Un-Men
| The Un-Men | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics and Vertigo |
| First appearance |
Swamp Thing #1 (Nov. 1972) (cameo) Swamp Thing #2 (Jan. 1973) (full) |
| Created by |
Len Wein Berni Wrightson |
| In-story information | |
| Species | "Synthetic men," reconstructed and reanimated from the dead |
The Un-Men are a group of fictional characters in the DC/Vertigo Comics universe. Created by the writer/artist team of Len Wein and Berni Wrightson, the Un-Men made their first appearance in 1972, in the first and second issues of the original Swamp Thing comic book series. The characters made subsequent appearances in later issues of Swamp Thing and its successor series, Saga of the Swamp Thing, and in the 1994 five-issue Vertigo miniseries, American Freak: A Tale of the Un-Men. In August 2007, Vertigo (DC's "mature readers line") launched The Un-Men, a monthly comic book series chronicling the further exploits of these characters. Thirteen issues of that title were published.
As described in Swamp Thing #2, the Un-Men are "synthetic men" created by the evil sorcerer/scientist Anton Arcane in his mountain castle in the Balkans. In that story arc, Arcane dispatches a group of these deformed creatures to Louisiana to capture the Swamp Thing. Obsessed with obtaining immortality, the elderly and ailing Arcane intends to transfer his mind and soul into the Swamp Thing's indestructible plant body. Arcane explains to the captive plant creature that the Un-Men "are the result of my first experimentations — crude, but totally dedicated to me." Unsuitable for Arcane's body-switching schemes, the Un-Men mindlessly serve their "master" as obedient henchmen. At the end of the story arc, the Swamp Thing chases Arcane to the top of his castle tower, and the old man plunges to his death. His loyal Un-Men jump after him like lemmings, presumably to their deaths as well.
Wrightson depicted the Un-Men as hideously deformed humanoid creatures, no two of whom were alike. It's not entirely clear how Arcane constructed his Un-Men, but several of them are made of stitched-together body parts, like Frankenstein's monster. The resulting creatures sport all manner and class of bodily aberration: multiple heads, extra limbs, and even partial animal anatomies.
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