Swamp monster

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Swamp monsters have been a staple of fantastic fiction for years.

Description

Swamp creatures are humanoid creatures similar to fish or resembling living piles of swamp mire. They live underwater and occasionally come to the surface, but only when provoked. Within modern American folk myth and legend a notable example is Louisiana's Honey Island Swamp monster.[1] Another notable example is the May River Swamp Creature that along with other rare and spectacular creatures occupies the marshes and supralittoral zones of the South Carolina lowcountry, near Bluffton, SC.[2]

They seem to be akin to Kelpies, Kappa, the Loch Ness Monster, and muck monsters. Being only part humanoid, it is not popular belief that they are capable of speech, but in some cases, they have been capable of speech.

Popular renditions of swamp creatures occur in popular media such as comic books (Marvel's Man-Thing and DC's Swamp Thing). They have also been featured on older films, most notably The Creature from the Black Lagoon. In all these cases, they displayed superstrength, extreme underwater adaptability, possible muck spitting and a frighteningly bad attitude.

Examples in comics

From the 1940s to the present many swamp monsters have been used in comics, an early example being Hillman Publications' The Heap.

Afterwards both DC Comics and Marvel created similar characters:

The debuts of the two characters were so close that it is impossible to say which came first.[3] Alan Moore, who worked on Swamp Thing for a period, later described the character's original incarnation as "a regurgitation of Hillman Comics' The Heap", adding that "When I took over that character at Len Wein's suggestion, I did my best to make it an original character that didn't owe a huge debt to previously existing swamp monsters."[4]

Other swamp monsters in comics include:

Examples in film, television, and literature

  • In the novel It by Stephen King, It takes the form of a swamp monster to kill Eddie Corcoran
  • The Goosebumps book "How to Kill a Monster" featured a Swamp Monster. It was depicted as a green-furred monster with the head of an alligator and a gorilla-like body.
    • The Swamp Monster makes an appearance in the 2015 Goosebumps movie performed by Nate Andrade (who was credited as "Monster #1"). He is one of Slappy the Dummy's monster and villain henchmen and is referred to as the "Bog Monster" during the 2014 Comic Con appearance. Its appearance is different where it looks like a giant creature made of moss.
  • In the Family Guy episode "I Never Met the Dead Man", the Griffin family catches a creature strongly resembling a "Swamp Monster" while fishing. In the episode "Business Guy", Carter Pewterschmidt and Lois Griffin trick Peter Griffin into surrendering Pewterschmidt Industries by scaring him into believing a local swamp monster will eat him if he does not. A seemingly real swamp monster scares Peter out of the office and then chases Lois and a disguised Carter before being trapped and unmasked to be Gregory House.
  • While criticizing a movie featuring a Swamp monster, one of the hosts of This Movie Sucks! tells the legend of Lake Erie Pete, about a man who becomes a crime fighting swamp monster after his parents are killed by one.
  • An episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker entitled "The Spanish Moss Murders" features a young man, subject of a study in sleep research, whose nightmares of a swamp-dwelling monster called Peremalfait from stories heard in his youth in the Louisiana Bayou come to life.
  • Luke Harper, a pro wrestler in the Wyatt Family, has been called a swamp monster.

See also

References

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