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Underground > Comic Books >

Mark Millar's Swamp Thing

16:20 / 30.01.03

Maybe this is the wrong place to ask this, but it looks like Morrison and Millar both had a run on Swamp Thing. I was wondering how Millar's Swamp Thing was recieved, was it worth it? I'm particularly interested in the different Elemental Parliaments he introduced, were they interesting?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

17:00 / 30.01.03

His Swamp Thing run was pretty good. I'm not sure if he knew when he was taking over that the thing would be cancelled when he finished, but it comes together very well. And every storyline has a heavily pregnant woman in it and jokes about abortion, without any reason.

The Parliaments? Well, it's a great idea and a logical extension from Moore introducing the Parliament of Trees but we don't really get to see them in any great detail, Swampy meets them, gets given his new powers and goes away and that's pretty much it.

17:02 / 30.01.03

This is just the exact place to ask such a question - this is the Comic Books area, after all!

I don't know anything about this run -- anyone else? I remember leafing through it and thinking "Aw, man, this kind of cheap - they just created lots of other Parliaments, ripping off Alan Moore's idea." But I've heard this run is actually very good, and when it came out I didn't really know who Morrison or Millar were.

17:13 / 30.01.03

I wondered about posting an inquiry on Millar's work because of the heated discussions about Millar's personality and bad attitude. This here's a primarily Morrison and Moore-friendly board, and I was afraid there might be some haters lurking.

I began collecting comics with Firestorm, during his Elemental War, then I picked up Swampy's War vs the Grey because I thought it was a sequel. No such luck, but I was interested in the vast history of past Swamp Things. At first I thought Millar's vision of all these Parliaments would be stupid, but I'm intrigued the more i think about it.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

18:38 / 30.01.03

It started off with a 4 parter (140-143), cowritten by Grant & Millar, which was a good "everything you know is different" kind of story, which resolved itself sensibly, and didn't piss all over continuity as it appeared it might at the start.

Then it was kind of heavy from 144 to 150.

This was followed by the 'River Run' story (151-158), which involved lots of alternate earths, I believe this was quite critically acclaimed, I enjoyed these issues a lot.

159 was an excellent stand-alone story, about some hard-up parents that sell their child to an exclusive club for cannibals.

160-164 again is heavy going, 165 follows these with a legendary 'elseworlds' tale, with 'Chester Williams: American Cop'. Find this if you can, it is brill.

Finally, 166-171 concludes the series, in a thrilling fashion. All the threads from 140 to date are tied up. The story is brought to the ultimate conclusion, as swampy takes over the world.

If you care about such things, I am not sure if these can be considered 'in continuity', I did not read the series that followed this.

Dan
Comics @
www.fish1000.freeserve.co.uk

22:10 / 30.01.03

It was great. I agree with Dan that 165 is an absolutely killer issue and the "River Run" arc was great.

As far as I remember Millar had lots more ideas but the series got cancelled. Even so, the aborted wrap-up was pretty effective.

Definitely worth hunting out if you're a fan of spooky comics. I knew nothing about Swamp Thing before I read Millar's run and it didn't seem to matter.

22:27 / 30.01.03

Just reread his whole run reciently and still think it rocked...

"And every storyline has a heavily pregnant woman in it and jokes about abortion, without any reason"

Always thought this had to do with coming birth of that "starchild/savior" the storyline climaxed with(along with swampy becoming the world)...

Took some gettting used to Hester's Art.
& Riverrun was a major high point.
Along with the colaboration with Grant Miller for that mind blowing opening storyline.

Made the previous writer's storyline totally forgetable.
As well as the following series.

09:34 / 31.01.03

I really enjoyed his work on Swamp Thing and think its better than a lot of his work that he is producing today. As to the cancellation of the series I remember reading that he was brought in to end the series and managed to get them to extend it one issue (to 171) so that he could do the Chester elseworlds story. His run was always intended to be the last. (Once again Chubby P makes blanket statements without any links to articles to back them up but hopes people will believe him)

11:00 / 31.01.03

it's just all ace. [spoily] the parliament of stones riffs like a bastard off harlan ellison's short story 'rock god'. the p.o waves is like this amazing garden of fountains in a trench that looks like seeweed when murdered by god's wrath, the p.o air is like faces in the clouds and the p.o flames is a bunch of nuclear dragons that live in the sun. very good examples along w. ennis/dillon's hellblazer of 90s britcomics sensibility shafting american storytelling in the arse, all drugs and apocalypse.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:57 / 31.01.03

Dan Fish If you care about such things, I am not sure if these can be considered 'in continuity', I did not read the series that followed this.

The following Swamp Thing series needlessly pissed all over this, had Swamp Thing renounce his godhood as a mistake and reunited him with Abby, who went her seperate way from him in the last issue of the last series. This was doubly pointless as the series was supposed to be about Tefe anyway. I'm glad it didn't last.

12:46 / 31.01.03

Millar's best work in American comics. It's all been downhill from there.

Boy in a Suitcase

01:17 / 01.02.03

Millar's Swamp Thing run was excellent. Especially the American Cop issue and the issue with the Man In The High Castle-type alternative Nazi-run earth (illustrated by Chris Weston!)