Swamp Thing is a DC Comics character and an eponymous series, published in many volumes. Saga of the Swamp Thing (later renamed Swamp Thing with the forty-sixth issue) is the most revered, and is most remembered for its issues written by Alan Moore and illustrated by various artists. It is about Swamp Thing’s search for identity as well as the examination of national history, culture, and topical issues such as environmentalism. The series was published in one-hundred seventy-one issues by DC Comics, whose Vertigo Comics imprint collected the series incompletely in paperback volumes.

General: National security is one of those magical little phrases it stops people worrying about what you're doing, where you're going...

Swamp Thing: Perhaps there was once a world...we could have belonged to...maybe somewhere in Europe...back in the fifteenth century, the world was...full of shadows then...full of monsters. Not any more.

Liz: All we have in common is the horror in our lives, Denis.

Jason Woodrue: You can't kill a vegetable by shooting it in the head.

Jason Woodrue: He isn't Alec Holland. He never will be Alec Holland. He never was Alec Holland. He's just a ghost. A ghost dressed in weeds.

There is a house above the world, where the over-people gather.

There is a man with wings like a bird.

There is a man who can see across the planet and wring diamonds from its anthracite.

There is a man who moves so fast that his life is an endless gallery of statues.

In the house above the world, the over-people gather...

And sit...

And listen...

...To a dry, mad voice that whispers of Earthdeath.

Swamp Thing: You did not... have to kill her... to teach me despair, Arcane... But you have given me... a deeper understanding... of abomination.

There are people. There are stories. The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse is often closer to the truth.

Cain: Murder? Don't talk to me about murder. I invented murder.

Abby Cable: [Thinking of Matt Cable] The Doctor said there was little indication of Brain Activity. He was not expected to recover.

Yes, she felt guilty, felt relieved frightened, angry, all those things....

But the separate shades of her grief had merged, like vivid modelling-clays crushed together, into a single mauve-brown bruise.

Bruises fade eventually.

Their anger in darkness turning, unreleased, unspoken, it's mouth a red wound, its eyes hungry...hungry for the moon.

Swamp Thing: Is there some pattern... that I should perceive...in this senseless pageant... of atrocity...?

Is there some truth... that may be divined... from the entrails... of America...?

It seems useless...

I struggle... to impose a structure... that has meaning... on the madness that churns... within this continent... within this world...

But tonight... I looked into a man's eyes... and glimpsed the abyss...

And I fear... that it may... be bottomless....

I know that there must be an answer... a light in the blackness... but I don't know... if I can find it... on my own.

Swamp Thing: Woodrue. The wrath... of nature... is not wrong... nor is it unjust... that man... should bear its brunt.

For anger at least... I forgive you. The Green... forgives you...

But you are the last... that shall be forgiven this day...

And a city... awaits my judgment.

Amongst the city's foundations, the Swamp God hears her speak his name and feels a jolt of simple love so powerful that had he such a thing, his heart would burst.

"Alec?"

The touch of her mind, the aching nearness of her, unlocks a flood of memory almost too sharp to bear: Her laugh, like deep waters; The curve of her breast; The brushstroke of her collar bone...

Abby. Abby.

He cannot live without her. Not a moment longer. His power surges. The fuse burns, bright and eager towards its explosion. Across the city's gray map, an invisible hand rules a line in bright green crayon. And he whispers her name. And he whispers "I'm coming."

Abigail Holland: Contempt? Yes. Yes, I think that's the word... Contempt. See, You brought all this on yourselves. You understand that? I mean, you just couldn't leave it be., you couldn't let us alone. And now it's too late. Now you're in trouble.

Swamp Thing: Warning... me...? YOU... are warning... ME...?

Do... you warn... the hurricane? Do you warn... the earthquake?

You have taken... that which I love... away from me...

I have come to reclaim it.

Swamp Thing: Always GUNS. Are they... your only... solution...?

You can shoot... the animals... in the forest...

But you cannot... shoot the forest.

Harvey Bullock: I think we can maybe chip the bark a little.

Swamp Thing: Very well... But hear this... Men of the City.

I have tolerated... your species... for long enough.

Your cruelty... and your greed... and your insufferable arrogance...

You blight the soil... and poison the rivers. You raze the vegetation... till you cannot... even feed... your own kind...

A... and then you boast... of man's triumph... over nature.

Fools. If nature were to shrug... or raise an eyebrow...

Then you should all be gone...

I want... my wife. You have... one hour.

Swamp Thing: I stand in an orchard... of streetsigns and parking meters...

From across the wilderness city... the wind blows fragments of music... percussive, robotic, distant...

My consciousness seeps out... through the filaments... and shoots...

Abby... I want you back. I want you back... and I do not care... about civilization.

The wilderness... can have it all.

Abby... I have made of this city... a fabulous bouquet. For you. All for you...

And those who took you from me... have not begun to taste... the fruits... of my retribution.

Swamp Thing: Hear this... Men... of the city...

Gotham... and Gotham's champion have fallen... to the Green.

Nowhere... is safe. No one... is safe... until she... is safe... with me.

Remove my wife... from your prisons... or remove Gotham City from your maps.

You have until dawn.

Swamp Thing: You thought... that it could not... get worse. You imagined... that things... had reached their limits.

Do not... delude yourselves... There are... no limits.

Wherever vegetation dwells... there I dwell also. There are plants... in your reservoirs...

There is flora... in the human intestinal track...

Do not... tempt me.

For the last time: I... Want... My... Wife.

No more delays. No More talk.

Swamp Thing: In the precambrian...when all the world was weeds...and nothing crawled...or swam...or flew...the earthgods ruled the last non-violent era...'til the sun grows red and swollen and all life is fled....
They could have made their kingdom of plants....as perfect as I'll make the kingdom of men...and there would never have been need...for any other form of life. They would have kept...this plant for their own...and yet did not...
I wonder why?
Instead...they let the fish glide in...upon the wild, silurian tide...and took their forms...and played with them...yet never made this world a cool piscean paradise...
...Nor when the fish with legs boiled up...from Devonian mud...did they impose reptilian utopia...but watched instead...delighting in the dazzling diversity...of shapes and shades...

Swamp Thing: Is this, then, what it is to be a god?
To know, and never do? To watch the world wind by...and it it's windings find content...?
If I should feed the world...heal all the wounds man's smoldering industries have made...what would he do? Would he renounce...the wealth his sawmills bring...step gently on the flowers instead...and pluck each apple with respect....for this abundant world...in all it's providence...?
No
He would pump more poisons...build more mines...safe in the knowledge that I stood on hand...to mend the biosphere...endlessly covering the scars...he could now endlessly inflict.
Somewhere the parliament stand rooted...inert and omnipotent...while tiny spiders drape their ribs in silk.
After this night of reverie...at last I comprehend their stance.