DC Relaunch: Swamp Thing

And now we venture our way into The Dark. It was an interesting idea, for DC to separate the books into "families." I think it works out pretty well. For a long time, the character that inhabit the "Dark" region of the DCU were pretty limited to the world of Vertigo Comics, DC's mature readers imprint. They weren't even seen anymore in the regular world of DC, which was even sadder considering some characters, such as Swamp Thing and Animal Man, had long since had their series ended. And then slowly, the characters trickled their way back into the regular books. And then, the flood officially came rushing in when in the last few issues of Brightest Day, Swamp Thing came stumbling through the brush.

Swamp Thing runs multiple fields, and is a complicated beast. At first glance, here's a swamp monster in the same vein as Man-Thing, the Heap, and more recently Aaron Lopresti's Garbage Man. What more is there? Well, how about that he's the represenative of the Green, the life force of all plantlife of on Earth and beyond. There's also the man behind the plant, Alec Holland. Previously, he was believed to be dead, and that his memories were merely imprinted on Swamp Thing. Now the two are one being, and on top of everything being the one representative of the white energy of the light entity on earth, the sole White Lantern. Yes, it's busy being Swamp Thing.

The thing is, Swamp Thing has always wanted much less out of life. To live without much complication. He has usually kept to the swamps and only traveling outside of when needed. The powers he has becomes extremely impressive as you learn about the Green. Like a giant network, Swamp Thing can travel it, from one place to the other. He can create a new self out of any plant life, even alien life. This new direction, of him being between the Green and the white energy, will prove interesting.


Scott Snyder has been impressing folks already, with his work on American Vampire, Detective Comics, and we've already spoken about his upcoming work for Batman. He'll be joined by Yanick Paquette on art, who has been known recently for his work on Batman Inc. with Grant Morrison. He previously worked with Morrison on Seven Soldiers: Bulleteer, and has also worked with Marc Guggenheim on Young X-Men and Robert Kirkman on Ultimate X-Men. He also provided artwork for Alan Moore's Terra Obscura series.

Swamp Thing has long been defined by Alan Moore's run, and I think if you're going to go looking for anything involving Swamp Thing, it's the best way to go. Most recently it's been collected in hardcover form:

The Saga of Swamp Thing Books 1-6, by Alan Moore with Steven Bissette, Rick Veitch, & John Totelbon

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the Red and the book that accompanies it, Animal Man