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Swamp Thing and related titles, 301 issues (1972-2018)
Written by 23 people
Art by 72 people [not counting the colorists]
As of 2019, there haven't been any more Swamp Thing comics. Should there be? Based on Len Wein's last unfinished series I would have said no, I can let it go, but then there was that special issue last year and I was hooked again. So I guess we'll see.
Why do I like Swamp Thing so much? There's the "I got into it at an impressionable age" thing, which may affect my judgment, who knows (and the series is also almost exactly the same age as me). I'm always up for "hero who's doomed to be a monster" stories, and things that have one foot in fantasy and one foot in horror, and things where the concept of identity isn't straightforward. The massive amount of non-human life on Earth is an underdeveloped area for fantasy fiction in general, especially in the sense of it having a completely different mode of existence (rather than just living in an unfamiliar place, like Aquaman)—and part of what made Alan Moore's contribution so special was that he figured out how the premise of the series made it possible to bring in a massive theme like that, with all kinds of philosophical and aesthetic potential, while still being able to do stories about monsters and aliens too. In the right hands, it's heady stuff that lends itself to mind-bending imagery. In the wrong hands, it's super hokey but still enjoyable for its basic weirdness.
( Read more... )
Written by 23 people
Art by 72 people [not counting the colorists]
As of 2019, there haven't been any more Swamp Thing comics. Should there be? Based on Len Wein's last unfinished series I would have said no, I can let it go, but then there was that special issue last year and I was hooked again. So I guess we'll see.
Why do I like Swamp Thing so much? There's the "I got into it at an impressionable age" thing, which may affect my judgment, who knows (and the series is also almost exactly the same age as me). I'm always up for "hero who's doomed to be a monster" stories, and things that have one foot in fantasy and one foot in horror, and things where the concept of identity isn't straightforward. The massive amount of non-human life on Earth is an underdeveloped area for fantasy fiction in general, especially in the sense of it having a completely different mode of existence (rather than just living in an unfamiliar place, like Aquaman)—and part of what made Alan Moore's contribution so special was that he figured out how the premise of the series made it possible to bring in a massive theme like that, with all kinds of philosophical and aesthetic potential, while still being able to do stories about monsters and aliens too. In the right hands, it's heady stuff that lends itself to mind-bending imagery. In the wrong hands, it's super hokey but still enjoyable for its basic weirdness.
( Read more... )
