Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Three

I really liked this volume of Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing run, I think mainly because Moore stayed grounded. In his Introduction, penciller Stephen Bissette mentions the “steady hand of editor Karen Berger” on the series and I don’t know how much she helped curb some of his excesses, but especially after the swamp-sex issue that ended the previous volume there was a need to get back to basics.

And by back-to-basics I mean the X-Files-style “monster of the week” storylines on tap here. There’s a frame that isn’t explained but that introduces us to the character of John Constantine (whose looks were modeled after Sting). Constantine just drops by to tease at some coming darkness and then sends Swampy around the U.S. on a series of adventures Moore thought of as American Gothic. The first story, not part of this series, has a toxic homeless guy named Nukeface who actually kills Swamp Thing. Temporarily. After Swampy reconstitutes himself, Constantine drops by to tell him that he’s the world’s last plant elemental and that he has the power to die and be born again anywhere in the U.S. Or presumably the world. Or, as we’ll later see, the cosmos. This struck me as weird, because (1) Swamp Thing is born of science (Alec Holland’s biorestorative formula), he’s not some fantasy elemental, and (2) why does Constantine think it’s so obvious that Swampy can do this instant-teleportation thing? He seems shocked at how slow Swampy is to understand, but how does the teleportation work on any sort of level that makes sense? Yes, this will be explained later with the concept of “The Green,” but I hate The Green and if this is the thin edge it came in through then to hell with it.

Anyhow, from the Nukeface story we return to the drowned city of Rosewater, site of an earlier battle with vampires, to find out that they haven’t gone away but have instead become far creepier aquatic vampires. Then we’re on to “The Curse,” which is a werewolf story that links lycanthropy to women’s menstrual cycles. Not what I was expecting and I was kind of surprised they went there in such a bold way. Apparently it was controversial at the time. And finally we’re back in Louisiana and a film being made on a former slave plantation that has Swampy fighting voodoo zombies.

That pretty much covers what a pull quote on the back cover from National Public Radio calls “A cerebral meditation on the state of the American soul.” We get the environment, gender issues, and race. Today any comic handling these topics could be expected to be annoyingly preachy, but Moore somehow pulls it off. We get the message, but he’s not afraid to give an extra half-turn of the screw. Swampy is the straight man or conscience in every case. Paradoxically, as he’s now all plant he’s also become more human. He’s understanding, and almost reluctant to lower the boom on the baddies, but at the same time he’s less passive than he was earlier in the series.

So on brand with “sophisticated suspense” and contemporary horror stories. And best of all, at no point does Moore go spinning out into the ether, where he all too often crashes and burns. This is basically meat-and-potatoes stuff, served up with Moore’s signature poetic sauce. The meditation on what the buried dead dream at the beginning of the plantation story has him at his best: “When the summer earth swelters, when roots press against their backs like creases in the bedsheets . . . When sleep won’t come, what notions do they entertain in those frail parchment bulbs that once were skulls?” And there are also some great sign-offs, like Nukeface getting ready to say hello to America and one of the zombies going to work as a ticket collector at a grindhouse cinema. This may not be the splashiest work Moore did on Swamp Thing, but I’d rate it among his best.

Graphicalex