History Recap / SwampThingVolume2Issue32Pog

* TheArk / ColonyShip: The aliens travel the cosmos in the Find the Lady spaceship, searching for a safe planet where they can repopulate their respective kinds.

* [[MotherNature Mother Earth]]: The aliens [[AnthropomorphicPersonification personify]] their abandoned home planet, and their theoretical future home, as "the Lady."

* {{Xenofiction}}: The story is told from the extraterrestrials' viewpoint. Their dialogue is, as it were, in English (albeit [[{{Portmanteau}} nonstandard]]), whereas the Swamp Thing's speech is represented as glyphs.[[note]]That said, Moore still uses standard English vocabulary and syntax for what little dialogue he utters, so most of what he says ("Thank...you...", "I'm...sorry...") is understandable from the context.[[/note]] See also HumansAreCthulhu, above.

* StunGuns: Strigiforme uses one of these to knock out the Swamp Thing.

* MotherEarth: The aliens [[AnthropomorphicPersonification personify]] their abandoned home planet, and their theoretical future home, as "the Lady."

* MeaningfulName: Aside from referencing the spaceship's ultimate goal, "Find the Lady" is a stereotypical piece of ShellGame patter, bleakly implying that the aliens' search [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption is doomed to eternal disappointment]].

* MeaningfulName: Aside from referencing the spaceship's ultimate goal, "Find the Lady" is a stereotypical game of ShellGame patter, bleakly implying that the aliens' search [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption is doomed to eternal disappointment]].

->"I don't much care to see a co-creature enstrained. Saw an excessant sum of indiquities like that on the ''old'' Lady."\\

--> "I don't much care to see a co-creature enstrained. Saw an excessant sum of indiquities like that on the ''old'' Lady."\\
'''-- Pog'''

!!Tropes

* {{Xenofiction}}: The story is told from the extraterrestrials' viewpoint. Their dialogue is, as it were, in English (albeit [[{{Portmanteau}} nonstandard]]), whereas the Swamp Thing's speech is represented as glyphs.[[note]]That said, Moore still uses standard English vocabulary and syntax for what little dialogue he utters, so most of what he says ("Thank...you...", "I'm...sorry...") is understandable from the context.[[/note]] See also HumansAreCthulhu, above.

** The three "junior umberella-birds" are based on the three bats, Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred.

** The Tadling in his portapuddle is based on the tadpole in a jar, as well as the use of "tad" to mean any young animal.

* TheArk: The aliens travel the cosmos in the Find the Lady spaceship, searching for a safe planet where they can repopulate their respective kinds.

The Swamp Thing sadly leads Pog to Baton Rouge, where he shows him people eating hamburgers and hot dogs. Pog, disheartened, realizes that this planet, too, has a domineering species much like the one back home. As the Swamp Thing compassionately gives him a ride back on his shoulder, Pog dreads telling the others they'll have to search elsewhere for a new Lady.

* {{Portmanteau}}: In place of the [[{{Malaproper}} malapropisms]] which pervade the dialogue of the ''Pogo'' characters, Pog and his crew speak almost entirely in portmanteaus. For example, Pog tells the Swamp Thing, "You're made out of the same ingreenients ["ingredients" + "green"] of the Lady. You must be her guardiner ["guardian" + "gardener"], or some such." Moore told Creator/NeilGaiman that once he'd completed the script for this issue, he had to readjust to writing standard English.

** TheReveal that human beings are this planet's equivalent to the "Loneliest Animals of All" is an implied reference to the most famous ''Pogo'' quotation, "We have met the enemy, and he is us," a GreenAesop from Earth Day, 1971.

* ArcWords: "Trifles light as air" is how the Hystricide characterizes his shipmates' quest on the first page. Towards the end, Pog repeats the phrase, acknowledging in despair that that Hystricide was right, at least about the Earth.

* {{Xenofiction}}: The story is told from the extraterrestrials' viewpoint. Their dialogue is, as it were, in English (albeit [[{{Portmanteau}} nonstandard]]), whereas the Swamp Thing's speech is represented as glyphs.[[note]]That said, Moore still uses standard English vocabulary and syntax for what little dialogue he utters, so most of what he says ("Thank...you...", "I'm...sorry") is understandable from the context.[[/note]] See also HumansAreCthulhu, above.

Using pictographs, Pog explains that everyone on his home planet, "the Lady," once lived in harmony, until a monkey-like species, "the loneliest animals of all," came to dominate the others, slaughtering them for food and using them for cruel scientific experiments. So each of the other species selected a single representative, genetically altered them to make them cloneable and immune from natural death, and sent them off to find a new home, which Pog believes they've now succeeded in doing.

** "Find the Lady" is patterned after the turtle Churchy LaFemme (a {{Pun}} on the French expression ''cherchez la femme'', "find the lady"), who enjoys composing nonsense songs and poems. The opening line of Find the Lady's funeral hymn, "Dark, a soul wind blasts so chilly," is a bleak parody of Churchy's "[[http://www.igopogo.com/deck_us_all.htm Deck Us All with Boston Charlie]]," which is in turn a (much more lighthearted) send-up of the Christmas carol "Deck the Halls."

* ShoutOut: "Trifles light as air" is a quote from ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' (Act III, Scene 3, line 33). Its appearance here as the Hystricide's {{Catchphrase}} may be a reference to the ''Pogo'' strip in which Porky Pine tells Albert, "Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent."

A group of FunnyAnimal-like extraterrestrials, travelling in a sapient spacecraft shaped like a turtle, land in the Houma swamp. What they find seems too good to be true: a planet, that's much like the one they had to leave, that could be their new home. The sudden appearance of the Swamp Thing terrifies them, but Strigiforme, an owl-like crew member, subdues him with a stun gun and manacles him to the ground.

The aliens split up to scout their surroundings, but Pog, their possum-like captain, stays behind and gently revives the Swamp Thing. Although Pog can't understand his speech, he intuits that the vegetable creature means no harm, and releases him. Taking a hint from the Swamp Thing, Pog draws on the ground with a stick so that they can communicate.

Using pictographs, Pog explains that everyone on his home planet, "the Lady," once lived in harmony, until a monkey-like species came to dominate the others, killing them for food and using them for cruel scientific experiments. So each of the other species selected a single representative, genetically altered them to make them cloneable and immune from natural death, and sent them off to find a new home, which Pog believes they've now succeeded in doing.

Meanwhile, another crew member, the alligator-like Bartle, goes for a dip in the bog, where to his delight he finds similar-looking, though much larger, animals he assumes are kin.

As they near the swamp, they hear Bartle screaming, and rush back to find alligators attacking him. The Swamp Thing wrestles them into submission, but it's too late: Bartle is dead. He helps the aliens lay Bartle to rest in the swamp, and they take off in their ship.