House of Secrets #92

A last-minute backup that would not stay buried

In 1971 DC editor Joe Orlando needed a last-minute eight-page story and called the writer Len Wein. Wein came up with the idea while riding a subway in Queens. "I didn't have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as 'that swamp thing I'm working on'," he later said. "And that's how it got its name!" One account, by the later DC publisher Jenette Kahn, credits Orlando with the story's twist ending. One encyclopedia's telling says the request was for House of Mystery, the companion title, though the story ran in The House of Secrets.

The plot is a short, cruel love story. A young scientist, Alex Olsen, is killed in a lab explosion rigged by his friend and colleague Damian Ridge, who wants Olsen's wife, Linda. Ridge buries the body in the swamp and marries the widow. When Ridge prepares to kill Linda too, a lumbering figure of muck and vegetation crashes through the window and strangles him. The creature is Alex. Linda flees in terror, never knowing that the thing that saved her was her husband, and he goes back alone to the swamp.

It was never meant to be a series. The Swamp Thing makes just this one appearance in House of Secrets, and the issue fills out its pages with three more horror shorts. But the story was popular enough that DC gave Wein and Wrightson a monthly Swamp Thing title, which began with issue #1, cover-dated October-November 1972. That book introduced a new man in the muck, the scientist Alec Holland, so collectors call #92 the first appearance of the Swamp Thing concept and of Alex Olsen, not of Holland.

Sources disagree on when the story is set. One encyclopedia calls it a Victorian-era tale, another places Olsen in early-1900s Louisiana, and the DC fan database says only that it happened "sometime in the last century."

Two young men in a parked car

Wein and Wrightson were both born in 1948: Wein on June 12 in New York City, Wrightson on October 27 in Dundalk, Maryland. Wrightson had taught himself in part by watching the TV art teacher Jon Gnagy and by studying the EC horror comics. He had started as an illustrator for The Baltimore Sun in 1966, and in 1968 the DC editor Dick Giordano gave him freelance work. He was soon a regular on House of Mystery and House of Secrets, signing his work "Berni" for years to avoid confusion with an Olympic diver of the same name.

Wein recalled how the pairing happened: "Bernie Wrightson had just broken up with a girlfriend, and we were sitting in my car just talking about life... And I said, 'You know, I just wrote a story that actually kind of feels like the way you feel now.' I told him about Swamp Thing, and he said, 'I gotta draw that.'" Wrightson designed the creature from a rough sketch by Wein and finished the eight pages in a single weekend, with help from Michael Kaluta, who also modeled for the villain, and Jeff Jones, who inked two of the pages.

The pair gave the creature its own visual voice: yellow thought balloons, orange speech balloons and drippy captions, because, as Wein put it, "it was such an extraordinary effort for him to speak." In 1972 the two won Shazam Awards for their Swamp Thing work. Wein went on to co-create Wolverine at Marvel and later edited Watchmen at DC; Wrightson spent years on an illustrated Frankenstein, published in 1983. Both died in 2017, Wrightson on March 18 and Wein on September 10.

The cover: a painting turned into a stipple

The cover shows a young woman brushing her hair at bedtime while a hulking shape looms in the doorway behind her. Several sources say the woman was modeled on Louise Jones, later the comics writer Louise Simonson, and one says Kaluta posed for the Swamp Thing.

Wrightson did not draw the cover in ordinary pen and ink. The letterer and comics historian Todd Klein, who worked on DC's staff in the late 1970s, saw a scan of the original art when it was reproduced in 2017 and found it "VERY different from the printed cover": the grays were done in watercolor wash, with gray and black drybrush and white paint highlights in the hair. A printing press could not reproduce that directly. DC colorist Jack Adler shot the art through an unusual halftone screen that produced a stippled effect resembling the texture of Coquille board, which kept more detail than a standard dot screen and kept the blacks from going muddy.

Klein, who owns Adler's color guide for the cover, called the printed version "another kind of masterpiece, a collaboration between Wrightson, Jack Adler, and the unknown separator." The dark, soft cover is also why high grades are so hard to find: one dealer guide calls the dark cover "really tough to find in higher grade."

The fate of the original cover art is unclear. One auction-house history says its whereabouts are unknown and that a separate color study Wrightson made as a reference for Adler sold in 2019 for $27,600, while the eight-page story art sold in 2002 for $31,500. Klein's 2017 account, by contrast, describes a scan of the original cover art reproduced in a published art edition.

Spring 1971: horror comes back to the newsstand

The timing mattered. On January 28, 1971, the Comics Code, the industry's self-censorship body, loosened its rules for the first time in years. Among other changes, vampires, ghouls and werewolves were now allowed "when handled in the classic tradition" of Frankenstein, Dracula and Poe. Zombies were still banned. A walking corpse of swamp muck in a gothic love story sat right at the edge of what the new rules allowed.

House of Secrets itself was a revival. DC had run the title from 1956 to 1966, then brought it back in 1969 with issue #81 as a horror anthology hosted by Abel, whose brother Cain hosted House of Mystery. Joe Orlando edited it from #91 on, and the covers by Neal Adams, Wrightson and Kaluta drew a new generation of readers.

Marvel was working the same ground. Its Man-Thing, a scientist turned into a swamp creature, debuted in the black-and-white magazine Savage Tales #1, cover-dated May 1971. Wein even wrote a second Man-Thing story, prepared at the same time; when that magazine was cancelled after one issue, it did not see print until June 1972. Marvel's Roy Thomas later recalled that he and Gerry Conway, who was Wein's roommate, thought the origin in Swamp Thing #1 "was a bit too similar" to Man-Thing's, and that there was "vague talk" of legal action that was never pursued. Both characters also echo the Heap, a swamp monster from Hillman's 1940s comics.

From reader copy to Bronze Age trophy

House of Secrets #92 is not a rare comic. An auction-house guide notes that over 2,000 copies have been certified and calls it "not particularly hard to find" in general. What is rare is a sharp copy. A September 2021 lot description counted three CGC 9.8 copies on the census and none higher, one fewer than the notoriously tough Marvel Spotlight #5. By the census of August 2026, 53 copies sat at 9.4 with 37 graded higher.

Prices at the top have moved fast. A CGC 9.8 sold at auction for $14,000 in June 2015. In September 2021 another 9.8 brought $90,000, the highest price the auction house that sold it has recorded for the issue. On January 11, 2024, a 9.8 realized $84,000 at an auction where three other comics topped $1 million each. Ordinary copies trade at a tiny fraction of that: a CGC 6.0 copy sold at auction on September 29, 2026, for $1,342.

The issue's standing rests on what the character became. Swamp Thing reached film in Wes Craven's 1982 movie, returned in a 1989 sequel and a 1990 TV series, and got a 2019 series. In the 1980s Alan Moore, edited by Wein, rebuilt the character and later tied the original Alex Olsen story into the mythology by revealing that there had been many Swamp Things over the ages. The cover itself was homaged on Swamp Thing (vol. 2) #33 in February 1985, which also reprinted the story, and DC has reprinted the whole issue several times, including a facsimile edition.

The numbers

Print run

Not published in any source found

Copies certified

Over 2,000, per an auction-house guide (undated)

CGC 9.8 census (September 2021)

3 copies, none higher

CGC census (August 2026)

53 copies at 9.4, 37 graded higher

Story length

8 pages

Cover price

15 cents

Timeline

1. Jun 12, 1948

   Len Wein is born in New York City.

2. Oct 27, 1948

   Bernie Wrightson is born in Dundalk, Maryland.

3. 1956

   DC launches House of Secrets with a November-December 1956 cover date.

4. 1966

   The original House of Secrets run ends with issue #80 (September-October 1966).

5. 1969

   DC revives the title as The House of Secrets with issue #81 (August-September 1969), hosted by Abel.

6. Apr 1971

   House of Secrets #92 goes on sale; DC's fan database dates its publication to April 1 and also lists March 31, 1971.

7. Jul 1971

   Cover date of House of Secrets #92, introducing the Swamp Thing (Alex Olsen).

8. 1972

   Swamp Thing #1 (October-November 1972) launches the monthly series and introduces Alec Holland; Wein and Wrightson win Shazam Awards for the work.

9. 1978

   The House of Secrets ends with issue #154 (November 1978), cancelled in the DC Implosion.

10. 1982

    Wes Craven's film Swamp Thing brings the character to theaters, and DC revives the comic.

11. Feb 1985

    Swamp Thing (vol. 2) #33 reprints the original story behind a homage to the #92 cover.

12. 2002

    Wrightson's original art for the eight-page story sells for $31,500.

13. Jun 2015

    A CGC 9.8 copy sells at auction for $14,000.

14. Mar 18, 2017

    Bernie Wrightson dies in Austin, Texas, aged 68.

15. Sep 10, 2017

    Len Wein dies in Los Angeles, aged 69.

16. 2019

    Wrightson's color study for the cover sells for $27,600.

17. Sep 2021

    A CGC 9.8 sells at auction for $90,000, the selling house's record for the issue; the census shows three 9.8s, none higher.

18. Jan 11, 2024

    Another CGC 9.8 realizes $84,000 at auction.

19. Sep 29, 2026

    A CGC 6.0 copy sells at auction for $1,342.

The world in 1971

• Jan 28, 1971

  The Comics Code is liberalized, allowing vampires, ghouls and werewolves in the classic literary tradition; zombies stay banned.

• Feb 5, 1971

  Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.

• Feb 8, 1971

  The Nasdaq Composite index debuts.

• Mar 30, 1971

  Starbucks is founded in Washington state.

• May 1971

  Marvel's Man-Thing debuts in Savage Tales #1, another scientist reborn as a swamp creature.

• Jun 13, 1971

  The New York Times begins publishing the Pentagon Papers.

• Jul 5, 1971

  The Twenty-sixth Amendment, lowering the U.S. voting age to 18, is certified.

• Oct 1, 1971

  Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, House of Secrets #92 is number 37 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (61 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Wein named the character by accident: he kept calling it "that swamp thing I'm working on" because he had no title.
• Wrightson drew the whole eight-page story in one weekend, with Michael Kaluta and Jeff Jones helping.
• The printed cover's stippled look came from a special halftone screen chosen by DC colorist Jack Adler, not from Wrightson's pen; the original is a gray wash painting.
• The Swamp Thing in this issue is Alex Olsen, not Alec Holland; Holland did not appear until Swamp Thing #1 in 1972.
• Marvel's Man-Thing debuted the same spring, and Len Wein wrote a second Man-Thing story that waited a year to see print after the magazine folded.
• In a September 2021 count, the issue had one fewer CGC 9.8 copy than the famously tough Marvel Spotlight #5.