Swamp Thing

On this day in 1971, DC Comics published House of Secrets #92 which featured, among such stories as “After I Die and “Trick or Treat”, the debut of the soon-to-be iconic character Swamp Thing. Created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, Swamp Thing is one of DC’s most recognizable horror characters, and over the years he has been used as a vessel to tell some of comics most unique stories.

Valentine's Day weekend is upon us, and love, bad chocolate, and expensive restaurant reservations are everywhere you look. To mark the occasion, we've compiled a list of the 30 greatest couples in comics. These are the romantic pairings whose stories inspire us to believe in the power of love, and whose devotion to each other may provide a model for how to woo your own beloved when they're cloned, or possessed by evil forces, or you forget their birthday or whatever.

The one and only Batgirl of Burnside is getting her own DC Icons action figure, complete with motorcycle and smartphone this November. That's it. That's the news. We can wrap it up. I could talk about the rest of the new DC Icons announced by DC Collectibles today (via IGN), but then I wouldn't be able to get in my car to drive to Los Angeles and grab this figure from the production room while all of the DC Collectibles employees are at Toy Fair this weekend. I consider myself a patient man, but I can't wait until November for this. Batgirl was just one of six new figures announced for the Icons line, as well as two accessory packs to add even more Easter egg mayhem to these figures. Technically I guess you would count Grail as a seventh figure even though she's part of a two-pack with Darkseid, but you get what I'm saying. Right?

It wasn't that long ago that DC's Convergence event gave a few creators the chance to return to characters that they made their mark on in past eras, and in January, it seems like that's an idea that's bleeding back into the DC Universe --- or at least to the Louisiana swamps of the DC Universe. On January 6, Swamp Thing relaunches with a new six-issue miniseries, coming courtesy of writer Len Wein, who co-created Swamp Thing with Bernie Wrightson back in 1971, and artist Kelley Jones.

Born today in 1953 in Northampton, England, Alan Moore grew up to be a giant. His impact on comics is so vital and apparent that even reporting on his accomplishments feels both daunting and profoundly unnecessary. Widely regarded as the best comics writer of all time, Moore's influence is without question; his presence an articulate line of demarcation carving up the medium into two decidedly different eras. Moore is a juggernaut, monolithic in both influence and intractability, with a true legacy even greater than his supposed one.

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. This week, since Halloween's almost here, we're looking at Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben.

Legendary writer/editor Len Wein was born on this day in 1948. Over the course of a career that began in 1968, he built a reputation as one of the most reliable and consistent creators the medium has ever seen, and he was one of the first of a generation of creators that set out to work in the comics industry instead of simply treating it as stopgap employment, making the leap from the fan press to major publishers in the late 1960s, alongside contemporaries such as Marv Wolfman and Gerry Conway. Over the course of his career he's written some of comics' best-loved storylines, created and/or developed a number of the medium's most memorable characters, and been a constant and friendly presence at conventions and fan gatherings, known for his clever plot twists, infectious smile, neatly-trimmed beard, and neatly-turned phrases.

From Wally West and Linda Park, to Harley Quinn and Mistah J, we're asking you to vote on comics' most famous couples so we can determine the best (and worst) romantic partnerships that comics have to offer. If you think the couple is star-crossed and meant to be, vote 'True Love.' If you think they've got unstable chemistry and can only end badly, vote 'Bad Romance.' In today's polls, a classic theme; beauty and the beast. Monsters and the people who love them are a recurring motif in fiction, and the tradition has proved especially popular in comics, whether it's Bigby and Snow, Bruce and Betty, or Swamp Thing and Abby. If a monstrous outcast can find love, is that the truest love of all? Or are some people too terrible to love?

The Tangent universe is a recurring feature in the third week of titles for DC's spring 2015 Convergence event, cropping up by name in the solcitations for the Flash, Justice League of America, and New Teen Titans two-part minis -- and "tangent" seems like an apt term to describe DC's impenetrable two-month event that offers all the confusion and frustration of a reboot with none of the narrative consequence. Besides the Tangent universe, the other unifying theme of the third wave of books is that dig into DC's pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths past, with writer Marv Wolfman returning to the New Teen Titans, Len Wein taking another swing at his own creation, Swamp Thing, Diana Prince back in her modish 1968 white jumpsuit, and the return of the mid-80s Detroit Justice League.

If there's one thing we've learned from our years on the Internet, it's that there's no aspect of comics that can't be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of ten. And since there's no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we're taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. This week, we're kicking off October's spoooooky celebrations with a list of five comic book villains who are actually, genuinely terrifying. Check it out, but beware -- it gets scary!