Swamp Thing Vol.2 #105

Swamp Thing travels to the Yucatan in Mexico in search of Canan Kax, a founder from the Parliament of Trees who was trapped by Matango and The Grey during the Great Migration from the Garden of Eden. In Brazil, Abby Holland and her daughter Tefé hear gunshots from outside the Parliament's grove, and decide to investigate. They discover the recently murdered bodies of several of the indigenous peoples who act as the Parliament's honour guard. They are suddenly ambushed by ranchers who are fighting the natives in order to burn down the rain forest for land to raise cattle on.

Canan Kax is entrapped within an amber shell, unable to free himself due to the presence of Matango's fungal tendrils within. Swamp Thing uses his connections to interstellar frequencies to cut the fungus off from The Grey, and frees Canan Kax. Unfortunately, his sense of identity is somewhat addled. Swamp Thing suggests that he could recover his own identity by telling the story of his entrapment. During the Great Migration, he had come to this forest with others, scouting for a new site to take root. Unfortunately, they were surrounded by those whom The Grey had taken. To protect himself, he built an amber shell, but Matango's guards managed to get in, and trap him there forever. He watched for years as the Mayan civilization grew around him. They ate The Grey's hallucinogenic mushrooms for divination, but the only visions and instructions they received were from Matango. He instructed them to burn down the surrounding forests, but without those forests, the Mayans soon died out.

Arriving at what was once the natives' village, Abby sees a pit full of murdered citizens, along with an injured man who was an anthropologist. The violent ranchers yank Tefé from Abby's arms and point a gun at the mother's head. They decide that she is too pretty to kill immediately, and prepare to rape her, but her protests and demands for her baby's return lead the leader to to decide to kill her anyway. Tefé screams as they shoot her mother in the head. Swamp Thing explains that he needs Canan Kax to speak to the Inner House of the Parliament to convince them of the need to confront Matango. He hopes that Matango will agree to release those he has taken and leave Tefé and her descendants unmolested. Nearby, some of Matango's emissaries, his chac, claim that peace between The Green and The Grey cannot be. They try to manipulate him into joining them, but Swamp Thing grabs Canan Kax, and they leap into The Green.

One of the ranchers slaps Tefé to shut up her screaming. Angrily, the babe glares at him, and causes first his hand, and then his entire body to explode. The force of her emotion causes every living thing in the area to be killed as their internal organs burst out of their skin. Turning to her mother's corpse, the one-year-old girl locates her mother's spirit, and then rebuilds her physical body, bringing her back to life. Looking at herself and the carnage around her, Abby is horrified. Swamp Thing returns to the Parliament, and Yggdrasil warns that Abby and Tefé left the protection of the grove, and that Tefé did something about which they will have to speak later. When he returns to his wife and child, he realizes that his wife's broken leg and stitches have disappeared and healed. Abby is obviously distraught, wondering why she is alive.

Fantasia / Horror / HQ, comics, mangá