Broken Frontier

Can comics be frightening?  More often than not, “scary” comics fall short of making readers wet their pants, but every now and then, something spine-tingling hits the shelves.  Take, for example, Saga of the Swamp Thing #31.

Over the weekend, I attended the 2006 World Horror Convention in San Francisco.  WHC is a gathering of some of the darkest minds in the business, and during the convention, I participated on a panel regarding the past, present, and future of horror comics.  We discussed old EC classics such as Tales from the Crypt, nostalgic favorites like Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf By Night, and current grisly hits like Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies.  Eventually, the conversation turned towards the idea of fear—not horror, but real fear—in comics.  (Special thanks to Nate Southard, author of the graphic novels Drive and A Trip to Rundberg from Frequency Press, for broaching this subject.) 

Can comics be scary?  Does true fright exist in the medium?

Most of the time, I think comics fall short of frightening in the same way as a movie or book.  But every now and then, when the writing and the visual mood of the book is just right, a comic can send a genuine chill down the reader’s spine.

As a kid, I was primarily interested in superhero comics.  I didn’t read many humor titles, avoided most war stories, and shied away from horror books.  I wanted to see Captain America or Iron Man or Spiderman trouncing the bad guys, not things that go bump in the night terrifying helpless victims.  The first horror comic I remember reading featured a menacing creature made of smoke that rose from an old man’s pipe.  I can’t recall how the story ended, and I don’t know where it appeared.  But that story scared the living hell out of me.  I’ve never smoked, and I think it’s due in part to that comic.

But aside from smoke-monsters, I stuck to the superheroes I knew and loved.  

I started reading Saga of the Swamp Thing after the movie debuted in 1982.  While his roots (pardon the pun) were in horror, I didn’t think the Swamp Thing was all that scary. Every issue, he encountered another monster and duked it out somewhere in the bayou until his enemy was possum food.  In my mind, he was just another superhero, sort of a very muddy and plant-encrusted Aquaman.

All that changed when Alan Moore took over the comic.

Few comics balanced the superhero and horror genres as well as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing.  Muck monsters have a time-honored place in the four-color world—Swamp Thing, Man Thing, the Heap—but Swamp Thing, who was arguably the bog monster with the most human mind, embarked on some of the most frightening adventures.  Moore’s definitive run on the series was unlike anything I had read up until that point, and many of the stories managed to actually scare me. 

“The Brimstone Ballet” appears in issue 31 of Saga of the Swamp Thing, and I believe the tale is a perfect combo meal of eerie moodiness, genuine creepy moments, and superheroic smack downs. The story is straightforward enough—Swamp Thing has discovered that his beloved Abigail has been killed at the hands of his old nemesis Arcane (who inhabits the body of Matthew Cable) and our hero squares off against the horrid fiend.  But Moore’s storytelling and Veitch and Totleben’s artwork sets the tale apart.

Arcane has plagued Swamp Thing since early issues of the original series, but he has never been more creepy than in these pages.  Looking at the images of Arcane—or at least the decomposing and mutating body he possesses—an overwhelming sense of yeecch! nearly overwhelms me.  Every time I read this comic, I almost want to wash up, lest whatever disease has a hold of Arcane is contagious. 

(That I can think of, only one other comic has ever made me feel so disgusted—Jenny Finn, with its graphic scenes of people mutating into fish-like monstrosities.  I can almost smell low tide and body odor when I read that comic.)

Devastated by Abby’s death, Swamp Thing carries her body as he stalks through falling snow.  Arcane follows, taunting him.  The exchange between hero and villain really establishes Arcane’s foul nature.

“Oh, dear,” Arcane says, his face a mask of remorse.  “Did she mean so much to you?  Never fear.  I have some good news … She isn’t dead at all.  It was all a hoax!  That breathless carcass that you cradle so protectively… that isn’t her!  That’s just a construct … Aren’t you angry at the way you were deceived?  Why don’t you rip the construct’s head off?”

Swamp Thing stares at Abby’s face.  “You lie,” he says.  “This is Abby.  She is dead.”

“Yes!” Arcane hisses, his face becoming more demonic.  “Really dead.”

Arcane’s evil drips from his every word, and that kind of malice scared me when I read the comic all those years ago and still scares me now.

The villain goes on to explain the spirits of other murderers joined him in his escape from Hell and are now continuing their killing sprees around the world.  And not only has he killed Abby, but he has damned her innocent soul to suffer eternally.  Gleefully, he breathes forth a swarm of hellish insects.  Swamp Thing is driven away under a dark cloud of demonic flies.

“Run, Holland!” Arcane chides.  “Run encumbered with your stupid, pointless burden … for there is no rock to hide you … no beacon of incorruptible goodness to light your way … no celestial force that watches over us.”

Arcane pursues our hero into the swamp.  Confident of his impending victory, he is shocked when Swamp Thing turns and not only attacks him but injures him.  He swears it cannot be, because Swamp Thing has never been so powerful in the past.  Little does he know that the bog creature has undergone some significant changes.

And suddenly, Swamp Thing appears monstrous again, fearsome as he growls:  “No, Arcane … you … have never … encountered … me before.  This … is our … first battle!”

And who doesn’t like when a bully gets what’s coming to him?  There in his place of power, Swamp Thing flattens Arcane.  He pummels him until the spirit of Matthew Cable can once again usurp control of his body.  As Arcane dies and plummets into Hell once more, Matt Cable uses what little strength he has left to try to raise Abby from the dead.

But the exhilaration over Swamp Thing’s victory is only a set-up for a more terrible fall.

For a moment, there is a glimmer of hope, and we see Matt’s hand reaching down through the underworld as Abby’s spiritual arm rises to meet him.  But before their fingers touch, tentacles slither around Abigail’s arm, pulling her away.

Abby lies upon the ground, snow falling upon her face in such a way as to give her a weird reverse skull look.  Her body lives again, but Matt was unable to restore her soul.

Swamp Thing’s thoughts are chilling:

“She breathes …  Her heart beats … but a heartbeat is not a woman … a breath … is not Abby …  Her breast moves … but it is empty.  There is no one there.”

That kind of hopelessness is terrifying, maybe not in the jump-with-a-start-and-cover-your-eyes-in-sheer-terror kind of way.  But still scary in a way most comics just can’t pull off.

So, can comics be scary?

Sure, I think so, if they’re done well.  Not every comic can feature a pipe-smoke ghost, but there many different types of scares.  It’s something I’d like to look into over the next couple of weeks, if you’re brave enough to follow me, kiddies …