Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 49

Male/Scientist in Sw am p Thing

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can “see,” “smell,” “hear,” and be “alive once more!” (Glut 109). Compare this to Len
Wein’s description of Swamp Thing, “something that claws its way out of the grasping
mire...and into the light once more! Something that pulls itself upright on unsteady
legs.. .and then pauses, studying its gnarled, misshapen hands, examining the clusters of
root, the crumbling chunks of moss, and in that frightening, mind-shattering second,
knows what it has become!” (Wein 1.4-1.5) The echoes seem more than coincidence.
They certainly suggest a conscious allusion to at least one Frankenstein precursor.
7. See Rosner and Rhoades, who define a feminist science as based on a “concern for the
whole and for the human part in the whole,” on “connections as an ordering principle,”
on principles of “coexistence” and the metaphor of the “web.” In contrast, they define a
masculinist science as interested in “separate parts” (analysis), in “conflict as an ordering
principle,” in the impersonal and the objective, a science based on principles of
“competition” and the metaphor of the “ladder” and hierarchies (82). See also Thompson,
who believes that men need to be taught as boys to “accept attitudes and behaviors
traditionally labelled feminine,” thereby learning to love other boys and girls (589).
8. According to Sabin, Alan Moore’s version of Swamp Thing is “more sophisticated”
than the original (215). In fact, “Moore is generally credited with introducing greater
psychological depth into comics” (245).
9. See Thompson, who claims that “traditional masculinity is life-threatening” because it
manifests itself so often in “extreme physical risks,” “combative, hostile activities,”
“abuse,” “rape” and “war” (588).
Acknowledgement: All photos used with permission of DC Comics. Swamp Thing is a
trademark of DC Comics c 1999. All rights reserved.

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Moore, Alan, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben. Swamp Thing: Love and Death. New
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