Warning: contains spoilers for Future State: Swamp Thing #1
DC has revealed that in their upcoming Future State event, that Swamp Thing has taken over the Earth. In Future State Swamp Thing by writer Ram V, artist Mike Perkins and colorist June Chung, the Avatar of the Green has decided enough is enough and has taken matters into his own hands. The issue is in stores January 5th, 2021.
The Future State event spins out of the conclusion of Dark Nights: Death Metal. During the months of January and February, the regular DC line of titles will go on hiatus, and the company will publish a series of one-shots and anthologies that will take readers to a dystopian future where Superman and Batman have had a falling out, Shazam is having a breakdown and Gotham City is under the thumb of an oppressive, anti-vigilante regime. It is a dark and violent world, and Swamp Thing controls a good portion of it.
In a series of preview pages provided by DC, readers learn exactly what happened to the world and how Swamp Thing came to rule it. On top of a vine-covered Statue of Liberty, Swamp Thing tells the story to a young human/plant hybrid child: humans continued to pillage and plunder the Earth, taking what they needed for their greedy, self-centered purposes. However, the Earth began to retaliate, sending brushfires, diseases, and melting icecaps. When the dust cleared, the humans were gone and Swamp Thing stood triumphant. He has taken to repopulating the world, creating humanoid plant creatures who grew from his “fallen leaves.” Fans also learn that Swamp Thing is searching for human survivors for some unknown reason. The image of the vine-encrusted Statue of Liberty is a striking one, a visual that sets the tone for the hostile and unforgiving world to follow. It is an empty world, one without people.
Swamp Thing has never shied away from environmental concerns, and that is on display here—the references to the melting icecaps, the illnesses, and the wildfires are all ecological catastrophes that have plagued humanity for the last several years, and drawing a connection between them and Swamp Thing reinforces the character’s environmental nature. Judging from the preview pages, humanity was almost completely wiped out, save the survivors Swamp Thing is seeking.
Swamp Thing is one of DC’s most powerful characters, and seeing him as a ruler of a post-human world makes perfect sense. The humans are gone and nature reigns supreme, the perfect environment for Swamp Thing. The previews make him to be a benevolent ruler, but will that last? Will his quest to find humans threaten the kingdom he has built? These questions and more will be answered when Future State: Swamp Thing hits stores in January.