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alibi_shopSwamp Thing #140-150 (1994-95)
Written by Mark Millar, except #140-143 by Grant Morrison/Millar
Art: Phil Hester/Kim DeMulder
I have to admit I didn't show up with an open mind: when I saw Mark Millar was going to write this, I cringed. I've only read a few things of his, but they were full of the kind of edgelord attitude that I would've thought was awesome when I was 14. But this is very early Millar (he's 25), so who knows, maybe it's different. Well, kind of.
This section has three plots, loosely connected. First, we start with a dramatic flourish by having our hero suddenly be Alec Holland again for no apparent reason, while a mindless Swamp Thing is wreaking havoc elsewhere; this doesn't end up really amounting to anything, but it does help to clear the air of the very silly stuff in recent issues. (This part is also co-written by Grant Morrison. Does that mean it involves DMT, Terence McKenna, fractals, psychedelic narration made of one-word captions, and shamans praising pop culture? Yes.) It also establishes that we're going to have a lot more mysteriousness and a lot more horror than we've had for a while, aided by some really engaging art by Hester and DeMulder—it's a little like the Case/McKenna art in Morrison's Doom Patrol, and the use of shadows is so good that I can hardly believe it's the same inker as before. Swampy looks great, and even though his new power to take mostly-human form is kind of arbitrary, they make that look pretty good too.
Second, there's a fairly confusing multi-sided confrontation where a human villain seeks to destroy Swampy and fails but is reborn as an earth elemental and attacks him again, because the rocks want to destroy the plants, but Swampy wins again and now the rocks want his help with something or other, and meanwhile Odin and two mysterious guys are plotting some other plot that they never explain. The action scenes are cool, the exposition is not. I appreciate the effort to change up the mythology some more, but can't tell if it's really going anywhere.
Third, Sargon the Sorcerer returns from the dead with a plan to free all the souls from hell (or maybe purgatory?) and then take over heaven (or maybe earth?). Millar is sort of following Alan Moore's lead with the "bring in an obscure magical DC character" thing (Sargon appeared briefly in the comic before, and died) but this doesn't make much sense, since there is nothing special about Sargon—he's just another guy who does magic and he has no reason to turn evil or do any of this stuff. He kills a whole lot of people, and then arbitrarily has a change of heart, but he's not interesting in any way until the very end when he gets a nicely written sendoff.
It has moments of being pretty good. It also has a lot of moments of Millar being very Millar. If innocent bystanders ever appear, they must die horribly, the more of them the better. If a character is supposed to be unhappy, make them entirely ludicrously miserable. If a situation is supposed to be sleazy, cram in every possible kind of sleaze (want to know what Millar thinks are good ideas for a horror story set in the red-light district of Amsterdam? no you really don't). But he's not an untalented writer; there's some well-constructed suspense, the characters have the most individual voices* they've had since Moore, and he even manages to make the final(?) Swampy/Abby breakup seem like a real thing between people, ending with a really lovely scene of Swampy finally finding some peace.
Anyway, this is at least a new direction and it seems like Millar will get to pursue it for longer than the previous writers, so... we'll see.
Next: Millar tries the anthology format
Written by Mark Millar, except #140-143 by Grant Morrison/Millar
Art: Phil Hester/Kim DeMulder
I have to admit I didn't show up with an open mind: when I saw Mark Millar was going to write this, I cringed. I've only read a few things of his, but they were full of the kind of edgelord attitude that I would've thought was awesome when I was 14. But this is very early Millar (he's 25), so who knows, maybe it's different. Well, kind of.
This section has three plots, loosely connected. First, we start with a dramatic flourish by having our hero suddenly be Alec Holland again for no apparent reason, while a mindless Swamp Thing is wreaking havoc elsewhere; this doesn't end up really amounting to anything, but it does help to clear the air of the very silly stuff in recent issues. (This part is also co-written by Grant Morrison. Does that mean it involves DMT, Terence McKenna, fractals, psychedelic narration made of one-word captions, and shamans praising pop culture? Yes.) It also establishes that we're going to have a lot more mysteriousness and a lot more horror than we've had for a while, aided by some really engaging art by Hester and DeMulder—it's a little like the Case/McKenna art in Morrison's Doom Patrol, and the use of shadows is so good that I can hardly believe it's the same inker as before. Swampy looks great, and even though his new power to take mostly-human form is kind of arbitrary, they make that look pretty good too.
Second, there's a fairly confusing multi-sided confrontation where a human villain seeks to destroy Swampy and fails but is reborn as an earth elemental and attacks him again, because the rocks want to destroy the plants, but Swampy wins again and now the rocks want his help with something or other, and meanwhile Odin and two mysterious guys are plotting some other plot that they never explain. The action scenes are cool, the exposition is not. I appreciate the effort to change up the mythology some more, but can't tell if it's really going anywhere.
Third, Sargon the Sorcerer returns from the dead with a plan to free all the souls from hell (or maybe purgatory?) and then take over heaven (or maybe earth?). Millar is sort of following Alan Moore's lead with the "bring in an obscure magical DC character" thing (Sargon appeared briefly in the comic before, and died) but this doesn't make much sense, since there is nothing special about Sargon—he's just another guy who does magic and he has no reason to turn evil or do any of this stuff. He kills a whole lot of people, and then arbitrarily has a change of heart, but he's not interesting in any way until the very end when he gets a nicely written sendoff.
It has moments of being pretty good. It also has a lot of moments of Millar being very Millar. If innocent bystanders ever appear, they must die horribly, the more of them the better. If a character is supposed to be unhappy, make them entirely ludicrously miserable. If a situation is supposed to be sleazy, cram in every possible kind of sleaze (want to know what Millar thinks are good ideas for a horror story set in the red-light district of Amsterdam? no you really don't). But he's not an untalented writer; there's some well-constructed suspense, the characters have the most individual voices* they've had since Moore, and he even manages to make the final(?) Swampy/Abby breakup seem like a real thing between people, ending with a really lovely scene of Swampy finally finding some peace.
Anyway, this is at least a new direction and it seems like Millar will get to pursue it for longer than the previous writers, so... we'll see.
Next: Millar tries the anthology format
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2019-06-08 03:43 (UTC)