So it appears THE PHANTOM STRANGER will show up on this week’s episode of Swamp Thing. This is his first live appearance and I am worried; because I think they are going to make him look “washed up” or make him look like a drunken loser; Constantine like. That works well for Constantine, but if they cast yet another English accented dude who comes off as a foul-mouth drunkard (Constantine and now Lobo on Kryton; which is fine with me by the way) then it will be a “jump the shark” moment for me. Fingers crossed!!!
Once I realized who he was, I accepted him as the Stranger. Yeah, he doesn’t look like the character. Mr. Nobody was quite a different personage in the Morrison run to the show’s portrayal of him. (I’m hoping for a 2.0 version, more like the guy whom even Danny liked.)
It’s perfectly okay for Swamp Thing to portray The Phantom Stranger as a rotund, bearded fisherman, because the truth is that he was never going to be some “faceless dude in a trench coat and fedora” due to the logistics of live-action production.
As for Phantom Stranger’s portrayal, until he spoke I thought he was Willoughby Kipling standing in for Constantine again. I wouldn’t have known it was PS without the references terms. I liked his role and dialogue, but I would have loved a more traditional look. It worked for me.
Not a personal fan of Swamp Thing’s portrayal of the Phantom Stranger. Granted, if any of us would run into him in real life, he’d likely resemble yet another nobody. I dunno, for fiction’s sake, I kinda wish he at least wore an outfit that stood out a bit more, perhaps trim the beard too.
^ He wasn’t supposed to “stand out”; that was the point. He showed up when Alec/Swampy needed him and vanished when he didn’t, and was so generic that he wouldn’t be remembered.
I think people getting upset about losing the show so early blinded people to a fairly obvious observation…this show isn’t very good. It’s not trash, but Phantom Stranger is an excellent example. He comes in with no prestige, talks to Swamp Thing with an exposition dump that only kind of makes sense and then disappears. “Yay! We made a great TV show?” This show has good parts, but as a whole, it’s a mess, and it certainly doesn’t seem like one of the most expensive TV shows of all time. Yes, Swamp Thing looks amazing. He’s in about five minutes of most shows. Whoop-de-do. Let’s spend the rest of the hour with doctor lady and one-dimensional human villains. That’s certainly what I want in a Swamp Thing show.
Phantom Stranger and The Spectre should get their own sitcom. They could be sharing a flat in the big city, ala THE ODD COUPLE. One is dour, one is fiery. Less than perfect strangers!
I’m also disappointed in his portrayal. I’m old hat to the comics. I personally own a copy of every Swamp Thing comic ever made.
However, I don’t think I would’ve realized who the guy was without seeing a spoiler on this forum before I watched the episode. For the uninitiated, this character is completely unexplained.
I mean, can you imagine a horror movie that takes place on an old farm and some guy just shows up and explains a bunch of stuff, and then he disappears? There are no other houses for miles around. This guy knows the hero’s name and everything, but the viewers know nothing about him. Viewers would hate it. It wouldn’t make any sense.