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Underground > Comic Books >

Lets talk Swamp Thing (probably spoilers)

  
 
the rake at the gates
07:41 / 10.11.03
seeing as the big green fella has just turned up in hellblazer and i have no idea what happens after the last moore trade paperback (where he comes back from space), is it worth me rumaging through the local comic shops to catch up, how long does the series go on for, and what about the new swamp thing, which i seem to remember was the daughter of john constantine and abby, what issues are worth reading and which are essential reading
 
 
Axel Lambert
10:56 / 10.11.03
Moore left after having returned Swamp thing from space. Rick Veitch took over (was ok), then Doug Wheeler (worse), Nancy A Collins (really really bad), and then Mark Millar became writer on #140 (with Grant Morrison for four issues) until #171. These 30-odd issues are good, often very good, I think, leading up to the ultimate ending of the Swampy saga, with Alec becoming a god. Try to find them if you can. Then DC started a new series, concentrating on Swamp thing's daughter, Téfé (Constantine lended his body to the conception). This series was unnecessary and average and it completely ignored the ending of Millar's run. Didn't know that Swampy was coming back for Hellblazer, my guess is that you won't need much background material, since they'll probably ignore any backissue info anyway.

Essential reading: Alan Moore
Worth reading: Mark Millar
Maybe worth reading: Rick Veitch
 
 
Haus of Mystery
16:22 / 10.11.03
Isn't Andy Diggle doing a relaunch for Vertigo? I don't know what he's like as a writer but it'd be nice to have the broccoli-cock back in town.
 
 
Mr Tricks
16:44 / 10.11.03
what Harry Christmas said....

Millar's Run can be read almost right off of the Moore run with the detials that in the time inbetween these runs Abby and Swampy had a baby with the help of John Constantine and the Parlament on trees assigned a nanny....
 
 
■
16:52 / 10.11.03
I think Veitch's run is quite fun (especially the Claw of Aelkhund time travelling stuff), and Millar/Morrison was very good, too.
The Doug Wheeler stuff, though. EEEEEuuuuuuuugggghhhh. Made NO sense, looked awful, screwed with continuity, had no characterisation, and whoever the artists were had clearly never read a comic in their life as movement of dialogue around the page made my head hurt. AVOID at all costs.
 
 
FinderWolf
18:38 / 10.11.03
Some of the Rick Veitch issues were fun - especially (as someone else just said here) the time-travelling 'trip through DCU history' that would have led to the famous Swampy meets Jesus story that DC suppressed (you bastards!). The story suggested by Veitch was very respectful and super-cool, anyone offended by it probably thinks LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (the book and/or the movie) is sacrilige (as I recall, that movie came out shortly before the suggested Jesus issue, and the resulting outcry made DC pee in its pants, I think, among other things).
 
 
Simplist
18:47 / 10.11.03
There's a great commentary on the Veitch and Wheeler runs, as well as the concurrent crossover and interim material by Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano, here.
 
 
Murray Hamhandler
00:15 / 11.11.03
I just made a obsessively dedicated read-through of 99.9% of the DC/Vertigo "magical universe" line of interconnected titles (Swampy, Sandman, Hellblazer, etc., and all related spin-offs) this summer, so this is based on a fairly recent reading of Swamp Thing from Moore to Vaughn.

I know this is sacrilege, but I honestly think that Moore's ST run is a little on the weak side. Sure, there were some classic issues/moments, but his run didn't really hang together that well overall. His prose is quite lovely, but Moore definitely forsakes story for writerly-ness during his run.

Veitch, I feel, was much more successful in terms of comparing his full run to Moore's, especially when you take into account that Veitch wasn't able to finish his own run. It worked better as a long-form story. Veitch's Swampy was fun and grotesque. Both of his major storylines were engrossingly good reads.

I feel that Wheeler's run (again, as opposed to everyone else's opinion) was fairly strong overall. Don't get me wrong: he wrote some abyssmal issues (which both Moore and Veitch managed to avoid), but those were mostly stand-alones and utterly avoidable. I think that Wheeler's "Matango" storyline, although perhaps overlong and not as 'clever' as anything Moore or Veitch had done, was solid horror/fantasy fiction in the Vertigo tradition, easily the equal of "American Gothic" or "Swampy's Time Travel A-Go-Go!".

Collins is cack. Utter, utter shit. Based solely upon her ST work (to be fair), I honestly have no idea how she ever got a job writing anything (All dialogue ends in exclamation points! All of it! Everyone is so excited, spouting completely shit dialogue!). A few slightly interesting ideas and nothing more. Skip her run and I'll summarize everything she did on the book for you in a paragraph if you want. Seriously.

Morrison and Millar is a bit uneven. Among my least favorite Morrison work, with or without Millar. It's okay, I guess. And only four issues long.

Millar's solo run starts out kind of weak but just keeps getting better. The final six issues of the series is a great end to his run and a logical conclusion w/r/t where Swampy was going all along.

Vaughn's run is okay. It's a sort of interesting morality play insofar as Tefe is constantly torn between what is best for man vs. what is best for the rest of the world. But it's bogged down by a lot of unnecessary side-plots and supporting characters (Vaughn's writing several X-books at the moment, if that gives you any indication of his tenencies in that direction).

Yes, Diggle is going to at least be writing a new Swampy mini. His Lady Constantine mini was pretty solid if not earth-shattering. It should be all right.

I still haven't gotten around to reading Muth's ST: Roots, so I can't comment on that.
 
 
Mr Tricks
00:38 / 11.11.03
SWAMP THING:roots

R O C K E D

though it's barely recognisable as a Swamp Thing story...
 
 
the rake at the gates
14:28 / 11.11.03
spoilers for Lady constantine









jesus, not the bloke who wrote lady constantine, that was unmitgated shit, it was a 'comic book' comic book, not a vertigo comic book, it had completley unorignal story lines (lets trap the earth elemental and burn it) no doubt meant to be nods to moores and gaimans work, but all it did was take charaters which should have been left alone and milk them for a dull story which tarnishes their earlier appearances, and left unresolved plot lines, where before there were none, for example how does jack in the green 'die' in LC and then turn up in swamp thing later.
its cynical, the fans liked gaimans LC so they'll buy this, it was one step away from having 'guest starring Swamp Thing!' plastered all over it, surely vertigo isnt about that, but no doubt will all still buy this new mini in case we miss somrthing important
 
 
J. White
15:27 / 11.11.03
Andy Diggle is writing a six-issue Swamp Thing mini titled Bad Seed.

"You can’t keep a good swamp creature down … or his daughter! Andy Diggle isn’t just playing with the classic Losers, he’s also taking a stab at the Swamp Thing with a new six-part limited series, Swamp Thing: Bad Seed. John Constantine must intervene when Sargon the Sorceror dupes Tefe into fighting her dear old dad. Will Constantine be able to stop this family feud before all humanity suffers?"

Here's some sample art:

http://www.andydiggle.com/assets/zombie.jpg

http://www.newsarama.com/Vertigo/Swampthingcolor.jpg
 
 
FinderWolf
18:16 / 11.11.03
Wasn't Millar's final storyline that Swampy becomes a god, thinks humanity is a plague that should be eliminated, and does lots of scary stuff, and then Abby and Tefe talk him down from godhood and genocide and he apologizes and doesn't destroy humanity? I skimmed it back when it came out, I remember thinking "eeeh, this is kind of the cliche 'godhood corrupts and the lead character eventually realizes that and plays nice', like The Dark Phoenix Saga".

The sample art from the new Swampy series looks terrific, at least.
 
 
Axel Lambert
19:02 / 11.11.03
No Téfé is with him in his quest to eliminate man. What happens is than when Swamp Thing achieves full illumination as he becomes godlike, he also starts to emphasize with every living creature, and can't go through with it. Millar reprised this in Authority.
 
 
Chubby P
14:19 / 18.11.03
I would like to pipe up to defend Vaughan who is "...writing several X-books at the moment, if that gives you any indication of his tenencies in that direction". He is writing Runaways (not an X book), Mystique and wrote a Cyclopse miniseries for Marvel. And dismissing him as a shite writer because he works on an X title is ridiculous! I take it you're not a fan of "Y - the Last Man" then?

As to his Swamp Thing run, it wasn't great, I have to agree. Part of the problem is that Tefe isn't written as a likeable character. Vaughan admits this in his "blurb" in the final issue saying that his next Vertigo series would have a lot more likeable character in the lead role, which it has. I also didn't like the art on Swamp Thing Vol 3. It wasn't "horror" enough for the title.

Mark Millars Swamp Thing was excellent!

I've only read half of Alan Moores in the black and white Titan TPBs. At some stage I'll have to try and get the rest of the series.
 
 
hypersimulation
16:47 / 18.11.03
No one else had problems with the art on
the Millar/Hester/DeMulder run? I was never
too keen on the inks.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
17:34 / 18.11.03
Everyone had claws for hands, and a lot of people seemed to walk around with fully extended arms, but otherwise it was okay.
 
 
Murray Hamhandler
19:56 / 18.11.03
ChubbyP. Please re-read:

But it's bogged down by a lot of unnecessary side-plots and supporting characters (Vaughn's writing several X-books at the moment, if that gives you any indication of his tenencies (sic) in that direction).

Not dismissing him as a bad writer because he writes X-books or otherwise. Claiming that his ST run is filled w/needless characters and digression and that this is a tendency of most X-book writers, which simply means that he fits the job description to a 'T'.

And, no, I've not read Y. Don't really feel terribly compelled to, either.
 
 
quinine92001
05:40 / 20.11.03
Okay, here is the skinny. Read Moore he is our grandfather. His stories are excellent. I prefer the Woodrue, Demon, Arcane/Matt Cable stories above the American Gothic Series. I especially enjoyed and recommend the Gotham meets Swampy meets Batman meets Lex Luthor series at the end. Excellent writing. Some of the last stories when Swamp Thing was in Space sucked except for My Blue Heaven and the one where he had sex with some alien vegetation machine lifeform.
As far as Morrison/Millar storylines go I really recommend them to everyone. Morrison reveals the ending to the Invisibles in one of the issues that he and Millar wrote. Beautiful. All white static/snow and "this is only a game" statements pepper the storyline.
Millar had Odin, Phantom Stranger, Constantine and a couple other characters who made the whole run worth buying. You must buy the Riverrun series where Swamp Thing visits alternative Earth's: One ruled by Hitler(Swamp thing as a Golem) another where Arcane was good and Abby was sex starved seductress who seduces Alec to rid the world (Earth 2) of the "evil" Arcane, one where Alec didn't die but later studied a dieing Swamp Thing for the worlds answers to starvation, and my favorite where Black Box (Green Lantern fights Soloman Grundy(who is Swampy) and the secrets of Slaughter Swamp.
The single best story is toward the end when Constantine must make a choice whether to betry his best friend or become the greatest magician in the world.
 
 
Dan Fish - @Fish1k
07:19 / 20.11.03
'River Run' is apparently set on all the old pre-crisis alternate worlds - Earth 1, Earth 2, Earth X, etc, I really enjoyed these too. Some of Millars other issues dragged, but it is worth getting the whole arc if you can. The highlight for me is the imaginary story where Chester (the hippy) becomes a right-wing cop.

I also liked the time travel storyline by Rick Veitch. Despite the ending being changed (Veitch was to have featured Jesus- DC refused to print it, so Veitch left), I though the replacement writer wrapped things up competently enough that it wasn't spoilt.
 
 
quinine92001
19:27 / 20.11.03
The Veitch issues of Swamp Thing are worth buying. The first storyline concerns finding a replacement for the Swamp THing after he was banished from Earth/The Green by Lex Luthor. One of the issues early on #66? has John Constantine breaking into Arkham and feeding a tuber to Woodrue to find out what is going on in the Green. The issue is interlocked with commentary from a Pop psychology book about superheroes,their motivations and their twisted psyche. Meanwhile Batman is trying to return Croc to the asylum.THe book POW! is written by the chief pyschologist at Arkham who also is one of John's "old" friends. The best part is where a battered and bloodied Batman calls Alfred to pick him up outside the gates of Arkham while passages from the book POW! deconstructs and critizes superheroes.
The time travel storyline is also very good but like everyone else here I would have liked to have seen Swampy meeting Christ. I think that the completed pages and script were at one time on display in a cartoon museum in MA.
As far as the writer Nancy Collins goes I have only read a few issues so I can't make a firm judgement about whether her stuff is good or not. I can say that the Midnight Blue trilogy that she wrote puts Buffy the vampire slayer to shame. Sonja Blue was slaying werewolves, trolls, ogres, succubi, and the demon that made her a vampire long before Buffy Summers strutted on the scene.
 
  
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