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

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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
Bingham 129 experience. The creators go to great lengths to illustrate clash between forces which, despite having the appearance of being unrelated, are actually deeply connected. For example the severe attitude of shrewd businessman, General Sunderland, seems to war with the impassioned intellectualism of the scientist he's hired to unravel the mystery behind Swamp Thing's creation. Each is an equal partner in progressing the narrative regardless of their possessing different goals. Despite the significance of his findings, Sunderland dismisses Woodrue, who has performed the task demanded of him and is now obsolete if not a liability. In this light, Sunderland can be read as a means for Moore to critique corporate capitalist greed because he fully intends to use Woodrue's discoveries to advance his own career and profits. Sunderland's greed is a tragic flaw which prevents him from realizing the gravity of the findings; in his shortsighted dismissal of Woodrue, he's missed the most important conclusion of the research—the creature he assumes is dead is actually living. Sunderland's possession of vast wealth and power has blinded him from seeing the agency others possess. This illusory power is not left unchecked by Moore, Bissette, and Totleben. Embittered by being fired and unwilling to accept the insult, Woodrue reprograms the systems his former employer had bragged so frequently about. He sets a plan of revenge in motion by setting the cryochest, or frozen chamber, where Swamp Thing is being contained to thaw and adjusting the security settings to prevent his previous employer's escape after the creature's awakening. Banking on the assumption that his research is correct and that, “It was a plant that thought it was Alec Holland! A plant that was trying its level vest to be Alec Holland” (Saga 24, panel 1), Woodrue sets in motion the means necessary for another who has been wronged by Sunderland to retaliate.
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Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants:
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Bingham 3 I owe an extreme debt of
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Bingham 5 Introduction My project e
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Bingham 7 personal growth through t
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Bingham 9 beliefs. Seeing a possibl
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Bingham 11 zombie exceeds death as
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Bingham 13 the validity of singular
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Bingham 15 Chapter I: The History o
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Bingham 17 Swamp Thing. According t
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Bingham 19 instructional profession
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Bingham 21 Another artist who worke
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Bingham 23 action into panels (Cohn
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Bingham 25 sponsorship. He designed
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Bingham 27 Charles Moulton. Marston
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Bingham 29 Frederick Wertham prompt
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Bingham 31 “graphic novel” was
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Bingham 33 what is or isn't a graph
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Bingham 35 Works Cited Benton, Mike
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Bingham 37 Chapter II: Transfusion
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Bingham 39 conflict or war. This ex
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Bingham 41 and dismember other bodi
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Bingham 43 bodies to pieces. (Cavar
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Bingham 45 thus creating an affecti
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Bingham 47 margins. Unlike the four
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Bingham 49 implicates the role of o
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Bingham 51 demonstrates that he is
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Bingham 53 Amy (Figure 10 & 11). Th
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Bingham 55 being who has done nothi
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Bingham 57 transgressions, this ima
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Bingham 59 Returning to the full pa
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Bingham 61 order” (200). The prem
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Bingham 63 possession, selling, ste
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Bingham 65 with yourself? Not me. I
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Bingham 67 immediate proximity of t
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Bingham 69 experience, or the human
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Bingham 71 sentences Thomas to hang
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Bingham 73
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Bingham 74 Works Cited Berger, Arth
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Page 139 and 140: 1 According to comics historian Rob
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