The Monstrefact: DC Comics' Swamp Thing

back in nineteen seventy one. Since that time, swamp Thing has appeared in two live action eighties films, two live action TV series, and numerous animation and video game projects, But among comic fans there's nothing to compare to Alan Moore's run with the character during the nineteen eighties. Swamp Thing's original origin story was not all but different from

other lab accidents spawned the monsters. Scientist ALC Holland his experimental formula and a lab explosion in the Bayou transforms man into plant based monster, who in turn battles various other monsters, often in the form of doctor Anton R. Kane's Unmen, plus many others. In Moore's run with the character, however, he subverted this trope, invoking biochemical memory experiments about plenarian worms.

We discussed these in our episode Devourer of Memories. His take is that Alic Holland does not survive the explosion

in the swamp. He is not a man who becomes a plant like monster, but plant life of the swamp that generates a body and a sense of self in the likeness of the dead man it consumes in and this more stripped swamp Thing of any direct connection to his human identity and opens the door for a deeper connection to the green and the Parliament of trees, essentially recreating the character as a plant elemental, a warrior of Gaia,

and overall super lora ax if you will. If you haven't read the Saga of the Swamp Thing, I highly highly recommend it. Virtually nothing can touch it now. Long time listeners to Stuff to Blow your mind and general philosophy junkies might remember a similar creature. No, not Marvel's man Thing, though he's awesome as well, but philosopher Donald Davidson's swamp Man thought experiment We've talked about this on the show as well, back in Our Thought Experiment's episode.

It basically goes as follows. If a lightning strike in the swamp were to destroy Davidson's body and transform an adjacent dead tree into an exact living replica of Davidson without reusing any of the previous Davidson molecules, then what do we have? This tree double or swampman. It behaves just like the previous Davidson and seems to know what he knew, But does it really know anything? In this Swampman is a rumination on thought and meaning in knowing

one's mind. Davidson writes the following quote, My replica can't recognize my friends. It can't recognize anything since it never cognized anything in the first place. It can't know my friend's names, though of course it seems to. It can't remember my house. It can't mean what I do by the word house, for example, since the sound house it makes was not learned in a context that would give

it the right meaning, or any meaning at all. Indeed, I don't see how my replica can be said to mean anything by the sounds it makes, nor to have any thoughts unquote. Now, it's worth noting that Davidson, who died in two thousand and three, published this idea on Swampmn a few years after Moore recast The Origin of swamp Thing, and as far as I can tell, no one is entirely certain on how and to what extent

the two are connected. Authors Chris Galliver and Nathaniel Goldberg explored the connection or possible connection in the twenty nineteen book Superhero Thought Experiments, Comic Book Philosophy and contend Quote. While there's no evidence that either Moore or Davidson read each other, Moore's series appears to be philosophically influenced and

Davidson's Thought Experiment appears to be pop culturally influenced. So perhaps it's just the case of two men on different tracks thinking deep thoughts about swamp and the self.

So ponder on all of that, and by all means, pick up a copy of Superhero Thought Experiments if you want to deeper dive on this topic. It's really quite an excellent book. Comic fans, I will leave you with this. Here's a question for you. Has swamp Thing ever actually met Davidson's swamp Man in the pages of a comic book. It seems like, in general, any kind of matchup or encounter that one could possibly imagine has occurred or no doubt will occur. I can't help but wonder how this

would go down. What would swamp Thing think about the encounter and what would swamp Man seem to think about it but actually not think at all. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact or The Artifact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.