Before Tim Hunter (of Books of Magic) came as a proto-Harry Potter, or Death of the Endless (from Sandman) arose to make the ankh a staple symbol among geeky goth girls, or John Constantine (from Hellblazer) made trench coats fashionable—even before the creation of Vertigo Comics, the DC Comics imprint from which these characters and stories came from—there was in the bayous of Louisiana a strange quiet creature called the Swamp Thing.

The Swamp Thing first appeared in 1972, in a stand-alone story in House of Secrets, a horror anthology then being produced by DC Comics. He later appeared in a series of his own, under the collaborative efforts of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson.

The idea was that the Swamp Thing had once been a man named Alec Holland, a scientist experimenting on plants in the swamps. He (in typical superhero fashion) was caught in an explosion which transformed him into a hulking mass of vegetation with powers over plant life. Over the course of a few years (and a few writers and artists), the Swamp Thing aka Alec would go on pining for his humanity, seeking revenge on those who sabotaged his experiments, fighting the forces of evil and defending the swamp – everything one might expect from a plant-based heroic-type monster.

And then in 1984 a young British writer by the name of Alan Moore came along. Moore, whom comics-readers would later associate with comic high-points such as Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, essentially revamped the entire series, launching it in an entirely new direction - a direction which certain comics still trace today.