Swamp Thing #8 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Marco Rudy & Yanick Paquette (artists), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist)

The Story: The Badlands—now, with even fewer reasons to visit!

The Review: Both Jeff Lemire and Snyder have explored the notion that the Rot, for all its grotesque manifestations, is simply a force akin to the Red or the Green.  All three have their place in the natural world (though the Rot signals the ends of the others), and all three have an innate desire to spread and conquer the earth as far they possibly can.  In some ways, this has made the Rot less intriguing as an antagonist, because it’s simply doing what it’s meant to do.

Lemire and Snyder always manage to cover up the Rot’s less-than-subtle villainy by making it not so much the driving point of interest in the story, but rather an interesting context for their heroes to work through some common conflicts.  For Animal Man, that means the pressures of weighing family versus duty; for Swamp Thing, it’s more of a Romeo and Juliet-type situation: boy and girl from opposing forces fall in love and encounter tragedy for it.

To be honest, Snyder has been a little less successful in his choice of core relationships than Lemire.  While Alec and Abby shared a bond and weight on their shoulders, the romantic attraction between them always felt a little forced, a lingering obligation from their “past” association than genuine chemistry.  From a storytelling point of view, their pairing is logical, poetic, and ripe with tension, but somehow unearned, destined rather than natural.

That’s why it feels a bit unconvincing that Alec would go so far to save this woman, to the point where he literally flies, solo, into enemy territory to free her.  You have to admit, though, it makes for some majorly high stakes, especially for Alec’s first official outing as warrior-king Swamp Thing—which sounds catchier to me every time I say it, I must say.  The bulk of the issue involves Alec tearing through Sethe’s seemingly endless army, and it looks quite as bloody and epic as anything you’d expect from such impossible odds.