Swamp Thing #6 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Marco Rudy (artist), Val Staples & Lee Loughridge (colorist)

The Story: Getting schooled by a kid a third your age—you’ve really hit a low, huh, Alec?

The Review: It takes a certain skill to build up comic book tension convincingly.  Plot twists and cliffhangers can get the job done, in a rough kind of fashion, but use them a too liberally and pretty soon they roll off the reader’s back with little impact.  At a certain point, you just become too aware of the “twist” or “cliffhanger” as literary devices, rather than part of the story.

Probably the best way to keep the suspense going is to keep the odds consistently against the hero, while giving him enough victories and moments of hope so that both he and you don’t despair of success.  So far, Snyder’s done just that on this series.  By last issue, he had made out the Rot as such a hulking menace that Alec and Abby’s capture of William Arcane felt like a very underwhelming triumph; they essentially only succeeded in preventing an impossible threat from becoming more impossible—that is, until the Parliament of Trees receive a direct attack in the heart of the Amazon.

The point is Snyder always laid the groundwork to these wrenches in the plot before setting them in play, so they felt natural to the flow of the story.  This issue is the first where he pulls the rug from under you and makes you stumble, compared to the smooth tablecloth tricks he’s done up till now.  The revelation that it’s—spoiler alert—Abby the Rot wants, not William, works, but has the sense of a last-minute plot change.  We’ve spent a long time putting our expectations in this twisted little boy, only for him to turn around and contradict us.

Anyway, it doesn’t seem like the general direction of the title has veered off course by more than inches.  Although William refers to her as a “queen” (accompanied by all sorts of disturbing expressions of admiration), and she does exert some control over their minions, her brother continues to act like he calls the shots and has the most knowledge of what’s going on.  That kind of relationship fits with his whole spiel about playing chess and missing the most powerful weapon: William as the game-master, Abby as his prize piece.

WCBR’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: The Unwritten #33.5 – It’s nice to give a call out to this series that has been consistently “very good”, but hasn’t had a singularly excellent issue in awhile.  This was it.  Yay!  For the last couple of months, the series has double-shipped with the “regular” issues following the normal story and the .5 issues showing this fascinating set of flashbacks into some of the deep historical background of The Unwritten’s universe.  This issue showed us the nasty nun/puppeteer Ms. Toller/Rausch as a little girl in one of the Germanic kingdoms in the late 1700’s.  Given this girl’s childhood, it’s no wonder she turned out BAD.  The other thing setting this issue apart was the inking work done by Vince Locke.  I think if you looked back at this site (and other sites), you’d notice a direct correlation between Locke being present for inking duties and the reception to the issue.  He’s one of those artists who isn’t content to put down a smear of black ink or to do an ink wash…..it’s just him and his fine brush making a rat’s next of crazy lines when he wants a shadow.  It looks GREAT.

Most Anticipated: Rachel Rising #5 – This new(er) series from Terry Moore has been just splendid since he launched it a few months back.  It follows a girl named Rachel who has climbed out of a grave after being murdered (?) and the truly bizarre things going on in her hometown.  Weirdness is afoot as some kind of mind control is causing people to kill their loved ones.  Issue #4 really started to pull some disparate elements of the story together and while it isn’t clear where the story is going yet, the basic flavor and tone is becoming obvious.  And….of course….the art is glorious.  Not a lot of artists could pull off the type of art that Terry Moore is laying down here.  The wizardry of his work is in the subtle little expressions that allow him to say a LOT in a single panel without cluttering it with a word balloon.  Not only is he good…..he’s also confident that he can nail these scenes from an artistic standpoint.  It’s special….hop on now!  Plus, I think you can get it digitally via Comixology and that’s important because very few comic shops will order shelf-copies of this series.

Other Picks: I Zombie #22, Sweet Tooth #30, Alpha Girl #1, Fatale #2, Amazing Spider-Man #679, Uncanny X-Force #21

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Fantastic Four #602 – Epic space battles!  But the real beauty here is how the pieces are all coming together together beautifully and in massive scale.  This issue also passed the “chill test”:  if a book gives me chills, it’ll probably be pick of the week.  This book did it twice.

Most Anticipated: Winter Soldier #2 – As stoked as I am about Ed Brubaker’s other book this week, Fatale #2, I’m giving it to Winter Soldier.  This is simply one of those books where all the stars align perfectly.  It’s a team-up of two of my favourite characters (Bucky and Black Widw), written by one of my favourite writers (Ed Brubaker), drawn by the perfect artist for a book like this (Butch Guice), and colored by one of my favourite colorists (Bettie Breitweisers).  And to make it even more perfect, it’s $2.99!

Other Picks: Fatale #2, The Punisher #8, Animal Man #6, Swamp Thing #6, Uncanny X-Men #6,  Action Comics #6, Sweet Tooth #30, Amazing Spider-Man #679, Defenders #3