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I recently found a couple of volume 2 Swamp Thing issues (only fitty cent each) from the early 80s I used to have back in the day. I really like rereading old issues like these because you really do often get more out of it when you read these stories as an adult as opposed to a teenager. I had almost forgotten how the early story line of that series was heavily steeped with an Old Testament and World War II narrative mixed in with some of the same Jewish folklore that Ragman mine is derived from. The few panels I posted here from Swamp Thing 11 do a good job of explaining the nature of The Golem.
In this story line Swamp Thing teams up with a group of guys going after this evil mutant girl who they think is the herald of the coming "anti-Christ" that will bring the apocalypse with him when he/it comes to Earth. As you can see here they utilize a golem to help fight this evil mutant but we see later that the golem can sometimes get confused about it's mission due to it lacking a soul and mind. Think of a computer given a task a bit too complex for it's fairly simple programming. Let me digress for a moment to make this point. This imperfection in the golem is a fundamental aspect of the
Ragman suite which was created from rags with a variation of the golem spell by Jewish mystics in order to create a protector with a human mind and hence the ability to reason.
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| BACK ISSUE magazine #92 October 2016 |
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| December 8th Update: It's December and that means it time for Hannukkah. |
may i have the email of the blog owner please?
ReplyDeletei just replied to your message on youtube.
DeleteI have a good few of old Swamp Thing issues from around Pasko's run, and I can definitely attest to these themes constantly recurring during his run. They're probably not collected in trade, but they really, really should be.
ReplyDeleteI know one of my favorite issues, besides his early encounter with Anton Arcane, is the one with the priest who turned to satanism to help bring back his parishioners, or the one with a lone mystic trying to fight off a rebel guerrilla army from overtaking her small island country. Damn good stuff.
i'm thinking the priest turning satanic story line sounds more like it's something from an earlier volume then the Pasko run?
DeleteYeah, you're right. Looking back at it, it was during writer David Micheline's mid 70's run on SW.
ReplyDeleteIt's from Swamp Thing#, Vol.4. "The Soul Spell of Father Bliss."
Damn good art by the criminally underrated and under-appreciated Nestor Redondo.