Swamp Thing (Volume 2) Issue 89

## "Founding Fathers"

"*But you have not told me... where you got my memories. Every moment of my life... beyond even this one... was contained within you. And I must know... how to return to my own time.*"
―Swamp Thing
## Synopsis

### "Founding Fathers"

Travelling further back in time, Swamp Thing arrives in a time and place where and when The Green is at its strongest. Reaching out across the globe, he hears a reply, and follows it. Emerging from the ground, he comes face to face with a triumvirate of his elemental ancestors. They have been expecting him.

In a Cajun settlement on the outskirts of the Louisiana swamp, the people prepare for a festival. Abby Holland, who is very pregnant, visits the local medicine man, Gene LaBostrie and his family.

The spokesperson for the primitive Parliament of Trees introduces its companions. Eyam was formed in lightning and water, growing alongside the sea life, and watching evolution of non-plant creatures from the sea's depths. Tuuru is a tree which cannot yet speak, but when the Swamp Thing reaches out into The Green, he senses that Tuuru is that same elemental spirit whose legacy stretches through time as the god of shamans known as Sarga.

Swamp Thing correctly guesses that the one who he is speaking to is the founder of the Parliament, Yggdrasil. He also realizes that they are not in the Parliament's later home on the Tefé river. Yggdrasil explains that they are in what would become known as the Eden, based on information pieced together from Tuuru and Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing wonders how he could be involved, and Yggdrasil offers a non-verbal explanation.

Inside Yggdrasil, Swamp Thing sees his entire future and history remembered, as though the future has happened already. As he tries to see his own future, he is thrown out of the great tree. Yggdrasil states that it is now time for the Swamp Thing to continue his journey. He protests, but the great tree explains that their encounter was fated to end this way. They direct him to where he needs to be. He emerges from the ground next to a pool of molten amber, and is burned away - sent back further in the past.

In Vancouver, John Constantine visits his acupuncturist friend Nancy Ming, hoping to find someone with divination abilities that he hasn't met before. She suggests her grand-uncle in Hong Kong, who is a powerful and accurate fortune-teller.

Swamp Thing appears in the past, before the amber stream had formed, and before the Parliament. He wonders if every trial he has faced was somehow predicted or engineered by Yggdrasil. He sits and allows his brain to grow as he did once before, thinking out the best course of action. He realizes that it is he who is the first elemental. He reaches within himself, and pulls out the three seeds he was given by Rheelai. Planting them, they grow quickly into the young shapes of the three trees, Yggdrasil, Tuuru, and Eyam.

Swamp Thing accepts his fate, and passes on his mental map to Yggdrasil. His enlarged head filled with sap, he allows a nearby volcano's hot lava to engulf and burn him.

Meanwhile, Abby and her friends sit outside, when she has her third contraction of the night. Gene believes that she's about to go into labor, but she denies it. When she has a fourth contraction soon after, he sends for a midwife, and they take Abby inside. She hopes that Swamp Thing can return before the baby is born.

## Appearances

### "Founding Fathers"

#### Individuals

* Swamp Thing
* Abby Holland
* Gene LaBostrie
* Parliament of Trees
	+ Yggdrasil
	+ Eyam
	+ Tuuru
* John Constantine
* Chester Williams
* Liz Tremayne
* Ada LaBostrie
* Delas LaBostrie
* Étienne
* Nancy Ming

#### Locations

* Louisiana
	+ Houma
* Canada
	+ Vancouver
* Gondwanaland (c. 500, million years ago)
* Laurasia (c. 500, million years ago)

## External links

* *Swamp Thing (Volume 2)* Issue 89 on DC Wiki
* *Swamp Thing (Volume 2)* Issue 89 on Comic Vine