Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

Bingham 128
Eventually, Woodrue begins to unpack the meaning of his latest finding by
expanding his analysis to include consideration for other living organisms besides
humans. He specifically cites a more simplistic organism, the planarian worm, to explain
how the creature in the lab has come into existence. Woodrue passionately describes an
experiment where one worm was taught how to run a maze before being chopped up and
fed to others. After digesting this educated worm, the others were able to go through the
maze: “The implication is that consciousness and intelligence can be passed on as
foodstuffs!” (Saga 22 panel 7). Woodrue concludes that the bio-restorative formula Alec
had been working on as well as his bodily remains were absorbed by the many plants and
other organisms in the swamp and digested. “Those plants eat him...and they become
infected by a powerful consciousness that does not realize it is no longer alive!” (ibid 23,
panel 4). If consciousness can be transferred, defining individuality and authenticity is a
complicated task. Especially because transference of identity hinges upon ingestion in
this example, it is metaphorically related to consumerism. Extending this metaphor of
identity formation beyond the intake of solid nutrients to include absorption of other
kinds of nourishment, whether cognitive or material, allows readers to reflect upon how
the media they interact with has played a role in developing who they are. In this respect,
readers can be compared to the planarain worms because they are actively consuming
what others have learned and demonstrated knowledge of through comics.
Again, the educative function comics and other narratives perform hinges upon
their ability to translate and compress ideas into a form which can be absorbed by others.
The significance of identifying connection between individuals as belonging to a larger
whole is that this act prompts questions about the power dynamics which structure