History YMMV / SwampThing

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: An accidental case: the original region-1 DVD release of the first film packaged the unrated cut (with [[FanserviceExtra significantly more nudity]] than the theatrical cut) in a case which still bore the PG rating of the theatrical cut. The "unrated" cut was created for European release in an effort to make it HotterAndSexier. This version was never meant to be seen in America due to a contractual clause by Adrienne Barbeau, whose nudity was shown in a bathing scene in the river. Because of this, all American video releases since said DVD are the PG-rated version.

* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: Batman explaining to the mayor of Gotham that insisting on InterspeciesRomance being illegal is somewhat ridiculous, concerning the fact how many aliens and other beings that aren't exactly human run around on Earth. Especially funny because of [[DeadpanSnarker the incredibly snarky way it was delivered by Batman.]]
--> '''Batman''': No ''exceptions'', I see. In ''that'' case I suggest you start rounding up all the ''other'' non-human beings who may be having relationships outside their ''species''.\\
'''Mayor''': What? What do you mean?
--> '''Batman''': I ''mean'', if you want to take this all the ''way'', [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman non-humanity doesn't end with the Swamp Thing.]] Let me ''see''... You'll possibly have to arrest ComicBook/{{Hawkman}}... And ComicBook/{{Metamorpho}}... And there's also Starfire, from the [[ComicBook/TeenTitans Titans.]] Her race evolved from ''cats'', I believe... The ComicBook/MartianManhunter, obviously... ComicBook/CaptainAtom... And then of course there's '''What's'''-'''His'''-'''Name'''... [[Franchise/{{Superman}} The one who lives in Metropolis.]]
--> '''Mayor''': [[OhCrap *gapes*]]

!!The video game:

%%* TheProblemWithLicensedGames

* FanonDiscontinuity: People tend to view the series solely in terms of the Creator/AlanMoore run, which may be because the rest of it has either never been collected in trade form or is otherwise notoriously difficult to find. It's generally accepted that the Wrightson-Wein run is pretty good, the Creator/BrianKVaughan run... ''isn't,'' and that the tail end of the Plasko run is required reading to fully get the Alan Moore run.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: An accidental case: the original region-1 DVD release of the first film packaged the unrated cut (with [[FanserviceExtra significantly more nudity]] than the theatrical cut) in a case which still bore the PG rating of the theatrical cut.
** The "unrated" cut was created for European release in an effort to make it HotterAndSexier. This version was never meant to be seen in America due to a contractual clause by Adrienne Barbeau, whose nudity was shown in a bathing scene in the river. Because of this, all American video releases since said DVD are the PG-rated version.

!!The comicbook:

** Creator/NancyACollins' run has its share of (mild) detractors; she basically reset the series to the end of Alan Moore's run with a Swamp Thing that was (relatively) mainstream-friendly and akin to the Wrightson/Wein and Plasko runs, as she concentrated more on CharacterDevelopment, exploration of Cajun culture and an expanded supporting cast than horror. (Though it's worth noting [[ApprovalOfGod Alan Moore was a fan of her work on the character.]])

* HilariousInHindsight: One of the Marty Plasko issues has an {{Expy}} of [[Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood Mister Rogers]] who turns out to be a demon who feeds on children; he uses his show to convince them to trust strangers, which make them easier targets. (This violation of the rule of AcceptableTargets can be forgiven since it was written while [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_murders_of_1979-1981 a series of child murders were occurring in Atlanta]] ). The name of the demon's TV persona? [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Uncle Barney]].

* CompleteMonster:
** Post-Crisis:
*** [[AxCrazy Anton Arcane]], MadScientist-turned-EvilSorcerer, as presented in Creator/AlanMoore's run, is one of Swamp Thing's [[ArchEnemy most recurring and vile enemies]]. Originally trying and failing to steal Swamp Thing's body for his own use, Arcane [[BackFromTheDead survives his near-demise]] by becoming a monstrous spirit. Orchestrating several problems Swamp Thing had to face, notably unleashing the demonic Monkey King to prey on innocent children and slaughter their families, Arcane returns to a physical form by stealing the body of his niece, Abby's, husband. Arcane proceeds to [[EvilUncle rape and murder Abigail]] then curse her soul to an eternity of torment in Hell simply to hear her scream, before beginning his master plan. [[{{Necromancer}} Reviving]] numerous murderers and serial killers and unleashing them across America, Arcane causes a wave of violence and hate to begin emanating across the country, causing family members to kill each other, babies to be suffocated, and his revived killers to target playgrounds of children, all while planning to take his anarchy on a global scale and bring about his own apocalypse. Arcane spends his last moments gleefully mocking Swamp Thing about how much he enjoys his crimes, and, even when banished to Hell, Arcane can only laugh as he recalls how he reduced to his own brother to a tortured monstrosity that even now causes Abigail great pain. A sadistically twisted monster of a man who cares only for {{immortality|Immorality}} and [[{{Sadist}} causing pain to others]], Anton Arcane is inarguably Swamp Thing's most hated foe, and for good reason.
*** [[Creator/BrianKVaughan Vol. 3]] issues #11-17--"Red Harvest" arc: [[PsychoForHire DDI Agent Romero]] is the AxCrazy enforcer of [[CorruptPolitician Senator Culler Strand]], assigned to eliminate any civilians with knowledge of Tefe Holland's powers as an elemental. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment]] by [[SlashedThroat slicing the throat]] of a young man Tefe had recently helped, Romero follows Tefe and her friends as they journey across the country cheerfully disposing of witnesses, ultimately increasing her range of targets from anyone who has seen Tefe use her powers to anyone who has seen her, period, at one point slicing an entire diner full of people to ribbons just because she'd eaten there. When Romero and Tefe finally meet face to face, Romero taunts her about all the past acquaintances she's killed before offering to spare the life of Tefe's friend Barnabas if Tefe agrees to serve the military. When Tefe acquiesces, Romero kills Barnabas anyway.
** Creator/AlanMoore's run:
*** "American Gothic" arc: [[EvilSorcerer The Grand Master]] is an aged sorcerer who leads the Brujeria, a cult of [[StrawNihilist extreme nihilists]] based in Argentina. Disappointed at the Anti-Monitor's failure to destroy reality during the [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]], the Grand Master resolves to finish the job himself by invoking an even more powerful horror, [[TheAntiGod the Great Darkness]]. To this end, the Grand Master summons supernatural creatures to wage gruesome attacks on innocent people, and channels their resulting belief in the impending apocalypse into a magical gem that can awaken the Darkness. The Grand Master also presides over the Brujeria's brutal internal policies, including making clothing from human skin, mutilating newborn babies to turn them into mystical assassins called Invunche, and seducing [[Characters/HellblazerJohnConstantine John Constantine]]'s ally Judith into betraying Constantine, only to double-cross her in turn by agonizingly transforming her into a messenger bird.
*** The Bogeyman, from [[Recap/SwampThingVolume2Issue44Bogeymen issue #44]], is a SerialKiller with a body count that numbers over 160. With a penchant for memorizing the eyes of his victims at the moment of death, the Bogeyman stalks his victims and throttles them to death after toying with them. With his first victims from his youth, he continues to kill well into adulthood, luring a man into the swamps and murdering him while always remembering the eyes from which number victim they were.
** New 52: [[MadScientist Anton Arcane]]'s new incarnation is a being of boundless cruelty. In his pursuit of {{immortality|Immorality}}, Arcane took over the elemental force of The Rot, [[DarkIsNotEvil the natural force of death and decay]], and subsumed it to his will. Arcane extends the Rot to devour all that lives and trap the world in deathless limbo he can rule. Arcane even forced his own nephew to be the Rot's avatar, devouring his mind from within. In Arcane's battles with Swamp Thing, Alec Holland saw a future where Arcane [[EvilUncle gruesomely tortured and beheaded Abigail]] and saw lobotomized clones Arcane had made of her as CannonFodder.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** The first arc of the fourth series is dedicated to undoing everything that occurred in Creator/BrianKVaughan's run.
** The ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}'' was this for the character, effectively declaring ''ComicBook/BrightestDay'' and ''The Search For Swamp Thing'' non-canon after that mini-series killed off Alan Moore's version of the character and replaced him with Alec Holland, who was resurrected SOLELY so he could be turned into Swamp Thing via ''deus ex machina''. What's bizarre about this interpretation of events is that the ending of ''Brightest Day'' was itself an AuthorsSavingThrow, to restore Len Wein's original, pre-Alan Moore vision for the character.
** Even Creator/AlanMoore attempted to soft-pedal his retcon of Swamp Thing's origin by having Abby and everyone else still treat Swampie as Alec Holland. Later writers essentially took the stance that Swamp Thing, for all intents and purposes ''is'' Alec Holland, insofar that he's a plant clone of him with all of his memories and personality, even if the real Alec Holland is dead.

** Post-Crisis: [[AxCrazy Anton Arcane]], MadScientist-turned-EvilSorcerer, as presented in Creator/AlanMoore's run, is one of Swamp Thing's [[ArchEnemy most recurring and vile enemies]]. Originally trying and failing to steal Swamp Thing's body for his own use, Arcane [[BackFromTheDead survives his near-demise]] by becoming a monstrous spirit. Orchestrating several problems Swamp Thing had to face, notably unleashing the demonic Monkey King to prey on innocent children and slaughter their families, Arcane returns to a physical form by stealing the body of his niece, Abby's, husband. Arcane proceeds to [[EvilUncle rape and murder Abigail]] then curse her soul to an eternity of torment in Hell simply to hear her scream, before beginning his master plan. [[{{Necromancer}} Reviving]] numerous murderers and serial killers and unleashing them across America, Arcane causes a wave of violence and hate to begin emanating across the country, causing family members to kill each other, babies to be suffocated, and his revived killers to target playgrounds of children, all while planning to take his anarchy on a global scale and bring about his own apocalypse. Arcane spends his last moments gleefully mocking Swamp Thing about how much he enjoys his crimes, and, even when banished to Hell, Arcane can only laugh as he recalls how he reduced to his own brother to a tortured monstrosity that even now causes Abigail great pain. A sadistically twisted monster of a man who cares only for {{immortality|Immorality}} and [[{{Sadist}} causing pain to others]], Anton Arcane is inarguably Swamp Thing's most hated foe, and for good reason.

* InvincibleVillain: Arcane during the ComicBook/{{New 52}} with new re-imagined Rot based powers that allow him to instantly kill, turn undead, and take control of any living thing that has even a single dead cell in it, anywhere in the entire world at any time. There are no functional limits to this power, only that champions of the Green and Red can sometimes resist it, but even then Arcane can just steal somebody's appearance and kill them before they can attack. He is also effectively unkillable as he can just reform a body from any corpse. Add to the fact that he's been around for centuries, effortlessly killing champions of both the Green and Red, until finally [[spoiler: infecting and taking over the entire world in the Rotworld segment along with killing and cloning Abby]]. He only loses not through any action of the heroes, when he's declared to be TOO successful as a villain, and [[spoiler: the Parliament of Rot withdraws their support and allow them to rewind time to before his victory]].

* ShallowParody: Volume 2, Issue 3 features a children's television show host who espouses a series of questionable lessons on how strangers are just friends you haven't met yet...all in the service of a child-eating demon he sold his soul to. Of special note is how he likes to use the term [[Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood neighbor]]. Said issue then features one of the characters talking about how dangerous, cruel and hostile the world is and that kids should be taught [[StrangerDanger to avoid strangers.]] Salient points, but Fred Rogers never taught children to interact with strangers outside of their parents' supervision, at all. To add to the shallow-ness, the evil kids show host, before making the demonic pact, was a spineless schlub who let his bosses push him around and was often accosted by them for showing violent cartoons; whereas Fred Rogers, while not perfect, made several principled stands in his life, and had a generally negative view of cartoons that he saw as "mindless violence", even including regular slapstick.

* ShallowParody: Volume 2, Issue 3 features a children's television show host who espouses a series of questionable lessons on how strangers are just friends you haven't met yet...all in the service of a child-eating demon he sold his soul to. Of special note is how he likes to use the term [[Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood neighbor]]. Said issue then features one of the characters talking about [[CrapsackWorld how dangerous, cruel and hostile the world is]]
and that kids should be taught [[StrangerDanger to avoid strangers.]] Except Fred Rogers never taught children to interact with strangers outside of their parents' supervision, at all. To add to the shallow-ness, the evil kids show host, before making the demonic pact, was a spineless schlub who let his bosses push him around and was often accosted by them for showing violent cartoons; whereas Fred Rogers, while not perfect, made several principled stands in his life, and had a generally negative view of cartoons that he saw as "mindless violence", even including regular slapstick.

and that kids should be taught [[StrangerDanger to avoid strangers.]] Except Fred Rogers never taught children to interact with strangers outside of their parents' supervision, at all. To add to the shallow-ness, the evil kid's show host, before making the demonic pact, was a spineless schlub who let his bosses push him around and was often accosted by them for showing violent cartoons; in other words, the complete opposite of the real Fred Rogers.

* ShallowParody: Volume 2, Issue 4 features a children's television show host who espouses a series of questionable lessons on how strangers are just friends you haven't met yet...all in the service of a child-eating demon he sold his soul to. Of special note is how he likes to use the term [[Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood neighbor]]. Said issue then features one of the characters [[AuthorTract going on a rant]] about [[CrapsackWorld the world is an awful place]] and that kids should be taught that instead.

*** "American Gothic" arc: [[EvilSorcerer The Grand Master]]is an aged sorcerer who leads the Brujeria, a cult of [[StrawNihilist extreme nihilists]] based in Argentina. Disappointed at the Anti-Monitor's failure to destroy reality during the [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]], the Grand Master resolves to finish the job himself by invoking an even more powerful horror, [[TheAntiGod the Great Darkness]]. To this end, the Grand Master summons supernatural creatures to wage gruesome attacks on innocent people, and channels their resulting belief in the impending apocalypse into a magical gem that can awaken the Darkness. The Grand Master also presides over the Brujeria's brutal internal policies, including making clothing from human skin, mutilating newborn babies to turn them into mystical assassins called Invunche, and seducing [[Characters/HellblazerJohnConstantine John Constantine]]'s ally Judith into betraying Constantine, only to double-cross her in turn by agonizingly transforming her into a messenger bird.

** The Bogeyman, from [[Recap/SwampThingVolume2Issue44Bogeymen issue #44]] of Creator/AlanMoore's run, is a SerialKiller with a body count that numbers over 160. With a penchant for memorizing the eyes of his victims at the moment of death, the Bogeyman stalks his victims and throttles them to death after toying with them. With his first victims from his youth, he continues to kill well into adulthood, luring a man into the swamps and murdering him while always remembering the eyes from which number victim they were.
** Post-Crisis:
*** [[AxCrazy Anton Arcane]], MadScientist-turned-EvilSorcerer, as presented in Creator/AlanMoore's run, is one of Swamp Thing's [[ArchEnemy most recurring and vile enemies]]. Originally trying and failing to steal Swamp Thing's body for his own use, Arcane [[BackFromTheDead survives his near-demise]] by becoming a monstrous spirit. Orchestrating several problems Swamp Thing had to face, notably unleashing the demonic Monkey King to prey on innocent children and slaughter their families, Arcane returns to a physical form by stealing the body of his niece, Abby's, husband. Arcane proceeds to [[EvilUncle rape and murder Abigail]] then curse her soul to an eternity of torment in Hell simply to hear her scream, before beginning his master plan. [[{{Necromancer}} Reviving]] numerous murderers and serial killers and unleashing them across America, Arcane causes a wave of violence and hate to begin emanating across the country, causing family members to kill each other, babies to be suffocated, and his revived killers to target playgrounds of children, all while planning to take his anarchy on a global scale and bring about his own apocalypse. Arcane spends his last moments gleefully mocking Swamp Thing about how much he enjoys his crimes, and, even when banished to Hell, Arcane can only laugh as he recalls how he reduced to his own brother to a tortured monstrosity that even now causes Abigail great pain. A sadistically twisted monster of a man who cares only for {{immortality|Immorality}} and [[{{Sadist}} causing pain to others]], Anton Arcane is inarguably Swamp Thing's most hated foe, and for good reason.
*** Creator/AlanMoore's "American Gothic" arc: [[EvilSorcerer The Grand Master]], appearing in person in "A Murder of Crows" and "The Summoning", is an aged sorcerer who leads the Brujeria, a cult of [[StrawNihilist extreme nihilists]] based in Argentina. Disappointed at the Anti-Monitor's failure to destroy reality during the [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]], the Grand Master resolves to finish the job himself by invoking an even more powerful horror, [[TheAntiGod the Great Darkness]]. To this end, the Grand Master summons supernatural creatures to wage gruesome attacks on innocent people, and channels their resulting belief in the impending apocalypse into a magical gem that can awaken the Darkness. The Grand Master also presides over the Brujeria's brutal internal policies, including making clothing from human skin, mutilating newborn babies to turn them into mystical assassins called Invunche, and seducing [[Characters/HellblazerJohnConstantine John Constantine]]'s ally Judith into betraying Constantine, only to double-cross her in turn by agonizingly transforming her into a messenger bird.

** The Bogeyman, from issue #44 of Creator/AlanMoore's run, is a SerialKiller with a body count that numbers over 160. With a penchant for memorizing the eyes of his victims at the moment of death, the Bogeyman stalks his victims and throttles them to death after toying with them. With his first victims from his youth, he continues to kill well into adulthood, luring a man into the swamps and murdering him while always remembering the eyes from which number victim they were.