House of Secrets #92

History

Len Wein conceived the story as a period piece about a swamp creature, and the two creators — both in their early twenties at the time — developed it together, with Wein later recounting that the collaboration grew out of a late-night conversation with Wrightson after a personal setback. The cover was produced in India ink and watercolor wash, then run through DC's production department using a velox/silver-print process that translated Wrightson's continuous-tone painting into a stippled dot pattern — a technical transformation that gave the printed cover its distinctive, almost mezzotint quality, quite different from the fully-painted original art. Editor Joe Orlando oversaw the issue, which ran as part of the revamped horror anthology series that had adopted Abel as its host in 1969; the Swamp Thing lead story was never intended as the seed of an ongoing series, but strong sales and reader mail changed that calculus quickly. For the cover's woman figure, Wrightson used Louise Jones (later Louise Simonson) as a photographic reference model, and reportedly used fellow artist Michael Kaluta as the physical reference for the creature.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Swamp Thing, here identified as scientist Alex Olsen, in an eight-page lead story titled 'Swamp Thing,' written by Len Wein and drawn by Bernie Wrightson — cover-dated July 1971, published by DC Comics under the National Periodical Publications indicia.
• The Swamp Thing in this issue is a distinct character from the better-known Alec Holland version: Alex Olsen is a Victorian/Edwardian-era scientist murdered by his jealous colleague Damien Ridge, who buries Olsen's body in a swamp; Olsen is reborn as a muck creature, kills Ridge, but is unable to communicate his identity to his wife Linda, and retreats alone into the bayou.
• The cover was painted by Wrightson in India ink and watercolor wash; DC's production department processed it through a velox/silver-print technique that converted the painted tones into a stippled dot pattern, creating the printed cover's atmospheric texture as a side effect of the reproduction process.
• Louise Jones (later Louise Simonson, writer and editor) served as the photographic model for the woman on the cover; the DC Database notes that Michael Kaluta served as the reference model for the Swamp Thing figure.
• Editor was Joe Orlando; the issue also contains stories by Jack Kirby and Mark Evanier, Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin, and a story by Mary Skrenes credited in the issue under the pseudonym 'Virgil North.'
• The story's strong sales led directly to Swamp Thing receiving his own ongoing series in 1972 — also written by Wein and drawn by Wrightson for the first ten issues — in which the character was reimagined as Alec Holland in a contemporary setting.
• Alan Moore later integrated the Alex Olsen story into his celebrated 1980s run by establishing that Swamp Thing is a plant elemental — the latest in a long line of such beings through history — explicitly bringing Olsen back into DC continuity as the character's earliest known predecessor.
• The eight-page story has been reprinted numerous times, including: DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #9 (1981), Saga of the Swamp Thing #33 (1985), Roots of the Swamp Thing #5 (1986), Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis TPB (1991/1992), DC Silver Age Classics: House of Secrets #92 (1992), Millennium Edition: House of Secrets #92 (2000), Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets Vol. 1 (2008), DC Comics Classics Library: Roots of the Swamp Thing (2009), and a facsimile edition (2019), among many others.

Cast · 4 characters

Full credits

Key issues in House of Secrets

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#23 1st appearance — Mark Merlin

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