Swamp Thing reread, part 25

Convergence: Swamp Thing #1-2 (2015)
Swamp Thing #1-6 (2016)
Written by Len Wein
Art by Kelley Jones

Swamp Thing Winter Special (2018)
Written by Tom King
Art by Jason Fabok
With an unfinished story by Len Wein and Kelley Jones

Well, Kelley Jones is still a cool illustrator but otherwise the eight issues of 2015-16 are pretty weak. They give the impression that Len Wein's fame was not due to his skill at writing prose or telling stories—but since I'm not familiar with much of his work in between, it's hard to say if that means that he really hadn't developed in 43 years, or just that he wasn't trying very hard. I think it's the latter, because this seems like it was conceived as pretty much the least ambitious Swamp Thing revival ever. But if you want a happy ending, skip to the end of this post.
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Swamp Thing reread, part 26, the end

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.
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