Howard Fleck, a sleazy freelance photographer, drops by the Houma Daily Courier office with photos he surreptitiously took in the bayou of a topless Abby kissing the Swamp Thing and eating one of his tubers. He offers to sell them the photos.
The "digustin'" scene Fleck had come across was of the Swamp Thing saying good-bye to his lover before heading for the source of the Tefé River in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil. Constantine meets him there and takes him, as promised, to a grove of trees guarded by natives. Once again, he tells the Swamp Thing that he isn't the first plant elemental, and this spot is where other elementals go when they decide to retire from protecting the Earth. It's the headquarters of the Parliament of Trees.
Because humans aren't allowed there, the Swamp Thing enters the grove himself, and sees a number of rooted, silent trees with vaguely human faces. Although he feels a strong sense of déjà vu and homecoming, he's disappointed that they apparently have nothing to say. Then the former Alex Olsen, the only retired elemental who still remembers how to speak, greets him. He tells the visitor his origin story and explains that Olsen's death was no more an accident than Holland's was, but part of a pattern that recurs throughout history when one elemental retires and another must be created. Although the details vary, each time, a man dies by fire, falls into a swamp, and a new elemental champion arises from it.
The Swamp Thing tells "Olsen" that he came to the grove not to rest like the others, but to gain knowledge that may help him avert the upcoming threat to the world. "Olsen" says he may address the Parliament, and has him be still and let his mind intertwine with that of his predecessors. Doing so, the Swamp Thing discovers the origins of various plant elementals throughout history. He realizes how human and limited his imagination has been, as he finds that it's possible for elementals to take on different sizes and shapes, animate even dead wood, control multiple bodies simultaneously, among other feats.
Finally, the other minds notice the new consciousness and ask him what he wants. The Swamp Thing says he'd like to know how best to use his power to deal with the imminent danger. "Power?" asks the Parliament.
- Power is not the thing. To be calm within oneself, that is the way of the wood. Power tempts anger, and anger is like wildfire. Avoid it.
The Swamp Thing goes on to say that he's seen so much evil in his travels that he wonders how nature can allow it. Again, the Parliament corrects him:
- If you wish to understand evil, you must understand the bark, the roots, the worms of the Earth. [...] Aphid eats leaf. Ladybug eats aphid. Soil absorbs dead ladybug. Plant feeds upon soil...Is aphid evil? Is ladybug evil? Is soil evil? Where is evil, in all the wood?
With that, the Parliament declares the audience over and shuts the Swamp Thing out from their mind, despite his not understanding their words. "Olsen," too, bids him leave. So the Swamp thing rejoins Constantine and fills him in on what happened. Constantine heaps scorn on their advice, then notices that his companion looks upset. "They did not...want me, Constantine," says the downcast Swamp Thing. "They were creatures...like me...like me...and they cast me out."
Meanwhile, in Houma, the Daily Courier editors toss Fleck out and look over his prints. One editor laughingly dismisses them as supermarket tabloid fodder, claiming the swamp creature is a man in a costume. The editor-in-chief, however, is not amused. He recognizes Abby in the photos as a child care worker at Elysium Lawns, which his daughter attends during the day. Outraged that the staff spend their spare time "half-naked with guys in kinky rubber suits," he decides to publish the photos.
Tropes
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Parliament of Trees states that the concept of "evil" doesn't apply in nature; the cycle of eating and being eaten is simply the way things are.
- Call-Back:
- The Swamp Thing's mention of Constantine's "secrets and mysteries" causes Abby to remember, for a split-second, the dream she had in Abandoned Houses. The irony is that the essential point of that dream—that the Swamp Thing is the latest in an age-old line of plant elementals—is precisely what he's just about to learn from the Parliament himself.
- In a reference back to the same issue (and to the original House of Secrets #92 story it incorporates), the former Alex Olsen summarizes his origin story.
- Elephant Graveyard: Constantine uses this legend as an analogy for the grove which is home to the Parliament of Trees. It's an imprecise analogy, since elementals—which, as they aren't confined to one body, are immortal—don't go there to die, but to take root and retire from adventuring.
- Fetish: Discussed. The Daily Courier editor-in-chief is appalled over Abby's topless cavorting with (he thinks) a man in a "kinky" rubber costume.
- History Repeats: The Swamp Thing learns that although the details change each time, the essential pattern of Earth elemental formation has been the same throughout the planet's history.
- Home Sweet Home: The Parliament of Trees grove is where wood elementals go when they've had their fill of adventure.
- Humans Are Morons: The Parliament of Trees denigrates human intellectual capability as inferior to their own. "Flesh...speaks," says the former Alex Olsen. "Wood...listens." The Parliament reinforces this (see page quote). As well, the Swamp Thing, while connected to the Parliament and learning of the potential abilities he has as a wood elemental, feels that he's been too human in his thinking.
- Letter Motif: In this issue, three previous plant elementals came from individuals with names similar to Alec Holland: Alf Oldland (Jack-in-the-Green), Alex Olsen, Albert Höllerer. Subsequent writers would go on to coin additional names in this vein. Note also the similar love-interest names: two Lindas (Olsen and Holland) and a Lil (Oldland).
- Meaningful Name: Howard Fleck. A "fleck" is a tiny blot, smudge or spatter, and thus a fittingly ironic name for a scuzzy, Shameless Self-Promoter.
- The Natives Are Restless: Downplayed. When the Swamp Thing turns up by the Tefé's source, Constantine commends him on his timing, as the grove's native guardians were getting antsy about John hanging around and he doesn't speak their language fluently enough to keep them calm. As for the Swamp Thing himself, however, the natives recognize him as an elemental and treat him with almost worshipful reverence.
- Noodle Incident: Once again, the disastrous Newcastle incident in John's past gets a mention, this time with the additional information that Frank, Benjamin and Sister Anne-Marie were part of his team then.
- Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Parliament of Trees, whose advice the Swamp Thing finds unhelpful...for now.
- Painting the Medium: When Fleck describes how he came upon Abby and the swamp creature, the panels take the form of freshly-developed black and white negatives hanging on clothespins to dry.
- People in Rubber Suits: Two of the four Daily Courier editors (including the editor-in-chief) take the Swamp Thing for this, one of them even seeing a zipper in a particular photo. A third isn't sure, given the creature's anatomy.
- Shout-Out:
- The Swamp Thing's most recent predecessor, the German pilot Albert Höllerer who was shot down over a bog in 1942, is a reference to the origin story of the Heap, a Golden Age monster with strong similarities to both the Swamp Thing and Marvel's Man-Thing. The Heap was formerly Baron Eric von Emmelman, a World War One flying ace, and his first appearance was in Hillman's Air Fighters Comics #3—in 1942.
- Both The Heap (in his original Golden Age shaggy appearance with a nose-like root sticking out of the foliage) and Man-Thing also make visual cameos among the many faces of the Parliament in the last panel of page 15.
- Jack-in-the-Green
, a seventeenth-century elemental the Swamp Thing learns of, is a figure in English folklore and a popular costumed character in May Day festivals. He's often associated with the Green Man fertility figure in ancient and medieval art. - The Daily Courier editor-in-chief's closing line, "I say we print...and be damned!" alludes to the 1826 U.K. incident in which the pornography publisher John Joseph Stockdale attempted to extort money from various public figures in exchange for removing their names from his upcoming publication, the memoirs of society courtesan Harriette Wilson. One such target, the Duke of Wellington, famously replied, "Publish and be damned."
- Think of the Children!: The editor-in-chief's rationale for running the photos of Abby.
