Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Six

This volume collects the final issues written by Alan Moore for Saga of the Swamp Thing, with his usual collaborators providing the art. And in fact, regulars Stephen Bissette and Rick Veitch also took turns with writing duties for single issues (Veitch would take over writing the series full-time after Moore’s departure).

In outline, the main work of the issues collected here was to bring Swampy home to the bayou and the arms of Abby Cable after his exile on the blue planet. This is done in a very roundabout and bizarre way, beginning with an adventure on Adam Strange’s adopted planet of Rann, then taking us through an indescribable mechano-psychedelic space journey illustrated by John Totleben that even Moore had trouble keeping pace with, a stopover at a planet of sentient plants that drives Swamp Thing a little crazy before he’s put back on track by a member of the Green Lantern Corps, a surreal chapter break where he’s turned into a floating armchair by Darkseid, all before finally crashing back to Earth, visiting revenge on the people who “killed” him, and reuniting with Abby.

It is pure Moorishness, even in the issues not written by Moore. We go from pages of untranslated Rannspeak (“Tra. Ols sistrit bu, emsec. Claab glusten tho. Bad dol fao ael ap bu phanaglisp”), then pages of Swampy being raped, I guess, by a machine (“Peeling back the lids of circuit-laced cellulose from the photosensitive steel of new eyes, he watched in terror; in fascination as my drones dug finger-skewers of white gold into the soft plantflesh of their abdomens, cold hands glistening wet, groping amongst their intestines to reset, recalibrate, alter coordinates before entering the pulsing aperture of their choice . . .”), to some high-flown rhetoric from Veitch (“How does one convey the act of seeing all of infinity within one gigantic instant? To drink in billions of actions, the totality of everything, observed from every point in the universe, all in less time than it takes to draw a single breath”), and of course a sprinkling of over-the-top sexiness (“Her tongue . . . a miniature rose manta . . . reined by silver spittle threads”).

At some point you just have to throw your hands up at all this. You’re either grooving to it or you’re not. As I’ve said before in my notes on this series, I prefer it when Moore is more restrained and sticks to relatable storylines with traditional punchlines. I loved Swampy’s revenge tour, for example, which gives us several grotesque climaxes. The journey through space, however, for all the literary and visual pyrotechnics, didn’t work for me. It’s brilliant on one level, but also ridiculous, given that Swamp Thing is such an earthy creature. He doesn’t belong out in the cosmos.

Like everything about this run, and much the same can be said of Moore in general, it goes too far. I mentioned how, when he took over Gotham and turned it into a new Eden, Swamp Thing was presented as “very nearly a god.” Now he is a god (“For am I not a god?” he asks), and while this leads to some interesting thoughts on what being eternal and omnipotent might mean (in the end, just basically sitting back and watching the show) it’s all a bit much. But again, a bit much might be exactly what you came for. Though I’m curious as to how well these titles sold. Sure, now they’re considered classics among the comic cognoscenti, but did Swamp Thing fans like them?

Whether they liked it or not, the fact is that Moore reinvented the character, though I’m glad the psychotropic tubers he has sprouting like bacne never became as big a thing as Moore clearly wanted them to be. And I’m also glad he left the series when he did because you could read these issues as a high note, and one where there was no clear next step to follow. In sum, I think it was a landmark run, both a terrific bit of teamwork and a remarkable expression of a unique personal vision. But I wouldn’t want any more of it, and I can’t say I found all of it enjoyable.

Graphicalex