Maxwell Ferrett is a fictional character and villain in comic books published by the American company DC Comics. He first appeared in Swamp Thing #1 (November 1972), and was created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson.
History[]
Maxwell Ferrett was a criminal enforcer in the employee of a man known only as Mister E, who was the head of a subversive criminal cartel called The Conclave. Through Mister E's various contacts, Ferrett and his cronies, Louisiana Blue and Bruno, learned the top secret location of a government scientific research project headed up by the husband and wife team of Doctors Alec and Linda Holland. The Hollands were developing a bio-restorative formula that would promote vegetative growth in otherwise inhospitable environments. Should production of this program have continued, it would have greatly threatened Mister E.'s business interests. Mister E. sent Ferrett and Bruno to the Hollands' Louisiana laboratory armed with a blank check, offering to buy their formula so that they could prevent it from reaching the open market. Alec and Linda immediately refused, and Ferrett made a veiled threat about how it would be in their best interests to sell it to them. Before he could force his position any further, Defense Department Intelligence liaison Matt Cable drove up to the lab, forcing Ferrett and the others to retreat.
They returned later after they knew that Cable was away. Not taking any chances, Alec Holland barred them at the door to his lab with a shotgun. Ferrett insisted that they had come in good faith, but Holland wasn't buying it. He had Bruno slug Alec from behind then had another underling plant a bomb underneath his laboratory workstation. When the bomb detonated, the chemicals from the Hollands' bio-restorative formula ignited and splashed all over Alec. Aflame, he raced outside and collapsed into the swamplands where the chemicals interacted with the surrounding plant life. Alec Holland died and in his place rose an immense creature that many would come know as the Swamp Thing.
In the days following Holland's "death", Ferrett and the others returned to the lab to antagonize Linda. She refused to submit to them and Ferrett shot her dead. The Swamp Thing heard the report of the gun from some distance away and lumbered back towards the lab to mete out revenge. He found Ferrett who fired several slugs into the monster's mass, but to no avail. The Swamp Thing took hold of him, whereupon he ended his life with one sturdy blow from one of his huge fists.[1]
Notes[]
- It was unclear exactly how Maxwell Ferrett died.[1] However, it was revealed that he died after being clobbered to death by the Swamp Thing.[2]
- Not to be confused with Ferret, a character of the 1982 Swamp Thing movie, or the domestic animal of the same name.