'Morning Of The Magician': Swamp Thing meets Jesus Christ - The Lost Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing #88 will always remain the one Swamp Thing story that DC never wanted anyone to
see. The year was 1989 and writer/artist
Rick Veitch was in charge of Swamp Thing, then one of DC Comics’ hottest
properties, mainly due to the exposure that Alan Moore had given the title over
the past few years. In his first major
storyline, Veitch had Swamp Thing going backwards in time, meeting up with
historical DC characters, and historical characters in history. The storyline had been mapped out in advance,
and editors had been notified, and there was some concern as Veitch wanted to
end the story with Swamp Thing meeting none other than Jesus Christ. Naturally there was concern surrounding the
issue, and editor Dick Giordano insisted on seeing the script in advance,
something Veitch was only too happy to do.
Giordano had previously given a tentative go-ahead to the
story, titled Morning Of The Magician
and work had begun on the art, which was to be drawn by Michael Zulli, in his
first ever job for DC. Veitch had
informed DC that the characters in the story would be, naturally, Swamp Thing,
along with The Demon, a character called the Golden Gladiator (both
pre-existing DC characters) and another character, simple called Nazarene. Nazarene would only interact with Swamp Thing
once, when Swamp Thing would hand the cup from which Nazarene (Jesus Christ)
would drink from in the garden. However
the cover art, by Veitch, suggested that Swamp Thing would end the story as the
actual crucifix that Jesus would be slain upon.
Once the script was fully finished, Veitch handed it to Giordano and
Swamp Thing editor Karen Berger for review on the understanding by both sides
that changes would be made if necessary.
It turned out that changes were not necessary. Despite Zulli having completed almost all of
the pages, once then DC president Jenette Kahn read the script she insisted on
the story being killed due to it being blasphemous. This was despite DC being looked upon, at the
time, as being somewhat progressive, with the publication of stories such as
Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and the Death of Robin.
Veitch then went to work to save his story. The first thing he did was to send a memo to
all parties concerned, discussing the story and how it wasn’t blasphemous. It has no real effect and two days after the
memo was sent Veitch and Zulli were officially notified that the story would
not see print. Firmly between a rock and
a hard place and faced with totally rewriting the ending to his saga, and
frustrated by the refusal of Kahn to negotiate, Veitch promptly resigned. Berger then approached two other writers,
Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano, to replace Veitch, both firmly turned her down in
support of Veitch. In 2004 Veitch
offered to make changes to the story so that it could see print but was again
turned down. The saddest aspect of this
story is that the ending to the excellent saga that Veitch had started will
never see print in a DC comic. Veitch
went on to work for other companies, including his own, eventually returning to
DC Comics in the early 2000’s, despite the story not being published.
The hypocrisy of comic book publishers when it comes to
secular characters is incredible. Both
DC and Marvel have depicted characters from Hell, including the Devil himself,
but both consider it an act of high blasphemy if a character such as Jesus or
God is portrayed. At Marvel Tony
Isabella had included a mysterious character into a storyline in Ghost Rider,
all references or suggestions that the character could be Jesus Christ were
removed, and that was in a book featuring a character that had sold his soul to
the Devil. Again, despite the storyline
being approved and long-running, editor Jim Shooter took exception at the
ending of the story, rewrote it and had it partially redrawn, to show that the character,
titled ‘Friend’ throughout the series, was nothing more than a demonic
apparition. The reason given by Shooter
was that Marvel had no desire to upset Christians. Despite this Marvel had no issue with, again,
relying on the Devil to sell books. Sin
sells, goodness and religion does not.
Other, smaller, publishers weren’t so rigid and as time
passed more and more began to publish stories featuring Jesus and even
God. A lot of this can be tracked back
to National Lampoon’s brilliant ‘Son O God’ series, drawn by the legendary Neal
Adams, which featured a character who’d turn into Jesus as a superhero and
whose arch foe was none other than the Pope.
In recent times there’s been books with titles such as ‘Jesus Hates
Zombies’ and Erik Larson featured a smackdown between God and the Devil in his
Savage Dragon series, but still the big guy has yet to turn up at either Marvel
or DC.
What I’m presenting here is the full script, as written by
Rick Veitch, and the art, as drawn by Michael Zulli, for the ‘missing’ Swamp
Thing issue, #88. Read the script, see
the art and wonder what could have been, if only DC had the balls to publish it
in its finished version. After all, if
the Devil can strut his stuff in DC Comics and elsewhere then why can’t Jesus?
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