Swamp Thing: Another Green World

[alicemacher]

The Swamp Thing, drifting through the Green, finally attains peace... but not for long, as he discovers something which doesn't belong there.





Abby, desperate to get away from her increasingly creepy and mysterious husband, goes for a walk in the swamp at night, and finds the bodies of two teenage boys hoisted and strangled by vines. She breaks into a run and calls for Alec.





"...Woodrue." Who, after having killed the teenagers, makes his way to nearby Lacroix, destroys key buildings, and orders a number of townspeople to shut themselves inside their homes, and someone to fetch a video camera to record what he does next.







And, just as Woodrue-controlled vines take hold of Abby:





The above is one of my favourite panels in this series. Take another look at the pre-retcon Swamp Thing from Issue 20, with his perfectly smooth, uniformly green-with-brown-roots body that still conformed to the original Bernie Wrightson design. Compare it with this full-pager. He now looks less like a hairless Hulk and more like an embodiment of the plant world itself. This new Swamp Thing was a genuine collaboration between Moore, Bissette and Totleben, who bounced ideas off each other throughout their run together. (In contrast, Bissette and Totleben recall previous writer Pasko being uninterested in their creative input.)

Moving on... Abby follows after her friend, despite his having stated flatly he's "not Alec." Meanwhile, the police in a nearby town view the footage of the Lacroix carnage and initiate a chain of calls ending with the Justice League. Back in Lacroix, the surviving townspeople witness a wild rant by Woodrue or, as he now calls himself, "Wood-Rue." He claims to be the avatar of an angry Green, his mission to destroy humankind and the rest of the animal kingdom. "Let us have another green world," the Green allegedly told him.





"...No more," says the Swamp Thing.

Next: the "Over-People."

Comments

[crinos]

League better than the Swamp Thing appearance from Batman/Harley Quinn. Which, going from clips I've seen online, was played almost for laughs.

[thezmage]

The entire movie was played for laughs

[tcampbell1000]

Whoa-ho-ho, yeah. I watched the ending of that thing and asked myself, "Who is this for? The people who remember the original story it's referencing will be insulted, and everyone else will be utterly confused that this guest star shambled onscreen for less than a full minute, did absolutely nothing, and left. And both groups would probably be repulsed at best that as soon as he goes, Harley, Batman, and Nightwing all start grinning as they contemplate BURNING A MAN TO DEATH."

Say what you will about Doomsday Clock, but at least it seems to be trying to do and say something about the state of today's world. Batman and Harley Quinn makes Doomsday Clock look like... look like actual Watchmen.

[wizardru]

What's amazing about so much of this run is how genuinely chilling and effective it is, while still remaining so subdued. There isn't really much in the way of graphic content (and the 'mature content' label was a point of contention later, obviously), but it still works due to effective text, fantastic art and incredibly tight plotting. You're watching comics be fundamentally changed in real time (for better or worse is left up to the individual), and it still impresses me. A lot of times this works because of what is implied without being shown or said.

And yeah, that splash page there is freaking iconic.