7 Comic Book Story Arcs That Were Never Finished (And Why)
7. Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing
DC Comics
Swamp Thing was Vertigo's darling to the eighties and nineties, and for good reason. Alan Moore had done amazing things on the character alongside a number of artists, among them Rich Veitch. Veitch would later take the reigns on Swamp Thing as a writer, but it all came to an abrupt close when he decided that Jesus Christ himself would appear in the book's 88th issue.
DC - specifically editor Jenette Khan, in what was admittedly an out of character move for the then president of the publisher - was apparently anxious that the publication of the issue could trigger a religious backlash due to concerns over blasphemy, and so decided that it wouldn't be published. Veitch promptly departed the series and DC as a whole, justifiably vexed that the publisher had stifled his creative freedom over what was effectively a non-issue.
This of course meant that Veitch never got the opportunity to finish his arc. The reigns were handed to Doug Wheeler, who took the series in a different direction thereafter.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
