"Night of the Warring Dead"

Hey guys,

my laptop decided to run all by itself, so I decided to kick one more post out.
I decided to finish off my not so Random Comic Reviews about Swamp Thing, so enjoy this other favorite of mine from the original series before Alan Moore got his magical hands on the property.

"Night of the Warring Dead" from Swamp Thing#16(May 1975) by David Micheline and Nestor Redondo.

 

The issue starts off with Abby and Matt Cable aboard a 747 that has just come under attack by a skyjacker. Cable wants to do the hero thing, but Abby warns him that the guy will kill his hostage, a stewardess, if he tries anything. So he reluctantly lets the skyjacker head toward the cargo hold. The skyjacker gets ready to bail, killing the stewardess before he leaves, when all of a sudden Swamp Thing busts out of a nearby crate shouting "No!" Swampy grabs the guy but doesn't know what to do with him. Before he can do anything else, the plane gets tossed around due to a nearby storm, knocking both ST and the skyjacker out of the plane. Despite opening the skyjacker's parachute, they both continue to fall fast. ST remembers back to how he got into this situation, as we flashback to Abby, Matt, and Swampy going off in search of Mr.Bolt, who went missing in the previous issue. The flashback ends abruptly as both plunge hard into the sea below them. Swampy later washes up on some island at the feet of two strange people. The issue quickly flashes to the fate of Mr. Bolt, who finds him self being tortured in a hidden jungle sanctuary by a mysterious bad guy.

Back to Swampy, who awakens to the sight of a woman who calls herself Laganna, high priestess of the island of Kala Pago. She's the leader of the People's Liberation Army on the island alongside a mercenary named Adam Rook. She tells Swampy her whole story about the local government was overthrown, and how her people were hunted and killed for the great power and knowledge the island's inhabitants posses. Laganna possess a mystical talisman that grants her powers and helps her and Rook fight off the opposition. Rook makes with the small talk, relating his back-story about being a former Vietnam vet who became disillusioned with life after finding no place for himself in the world after the war. Eventually he heard about Laganna's plight and agreed to join up with her. The action starts to pick up as Laganna leads them all to a local cemetery, where she plans on awakening the dead to help fight off her foes. Not a bad idea actually.

Before all of this can happen, the evil regime's troops desend on the them, casing Swampy to stubble into a trap that Laganna and Adam Rook manage to avoid. Elsewhere, Matt and Abby discover that ST's gone, and wonder what to do next. Swampy awakens in his jail cell and starts to break out, while Laganna causes the dead to arise once again with the power of her talisman. The former corpses bust out of their graves and attack the the evil army. Swamp Thing soon joins in the attack, but develops a sudden attack of consense when seeing how the troops are getting massacred by the living dead. He breaks Laganna's talisman, and the living dead quickly dissolve into dust. All seems lost for Laganna and Rook, but Rook refuses to quit. "We've lost Adam, it's over." "Maybe for you lady, but not for me!"  Rook goes all Full Metal Jacket on the troops, shooting away like a madman before being gunned down. Swamp Thing leaves the pair to their fates, with Laganna dying not to long after Rook. Swampy looks like he'll head back for the two, but after hearing gunshots, simply shakes his head and walks off. Back to that remote hidden jungle, as a doctor openly questions whether or not to continue frying Bolt. The mysterious bad guy responds "I don't care if it does turn him into a blasted vegetable! Continue! I assure you my good doctor, Nathan Ellery pays his debts!"

End of issue.

My only complaint about this issue, is Swampy suddenly ending Laganna's only hope of getting rid of the bad guys by crush her talisman. So what if he got a little spooked about the dead rising; that evil regime committed worse atrocities and deserved everything they got. St doing that, and then leaving Laganna and Rook behind was a real dick move. Thankfully it's not in canon anymore, but damn that was very unheroic of him.

Well, that's it for me; I'm not sure when the next post will be but I'll update when I can. Man computers suck! The other day I found out that via my Facebook account, that a virus was being sent out to all of the people on my contact list. How the hell does shit like this continue to happen!? I had to deactivate my FB account, but damn do people on the internet suck! When I was first starting to get on the internet back in '95, this never happened. Now it's an all to common occurrence. Shit like this needs to stop, and stop now!