Abigail Holland
41 years ago - Abigail Arcane is born to the Gregori Arcane. Her mother is accused of witchcraft & burned at the stake. Her father serves time in prison, and her uncle Anton Arcane becomes her legal guardian.
37 years ago - 4-year-old Abigail goes to live with her father Gregori Arcane when he is paroled from prison, living in the shadow of the Arcane castle.
27 years ago - 14-year-old Abigail begins learning herbalism, training as a nurse to help the local villagers.
22 years ago - 19-year-old Abigail's father Gregori Arcane is killed, She goes to live with her uncle Anton Arcane, where she is attacked by the monstrous Patchwork Man. News of the attack travels to the states, and S.H.A.D.E. Agent Matthew Cable comes to her village to find the monster, but she stops him from destroying it when she detects it's gentleness. She helps to prove that it is her deceased father, made into a monster by her uncle. She and Agent Cable help destroy her uncle's lab, seeing him fall from the castle to his death. Having lost her home and family, she asks to accompany Agent Cable back to the States, helping him with his investigations.
20 years ago - 21-year-old Abigail marries special agent Matthew Cable.
18 years ago - 23-year-old Abigail Cable gets a job as a waitress in Louisana, accompanying her husband S.H.A.D.E. Agent Matthew Cable on his assignment to track the illusive Swamp Thing. She encounters the creature first, discovering that it is actually the mutated researcher Alec Holland, and they help each other understand the strange magics of Lousiana, hiding their connection from her husband.
17 years ago - 24-year-old Abigail first meets Eric Loveday, a wealthy scientist that takes over a plantation as his new laboratories to attempt to capture and exploit the Swamp Thing, hiring Matthew Cable as his local expert. They are successful, and Abigail breaks into the plantation to free Alec, where she discovers that Loveday is in fact Anton Arcane, disguising his deformity, having approached Avery Sunderland and revealing that the Swamp Thing may be a result of Alec Holland's Bio-restorative Formula so that he will fund his research. Arcane rebuilds himself into a hideous monster to confront Swamp Thing, and is ultimately killed.
13 years ago - 28-year-old Abigail, miserable as her marriage with Matthew Cable deteriorates, leans more and more on Alec Holland. She discovers that her uncle Anton Arcane has possessed Matt and is using him to psychologically torture Abigail and eventually kill her, forcing her soul into hell. Matthew is able to take control of from Arcane, allowing Alec is able to defeat him. Alec follows Abigail into the afterlife where he finds her soul and restores her to life. He helps her heal from her trauma, and they are handfasted. Matt is left with no brain activity for months before Abigail mercifully chooses to end his life support.
12 years ago - 29-year-old Abigail Holland is pregnant with their child when Alec Holland is trapped by the Sunderland Corporation and thought killed. When Jason Woodrue examines his remains he determines that he is not Alec Holland, but instead plant matter affected by Holland's formula that has absorbed his memories. Abigail is terrified for the life of her child and for her husband's sanity, but John Constantine helps them, setting them on a quest to find the Parliament of Trees. Their daughter Tefé Holland is born within their grove.
7 years ago - 24-year-old Abigail discovers that her daughter Tefé Holland is being contacted by her uncle Anton Arcane. She ultimately rejects the rot when it proves too limited for her.
I was trying to figure out what last names to use for Abigail across her story, so I went to my wife and tried to explain this character's timeline.
"So, she marries the government agent who helps her flee her native country and her murderous mad scientist uncle, but over time her marriage falls apart as she comes closer to a man who has been mutated into a Swamp Monster. She eventually leaves her husband when he falls into a coma saving her from her undead uncle, and marries the swamp monster man, but she discovers that the Swamp Monster was never actually a man at all and is just plants. When she has a child with the swamp monster who was never a man at all and is just plants with the help of John Constantine as a surrogate, that child uses the name of her swamp monster father, even though the swamp monster doesn't use the name anymore. So what name should SHE use?"
My wife, to her credit, followed that whole thing and told me that many women chose to use the name of their child, so I should go with that. Still, the experience of trying to sum up this story was wild. This is one of my favorite comic stories, and Abigail holds a special place for me as a fan of Swamp Thing. I hope you like our take on her story.
"So, she marries the government agent who helps her flee her native country and her murderous mad scientist uncle, but over time her marriage falls apart as she comes closer to a man who has been mutated into a Swamp Monster. She eventually leaves her husband when he falls into a coma saving her from her undead uncle, and marries the swamp monster man, but she discovers that the Swamp Monster was never actually a man at all and is just plants. When she has a child with the swamp monster who was never a man at all and is just plants with the help of John Constantine as a surrogate, that child uses the name of her swamp monster father, even though the swamp monster doesn't use the name anymore. So what name should SHE use?"
My wife, to her credit, followed that whole thing and told me that many women chose to use the name of their child, so I should go with that. Still, the experience of trying to sum up this story was wild. This is one of my favorite comic stories, and Abigail holds a special place for me as a fan of Swamp Thing. I hope you like our take on her story.
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Abigail Holland's Comic HistoryAbigail was originally introduced in issue #3 of Len Wein's Swamp Thing series in 1973. Having already told the classic Swamp Thing origin story in the first issue, the series went on to become a sort of worldwide tour of monster stories with Swamp Thing as a framing device. This tale, set right after the introduction of Holland's archnemesis Anton Arcane, used that character to create a sort of homage/pastiche/ripoff of Frankenstein's Monster. Of course, to properly tell that story they needed a beautiful damsel to faint provocatively, and so Abigail Arcane was introduced. After being saved and/or threatened by the various monsters in the story, she asked resident leading man Matthew Cable if she could accompany him as he continues to track Swamp Thing across the world.
While there's a certain charm to the pulpy monster tales of these early Swamp Thing comics the real appeal was the art, and this was also true with Abigail, her shock white hair making her stand out even as a designated damsel in distress. She continued to fulfill that role as the series went on, even as its low sales led to a very notable diminished quality. When the new series began in 1982 it was kind of a mess of new characters and plots, barely even featuring Swamp Thing himself, let alone any of his original supporting cast. |
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Abigail's first appearance in the new series was in issue #17, when Alec finds her working in a diner (although if you look, she actually has a small cameo appearance in the issue prior actually waiting on some other characters.) We discover that Abigail is now married to Matthew Cable, and that they've settled in Louisana. After a very good story returning Anton Arcane to their lives, the stage was set for Alan Moore's run to begin.
Abigail becomes a vital part of Swamp Thing's story at this point, his primary tether to humanity as he deals with the revelation that he was never human. Their connection is truly something special; Alan Moore often is criticized for bringing mature themes and content into his stories, but what is often lost in that conversation is that 'mature' doesn't always mean gratuitous sex and violence. Sometimes, it's much more complex explorations of every part of human experience, including some really profound expressions of affection. Of course, this is still a horror series. Abigail was the victim of some of the worst torture I've seen a comic character undergo in the storyline Love and Death, which would actually be mirrored later when Moore crippled Batgirl in the Killing Joke. Strangely, the fact that these events happened in a horror comic actually somehow gives them a context and a sense of rising and releasing tension that Killing Joke lacks. Also, this story is followed up by the Eisner Winning Swamp Thing 1985 Annual, showing his quest into hell itself to save her. Alan Moore has rarely, if ever, written a better comic. |
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Abigail and Swamp Thing would go on to consummate their marriage in one of the best drug trip sequences in comics. As the series went on and Moore proceeded to just generally show off his writing chops, Swamp Thing's stories would take him all over the cosmos while Abigail seemed to just... stay home. This is often an issue that comes up with love interest characters that aren't giving a robust life of their own; they start to feel like they're languishing on the sideline.
Moore ended his run with Swamp Thing choosing to retire with his wife, giving a satisfying end to the tale, although there was still a sense that Abigail really didn't have much in her life beyond just being there with her husband. Rick Veitch followed him with a very interesting story of a new earth elemental needing to be born to humans, which leads to Swamp Thing and Abigail choosing to conceive a baby with the help of John Constantine. This would be followed by a long period of pregnancy for Abigail, making her one of the very few characters in comics to actually experience a full pregnancy, and even childbirth. Unfortunately, after Veitch left the series and the subsequent writers struggled to find new stories to tell with Swamp Thing, it was eventually decided by DC's editorial staff that he and Abigail should split, leading to the introduction of some truly forgettable love interests for both of them. Abigail has had some really weird depictions in modern comics, showing her carrying guns or even developing her own elemental rot powers, but even still, I think we can all agree that trying to separate these two is still just the worst idea. This is a uniquely special relationship, and we just want to find a way to let it flourish. |
Our Abigail StoryOne interesting change we're making for Abigail is that we're actually taking some of the old classic Swamp Thing stories and removing him entirely, making them just about Abby and her tragic misadventures with her evil uncle. Anton Arcane is a fantastic monster villain archetype, and her interactions with him, her father the Patchwork Man, and Agent Matthew Cable are a solid story all on their own.
This means that she would need to come to Louisiana on her own, and the fact that she's married to Cable, who clearly is regularly assigned to track monsters, makes perfect sense. From here, we adapt several of the classic Swamp Thing stories... yes, including Love and Death. Abigail is definitely put through the wringer here, but it's very important to remember that the comic actually does say that she mercifully forgets her trauma upon being restored to life, and that she is given space and time and support to heal. Abigail's experience as part of Swamp Thing's story is really all about her being nurtured and finding comfort even in the terrifying and often monstrous world they live in, and for that to work, sometimes we do need to save her from some monstrous things. We're making a few changes to the order of their story; simplifying the conception of their child and also making the discovery of Swamp Thing's true origin much later so that Abigail can play a much bigger part in it. This will create some fascinating moments of body horror related to her pregnancy, but in the end it will make this journey of discovery something they can share. |
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Abigail's FutureLooking to the future, both Abigail and Swamp Thing will be focused on raising their daughter Tefé. He will, of course, continually be called away to serve as the elemental guardian of the green, but unlike in the comics, we think it's important for Abigail to also have her own life that she can live outside of her relationships with her husband and child.
We've established all the way back in the earliest part of her story that Abby was training to become a nurse and healer back in her home country, and this should now become a regular part of her world. Abigail has always been one of the most positive, purest characters in comics, and even though her story has become more about taking care of others, we still want to remember that about her. |