Scientist Holland gets splashed with a ‘bio-restorative formula’ when baddies attack his Louisiana swampland laboratory, and is transmuted into a big monster - who has a certain similarity with earlier comics creatures the Heap and Man-Thing. The first run of the comic featured marvellously grotesque Wrightson art, but it wasn’t until writer Alan Moore took up the book – which was relaunched to tie in with the Wes Craven film – that ST really became a major player, even if he had to play straight man to Moore’s John Constantine. It turns out that ST isn’t a transformed human, but animated swamp with the consciousness of the late Holland. He has had a long-term relationship with a human woman, which some have criticised as perverted or icky.

FIRST APPEARED IN SWAMP THING # 1 (1972) – OR HOUSE OF SECRETS # 92 (1971), IF YOU WANT TO BE REALLY PEDANTIC
CREATED BY LEN WEIN AND BERNIE WRIGHTSON