Swamp Thing or Man-Thing?

[Bionic Joe]

^^^Damn i wish there was a store near me so i could check it out, the Heap looks like a good read

[samurainoir]

I just read this first issue of the Heap and found it interesting enough. As you can see they have added in some Norse mythology, and set it in Ww 2 nazi Germany. The heap has intelligence and retains the personality of the WW1 German pilot. There is an Anton arcane type mad scientist who is doing mad science experiments in the concentration camps. Intriguing enough that I'll pick up the subsequent issues.

[The Toyroom]

Interesting....this issue is dated from August 1971 and the story was written by Len Wein.

Swamp Thing 1st appeared in House of Secrets #92 (July '71) while Man-Thing 1st appeared in Savage Tales #1 (May '71).

The "Spectre of the Stalking Swamp" looks a lot more like Man-Thing than it does Swamp Thing so maybe Wein DID rip-off his old roommate Gerry Conway???

Roy Thomas:

Gerry and I thought that, unconsciously, the origin in Swamp Thing #1 was a bit too similar to the origin of Man-Thing a year-and-a-half earlier. There was vague talk at the time around Marvel of legal action, but it was never really pursued. I don't know if any letters even changed hands between Marvel and DC. [...] We weren't happy with the situation over the Swamp Thing #1 origin, but we figured it was an accident. Gerry was rooming with Len at the time and tried to talk him into changing the Swamp Thing's origin. Len didn't see the similarities, so he went ahead with what he was going to do. The two characters verged off after that origin, so it didn't make much difference, anyway

[Megospidey]

^ Yeah, that's Man-thing with a reworked "face" - no doubt.

I've gone back over the past couple of years and re-read a bunch of Swamp Thing and Man-thing comics (now have a complete run of Man-thing)

Swamp Thing is a better read story wise -- Man-thing is very dark and brooding. Basically deals with 2 themes that were popular in the 70's: the rising tide of ecology and environmentalism and psycho-analysis.

As far as artwork goes - I STILL like Man-things look over Swamp Thing.

[johnmiic]

The House of Secrets Cover does have Swamp Things characteristic triangular mouth. I like the tribute in ish #33:



That Man-Thing pose must have a common starting point. Michael Golden seemed to copy that stance a few times. It looks like the pose was flipped here:



I love this one as well: