Comic Book Review – The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Six

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Six (2014)
Reprints Swamp Thing #57-64
Written by Alan Moore and Stephen Bissette
Art by Rick Veitch, John Totleben, and Alfredo Alcala

As Alan Moore’s Watchmen maxi-series was making waves in comics, he was also writing the final issues of Swamp Thing. The writer was interested in connecting the elemental hero with the space/cosmic elements in the DC Universe. While the delve into the occult was successful because Swamp Thing’s character lent itself to that genre, this foray into science fiction is a more mixed bag. Moore is clearly being more experimental, and that causes the series to lose some of the humanity that made it so compelling in the early collections. These aren’t poorly written stories, but I could see them turning off some readers because of how Abby gets sidelined for a big chunk.

The first story arc concerns Adam Strange, DC’s answer to John Carter of Mars. I did a spotlight on Adam Strange a few years back, but in short, he’s an adventurer who will be pulled by zeta beams to the planet Rann. There, he has become a swashbuckling-style hero, helping Sardath fight off the enemies of the world. Additionally, he fell in love with and married Alanna, Sardath’s daughter. Adam’s latest jump to Rann coincides with Swamp Thing’s arrival. The plant-based hero discovers new abilities as he manipulates the alien world’s vegetation but is mistaken for a threat.

Meanwhile, two representatives from the winged culture of Thanagar are offering an information exchange to help Rann deal with its devastating famine. Eventually, Adam learns Swamp Thing speaks English, and they clear up any confusion. It’s just in time because the Thanagarians were lying and had plans to sabotage Rann’s food supply even further. Moore also adds Alanna’s pregnancy to Adam’s continuity, another element he brought to the DC Universe that is still a part of the character when he pops up as a guest over the decades.

There’s one last story that follows up on Len Wein’s run, this time spotlighting the Patchwork Man. He’s a Frankenstein’s monster-type created by Anton Arcane using the corpse of his own brother & Abby’s father, Gregori. This is paralleled with Abby’s new job at a facility for developmentally challenged adults. Eventually, the young woman is reunited with her father, his reanimated body deteriorating due to a lack of upkeep since he was created and ran off into the swamp. It fits into that horror story in an anthology style. This one is written by artist Stephen Bissette but blends very well into Moore’s style. I assume the inclusion of fill-in writers had to do with Moore’s increased workload around this time.

Issue 60 could likely be divisive for readers. It’s told from the point of view of an artificial form of life that evolved from vegetative matter. It immediately made me think of Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk #25, where the story shifts to the point of view of a non-human entity. Moore’s entity becomes obsessed when Swamp Thing’s consciousness accidentally merges with it. The story is told in prose text boxes, and it’s implied that the being forcibly makes Swamp Thing inseminate it, which borders into creepy rape territory. I’m not a big fan of prose in comics like this, so while the artwork is impressive, it’s definitely not one of my favorites. 

Issue 61 was a bit more fun, in my opinion, as it has Swamp Thing coming to the homeworld of the Green Lantern Medphyll, whose people have evolved from plants. Moore explores the culture of a world like this, its overlap with ours, and the spaces where it wildly diverges. We get a glimpse at their view on art and religion. When Swamp Thing arrives, his consciousness doesn’t understand the context of this world and ends up merging with the people and the architecture, fusing some of them in grotesque ways. I found Rick Veitch went all-out with the task before him, playing radically with panel layouts and images that hint at the bizarre uncanniness of AI-generated art today. 

Rick Veitch fills in as writer for the next issue, which has Swamp Thing meeting Metron of the New Gods. Metron helps Swamp Thing stabilize his essence, which has been out of sync since the Sunderland assassination attempt in Gotham. Together, they journey beyond the Promethean Wall and encounter interdimensional beings. It’s not a terribly impressive issue, just a solid entry. 

The final two stories are “Loose Ends (Reprise)” and “Return of the Good Gumbo.” The former is Moore’s tying up of loose ends, in the same way, he closed out Wein’s run when he first started on the book. The Sunderland threat is dealt with, and we get to see almost every surviving supporting character and get closure. The latter story is Moore’s farewell, spotlighting Swamp Thing & Abby as they are reunited and create a new life for themselves. Swamp Thing reflects on his adventures and unique understanding of what he is and his place in the world as an avatar of the Green. He forms a new home from the vegetation where he and Abby will live happily ever after. Of course, the series continued with Veitch as the regular writer, but Moore delivers a satisfying ending. You could easily stop here and feel you’d experienced Swamp Thing’s entire story.

It is undeniable how revolutionary Moore’s work on this title was. DC was still leaning into a lot of out-of-date Sliver Age tropes. They never experienced that maturation that Marvel had become famous for. But it was this decade, the 1980s, when, in my opinion, DC surpassed Marvel in terms of story quality. I’ve never read a Marvel comic I considered to be literary. That company has tremendous stories, but they always feel like standard comic books. Moore’s run on Swamp Thing was such a beautiful branching out of the genre. It cleared a path so that new writers could take up a title and infuse it with freshness & experimentation that challenged what a comic book could be. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read through Moore’s run before. It has been one of the most rewarding comic reading experiences I’ve had in a long time.