Comic Book Review – The Saga of The Swamp Thing Volume Four

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Four (2010)
Reprints The Saga of the Swamp Thing #43-45, Swamp Thing #46-50
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala, Ron Randall, and Tom Mandrake

This collection from Moore’s Swamp Thing run sealed the deal for me. I haven’t ever read better moments of horror in a comic book than some of the sequences in these issues. Moore knows how to take surreal imagery and turn it into dread-inducing moments where reality bends & warps. In that distortion, we are treated to a story that blends horror with epic dark fantasy. It’s fascinating to see how Moore set a standard for the occult corner of the DC Universe that has held strong four decades later. 

The book starts with a single-issue story centered around the hallucinogenic yams that Swamp Thing grows. This is also the first appearance of Chester Wiliams, an aging hippie who provides drugs to the people of Houma, Louisiana. It’s not the hard stuff, mainly things like weed and various psychedelics. A series of buyers show up, some begging for relief for an ailing loved one or others demanding something strong, and Chester hands over slices of the yam. Each person’s demeanor seems to affect the outcome of the drug, with all of them having a moment where they see the world through the eyes of Swamp Thing. Once again, it feels like a horror anthology story that successfully blends the title character into the narrative.

The next issue is a partial tie-in to Crisis on Infinite Earths, but it barely qualifies. Batman shows up and, alongside Constantine, talks about the Crisis. Otherwise, we get some good character bits between Swamp Thing and Abby. The main story is from the point of view of a serial killer who crosses paths with the title character in another story that reminds me of a horror anthology. That’s followed by another one-off, which repurposes the story of the Winchester Mansion with its labyrinthine construction and stories of the ghosts of the victims of a gun manufacturer. It’s another solid horror short that would be just as effective as part of an anthology series.

Issue 46 is a full-blown Crisis tie-in, complete with the official banner on the cover. Constantine brings Swamp Thing to the Monitor’s satellite base, where dozens of other heroes have gathered. The most critical meeting here is with the Phantom Stranger, who will become essential to the larger story Moore is building towards. Constantine explains his mission to Swamp Thing, describing The Brujeria, a coven of male witches in Patagonia. This secret society has been preparing as the Crisis disrupts the fabric of reality and will use this window to unleash the darkest evils contained by celestial powers. This is something beyond a simple deity of evil or a trickster god; this is the pure absence of life.

This leads to two parallel plotlines. The first is that Abby is caught on film cavorting with her plant-based lover by a photographer in the swamp, which sets off a life-ruining domino effect. However, Swamp Thing is unaware of this as Constantine takes him on their big mission. This involves a pit stop with those who came before this plant avatar. Swamp Thing meets the Parliament of Trees, where he is destined to take root one day when his time has ended. Through them, he learns much more about who he is and his destiny, though many questions remain.

Then, back to The Brujeria, where a horrific betrayal occurs. The moment that sent the most chills down my spine was this part, as one of Constantine’s many sidekicks betrayed him. Their reward is to be transformed into a bird. Moore and his artists detail this beginning with the person’s decapitation by the Brujeria. The head is still alive, and through the witches’ magic, talons begin to grow from the neck stump, and the face begins to elongate as the nose and mouth merge into a beak. Moments later, a black crow stands in the wake. In the next issue, Moore makes us watch as this bird flies across all of space and time to the edges of Hell to deliver a black pearl. And when that precious stone strikes the water, all the evil that ever was or could be imagined bubbles to the surface, terrifying even the underworld’s denizens. 

Through this issue, we have small panels on the left showing the bird’s journey across the infinite night, while on the right, occult figures in the DC Universe sense something is wrong. Constantine recruits the vampire, Baron Winter, the veteran Sargon the Sorcerer, and the father-daughter duo of Zatara & Zatanna. Meanwhile, Doctor Fate, Doctor Occult, Cain & Abel bear witness to the coming doom. Swamp Thing has already journeyed to Hell, where Deadman and the Phantom Stranger help him travel closer to the focal point of the battler.

That final battle plays out in the pages of Swamp Thing #50, an appropriately extra-sized issue sporting an incredible cover: Swamp Thing and his allies riding into action across the barren wastes of Hell atop insect-like demon steeds. Moore delivers his best story in the collection by jumping between Swamp Thing in Hell and Constantine, conducting a seance to empower those fighting in the underworld. If James Gunn can find a filmmaker to recreate such a moment for an eventual Swamp Thing movie, he will have accomplished something great. I would argue it will never top the source material.

This volume concludes with this incredible story, but there is big trouble waiting for Swamp Thing when he returns to the land of the living. Swamp Thing #50 dropped in July 1986, just two months before Watchmen #1 hit the stands. When we think about it in this context, Moore was truly firing on all cylinders at this point in his career. It’s incredible to see such robust and prolific writing coming out in comics, and we don’t have had too many instances where such a thing has been recreated since. I would imagine Moore turned off a lot of longtime readers who came to comics as a form of silly escapism as he is writing to a mature audience. Both are needed in comics, and Moore helped create a lane for those who came after.