in which he describes how he prefers writing for a team dynamic and how Days of our Lives has influenced his writing. On the second DVD there is another hidden interview titled “Swamp Thing Returns?” in which Wein talks about a new screenplay that he wrote for a potential third Swamp Thing feature. Disc three has an interview with Dick Durock that has him talking about “The Makeup” and showing off the mask, feet and hands used in the show. None of these features run more than a few minutes, but combined they run almost half as long as the advertised special features. Make you wonder why they hid them. Seems counterproductive.

The Bottom Line
I remembered Swamp Thing as a pretty good show, and revisiting the first two seasons here pretty much solidified that, although I think the show would have done much better as an hour-long program. I don’t think that it’s necessarily something I would openly recommend, though, as anything more than a rental for the uninitiated. Swamp Thing in all its variants is a pretty off-beat type of character, and the television series, while I was very entertained by it, is no different in that regard. Fans of the show should definitely pick up this release, simply because it’s finally available and hopefully, the third and final season of Swamp Thing will find release soon.