Brightest Day finale, featuring the return(?) of an old favorite. Kinda. Maybe?

[thehefner]

So the final issue of Brightest Day came out, wherein we get the grand reintroduction of Swamp Thing to the DCU! Except... not exactly. And I'm really not sure how to feel about this.



Scans from Brightest Day #24, which came out today.


So as we saw in the last issue, the black evil force dealie stuff was using Swamp Thing as the dark avatar, whereas the White Champion was selected to be Alec Holland. Not Swamp Thing, mind you, but the dessicated, crunchy corpse of Alec Holland. The White Lantern recaps his death, and makes an important distinction:





As we see the big, giant, evil Dark Avatar, the Lantern says, "BUT IT WAS ONLY SWAMP THING." At this point, my eyebrows are raised. "Only?" But okay, I read on, seeing the various heroes battle Dark Swampy, while the White Lantern explains its grand plan to Deadman, and why Aquaman, J'onn, Firestorm, and the Hawks were converted into Water, Earth, Fire, and Air elementals:








W... wait. Is anyone else getting the impression here that Johns is saying that Swamp Thing was just a husk that took on imprinted memories, but wasn't actually an individual creature in its own right? Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, but wait, see what happens after Alec Holland is officially brought back to life by the White Lantern:





Yeah, he has no memories of being Swamp Thing, because he never was. So while the vines wrap around him and he DOES become Swamp Thing, he's--for all intents and purposes--and entirely different character. In fact, I'm getting the implication that now he's MORE of a character than Swamp Thing was before. Which, it's worth noting, is the monster that Holland!Thing is fighting now, as he definitely states his own identity:





And after the battle is over (spoiler alert! The day is saved), you'll note that Holland doesn't know any of these characters:





So is Swamp Thing back? Not really. This isn't Swamp Thing, it's Alec Holland as the NEW Swamp Thing. Unless he somehow merged his consciousness with the Swamp Thing's--and if you've read this issue, please let me know if that's what happened and I missed it, but the "Do I... know you?" seems to indicate that he hasn't merged with Swamp Thing's memories--then he has NO history with Abby Arcane, or Matt Cable, or even Constantine. On one hand, I suppose this is a way to make the DC-centric Swampy series new-reader-friendly or something. On the other hand, doesn't this kinda piss all over what writers have done with the character from Moore onward?


This is my first time in a long while that I've hastily thrown together a post for a brand new issue. Please let me know if I've screwed up at all with spoilers or anything. Bat-Apologies in advance.

Comments

[heckfire]

...wait, isn't "Fixing a character by resetting him/her to a status quo from when he/she was great" the ENTIRE M/O of Geoff Johns' writing?

[jlbarnett]

it's nopt what he did with Superboy or Kid Flash. overall I like his work. But I'm not that interested in Swamp Thing or Verigo so it doesn't matter to me.