Swamp Thing #23.1: Arcane – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Jesus Saiz (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: A place so pleasant and perfect that it could make you scream.

The Review: Having already professed my helpless admiration for Soule’s work, I’ll spare you something similar here, lest I ruin my credibility entirely.  But given that we’re now dealing with the title that’s made his name, I think a little extra eagerness is warranted, don’t you?  Besides, this issue features Anton Arcane, a twisted figure whom Scott Snyder put to good use as a villain, but who was rather shallow a character otherwise.

That’s the nature of inherently sadistic people.  We’ve become so accustomed to the notion that evil is a product of circumstance and upbringing that it’s hard to process that someone may just be born that way.  Yet that’s exactly the theory Soule takes with Arcane, showing the madman as a young lad stumbling upon a decomposing corpse of a slain rabbit in the woods: “I had never seen anything so beautiful.  New feelings churned up inside me.  Excitement.  A young boy’s excitement…”

Animal Man #18 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: And this is why you never teach your children to be heroes.

The Review: I’ve always seen Swamp Thing and Animal Man as two loving but competitive brothers.  While their bond with each other is undeniable, you can always tell each secretly wants to be seen as the better, cooler, smarter brother to the rest of the world.  The friendly rivalry between the two series has ebbed and flowed in terms of who comes out the superior.  One will win your favor for a few months, then the other will overtake for the next few months.

Lately, however, Lemire’s title has fallen behind its sibling in a way that makes me wonder if it’ll catch up again.  Though it and Swamp Thing have shared an arc and told similar stories of heroism, somehow Animal Man just feels weaker across the board, even when neither title is particularly strong.  Scott Snyder has simply made wiser writing choices and executed them with more integrity than Lemire has.

Swamp Thing #18 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Yanick Paquette (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors)

The Story: Abby and Alec find the fuzzy areas between dead or alive.

The Review: When DC first announced Swamp Thing as one of the ongoing titles included in its New 52 initiative, I think I fell into the category of people who thought it was an interesting idea, but also had some doubts as to the execution.  Snyder and Paquette blew those doubts away from the first issue, so forcefully that it took several months of underwhelming issues to break down my faith at last.  It’s a shame that our creators depart with less favor than they started with.

I’ve already covered my dissatisfaction with the Rotworld arc in my review of #17, so I won’t beat that dead horse now.  Instead, I’ll just say that Snyder seems as eager as we are to put that mess behind us and simply end on as high a note as possible.  Remarkably enough, he does so, delivering an issue that goes through several major twists which result in a steep, enduring cost to our heroes.

Swamp Thing #17 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Jeff Lemire (story), Andrew Belanger (art), Tony Avina (colors)

The Story: This time, Alec and Buddy jump into a mysterious hole with both eyes open.

The Review: If Animal Man #17 hasn’t already made it clear that this crossover has lost its legs and, with all honestly, has done so for a while now, then its sister issue in Swamp Thing definitely seals the matter.  Somewhere along the way, whether it was good ideas that didn’t quite pan out, interference from the editorial powers that be, or a case where Snyder and Lemire got overburdened with work and lost their focus, Rotworld stopped being special.

When I say that, I basically mean the story’s gotten predictable, which is always deadly, no matter how well the writer pulls it off.  As long as two months ago, you could guess that the presence Alec’s been sensing all along wasn’t Abby herself but those clones she discovered in Arcane’s castle.  This is a case where knowing more than the hero can be a major downside; while Anton gleefully explains to Alec the details of his horrific experimentations, you yawn and flip the page, hoping something will actually shock you further on.

Animal Man #17 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Scott Snyder (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Animal Man and Swamp Thing—reunited, and it feels so good.

The Review: The most disappointing thing about Rotworld has been the fact that at the end of the day, it’s another apocalyptic scenario with humanity on the brink of doom and a bunch of undead shambling around.  Granted, there’s plenty of stories that can be gleaned from that premise, but this title in particular hasn’t done much with it except feature a bunch of those shambling undead in superhero outfits.  Not quite the groundbreaking crossover we hoped for.

Another disappointment was the choice to separate Alec and Buddy, forcing them to find their way back to each other on their own.  Although Alec has accomplished a great deal during his time sojourning the world alone, Buddy, despite his company, has done little to help the war effort by comparison.  This series has already made it clear that Buddy, in the grand scheme of the Red, Green, and Rot, is really a second banana—but did they have to reduce him to sidekick in his own book?

Animal Man #16 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: This time, the Green Lanterns are really going green.

The Review: I generally don’t approve of internet speculation about the whys and wherefores of publishing or writing decisions, but I do love trying to predict what’s coming up next in a story.  With the former, my belief is unless you have a firsthand account of the business, you really have no basis for your theories.  With the latter, your basis is the story itself, as well as the vast ocean of comic book continuity that serves, in legal terms, as both evidence and precedent.

So I was mightily impressed by Ghost of Mars’ theory on my last review of Animal Man that the Lantern trapped beneath Metropolis was Driq of Criq.  For one, I just had to give props for Ghost’s knowledge of the Green Lantern mythos, and for another, considering Driq’s undead nature, it made a lot of sense for the story.  In fact, I could’ve been fairly disappointed by another choice of Lantern, had Lemire not used an even better one.

Swamp Thing #16 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Yanick Paquette (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors)

The Story: Just because you’re going Green doesn’t mean some growth supplements can’t hurt.

The Review: I seem to be writing a lot of these commentaries on superhero as a genre lately, but you know what they say—so I won’t even bother saying it myself.  Anyway, something that sort of hit me as a revelation while reading this issue is the idea that superhero can be considered a sub-category of story within the adventure genre.  After all, isn’t the point of adventure simply to generate excitement and let characters tackle any number of physically stimulating challenges?

I think that’s why, ever since we started the Rotworld arc and Swamp Thing started rubbing shoulders with more superheroes, the pure horror of this series has faded and a much more adventurous spirit has come out of it.  This change will probably bother purists, since it takes the titular character away from his roots, placing him in a more mainstream arena.  I don’t belong to that particular group of fans, and even if I did, Snyder makes Swampy as adventure hero so much fun that it’s hard to resent him for it.

Swamp Thing #15 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Marco Rudy (art), Val Staples & Lee Loughridge (colors)

The Story: For once, Gotham’s got some competition for worst place in the world.

The Review: An interesting difference I’ve noticed between Animal Man and Swamp Thing is that each hero, despite their common enemy, doesn’t have the same amount of purpose as the other.  You know how in Lord of the Rings, all the action centered on Aragon and his last company, but it was Frodo who had any chance of making a difference?  That’s the sense you get out of Buddy and Alec’s respective parts in this storyline.

Undoubtedly, Jeff Lemire will give Buddy a crucial role in toppling the Rot, but at the end of the day, you just know that it’s Alec who really holds the fate of the world in his hands.  Buddy fights the Rot out of duty, both as agent of the Red and as guardian of its avatar.  Facing the Rot is more like a part of Alec’s destiny; whichever way the battle turns out, whoever else lives or dies in the process, Alec must reach the point where he can confront the enemy.

Animal Man #15 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: So it seems like the monster has become the master—of the monsters.

The Review: Being an ardent follower of both Animal Man and Swamp Thing can be, to use a well-worn cliché, a double-edged sword.  The sharp, shiny side is you have a plot enriched by two titles working together.  The dull, blunted side is dealing with moments where the two books cover the same terrain.  And let’s face it: if you’re reading either one of these series, you’re probably reading both.

That meant dealing with a lot of the same kind of exposition for the early issues of this arc.  Animal Man particularly suffered because Lemire doesn’t have quite the fleetness of language that his writing buddy does and he hasn’t been quite as aggressive with the pacing as he could have been.  Last issue felt like an especially low point for this series as a whole, burdened with more talk than action, and only the barest exploration of what’s left of the Rot-infested world.

Animal Man #14 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: And just when your ruined world can’t get any worse, enter an evil sorcerer.

The Review: I’ll let you in on a little secret: I actually dislike reviewing issues that are mostly fighting sequences—actively dread them, really.  Unless the superpowers involved are fairly spectacular and innovative, I find it very hard to say anything about them.  They tend to reveal more about the artist’s strengths than the writers, and they rarely do much to inform the story, unless of course the characters engage in some awkward exposition in the middle of it all.

And I’ve already made plain my general dissatisfaction with the Rot horde as enemies.  As mindless, one-note creatures, they serve as nothing more than pure cannon fodder, stuff for our heroes to mow down indiscriminately.  Even the Rot-infestees don’t seem all that different from the normal type of Rotling, except for the fact that they wear clothes.  Since they pose so little challenge, it doesn’t take that much effort from Buddy and his gang to slaughter them, and leaving little for me to comment about on the issue’s first act.

Swamp Thing #14 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Yanick Paquette (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors)

The Story: This isn’t quite like Huckleberry Finn, but it’s as close as you can get in Rotworld.

The Review: I won’t deny that I’ve been less than thrilled with the first chapters of Rotworld, which seems astonishing as we’re talking about a highly anticipated storyline from two extremely fine writers working on two very compelling characters.  It’s hard to pin down why exactly the last few months’ issues have failed to elicit the expected excitement.  Somehow, the plot just seemed way simpler, more predictable, and even duller than you anticipated.

It’s to my great relief that Snyder turns that trend around in a big way here.  Now that we’ve gotten past the obligatory briefing on the world’s status, we can now focus on taking some action.  Now surrounded by the enemy, with few options and little hope of success, Alec faces the ultimate test as the Green’s avatar.  It seems appropriate, then, that his powers just keep getting bigger and bigger, quite literally so in this case, making quick work of the Rotted Titans and their minions using one carefully placed step.

Swamp Thing Annual #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Scott Tuft (story), Becky Cloonan (art), Andrew Belanger (pencils), Karl Kerschl (inks), Tony Avina (colors)

The Story: What’s more romantic than a historical tour of a village on a barren mountain?

The Review: If you’ve noticed nothing else about Snyder’s work in the last few years, you’ve at least realized by now that he’s had big ideas for the DCU ever since he started working on Detective Comics.  As amazing as his work has been, though, only lately has he begun to stretch his legs and take command of the material like his own.  He now sees much more comfortable taking the familiar characters and twisting them to his own vision.

You might be thinking that he’s always done this, which is true, but you have to admit he’s become quite a bit more radical in the last few months.  The early issues of this series displayed a huge amount of knowledge and respect for the Swamp Thing mythos, retaining as much of the preceding authors’ continuity as possible.  In #0, you saw Snyder muck with Alec’s origins in a pretty significant way, and here, that mucking turns into full-on historical revisionism.

Swamp Thing #13 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Yanick Paquette (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors)

The Story: Some people would consider a Garden of Eden in the sky kind of romantic, Ivy.

The Review: I gave Animal Man’s counterpart to this issue a thorough thrashing in my review the other day.  This arc has been one of anticipation ever since Snyder and Jeff Lemire’s collaboration was announced, and for it to start with less than a bang makes you feel a bit cheated.  Rotworld leaves our heroes with only one inevitable choice of action: go back and reverse what has been.  That inevitability saps the arc of its thrill almost from the start.

This issue doesn’t do a much better job of convincing you any other option is possible.  With the world laid waste, its very geography altered (“This ‘desert’ is Louisiana, Holland,” Ivy informs him bitterly), and everyone dead and grotesquely deformed, even if Alec and Buddy somehow manage to defeat Arcane and the Rot by themselves, what would be the point?  I can only see a way back if the Red, Green, and Rot all work together to put things right—which isn’t a bad possibility, come to think of it.  I just take issue with the predictability of the story’s direction.

Animal Man #13 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Buddy discovers his world can cross its overpopulation problems off the list.

The Review: One complaint everyone pretty much has about Events from either of the publishers, one I join wholeheartedly on, is how many titles they end up invading.  Sometimes—who am I kidding?—almost all the time, there’s no actual reason to squeeze them into the plot.  But you can’t deny that there’s no better way to give a storyline an epic, important feel.  When one title has a world-spanning conflict no other title notices, why should you do any different?

Such is the rock and hard place we have in Rotworld.  I’m rather charmed that Lemire and Scott Snyder continue to claim that this dystopia their stars have entered is anything more than an alternate reality, as if there’s even a chance none of this grimness will reverse course after several issues.  Can we truly believe that once this arc ends, we’ll have other heroes sitting around, reminiscing about the time Hawkman turned into a deformed, flesh-eating zombie?

Swamp Thing #0 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Kano (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: You ever get the feeling your spouse isn’t acting like herself?

The Review: You may not believe this, but I think I caught on to Harry Potter before pretty much anyone else in my neighborhood.  My middle school library had exactly two copies of the first book, hardbound, with a glossy plastic sheeting they used to cover new books.  Of course, once the floodgates of wizard madness opened, pretty much the only books in the library that anyone actually cared to borrow were Harry Potters, but I digress.

From the very first book, it became obvious that Harry was fated to meet Voldemort again.  I don’t think anyone expected that he’d be confronting Voldemort in practically every single book he starred in, but J.K. Rowling made it clear that was Harry’s destiny as a hero and savior.  In contrast, the Parliament of Trees have made a big fuss over Alec Holland being their legendary warrior-king, but it hasn’t been entirely clear until now how he’d earn that title.  At the end of the day, it was Abby who felled Sethe in #9, not Alec.

Animal Man #0 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: And now you know why Animal Man never channels the powers of a chicken.

The Review: Considering the popularity of this series, you can’t deny Lemire has done a good job making its star accessible to people who’ve never heard of him in their lives (read: most people).  That said, it’s always been obvious that longtime fans, particularly those of the Morrison era of Animal Man, had an “in” on the character the rest of us do not.  In that sense, these #0 issues can handily even the field between old and new readers.

Here we see Lemire integrating both old continuity and the new mythology he’s laid down, and the effect seems very unified and sensible.  Like Action Comics #0, you don’t see much in this issue that previous ones haven’t alluded to already, but Lemire clarifies some of the reasons behind certain changes and developments.  You get a sense of that these past events tie into the current “Rotworld” arc, but only in the vaguest terms.

Swamp Thing #12 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Jeff Lemire (story), Marco Rudy (artist), Dan Green & Andy Owens (inks), Val Staples (colors)

The Story: Time flies when you’re dying, apparently.

The Review: I may never have the evidence to prove it, but I strongly suspect it was not Snyder and Lemire’s original intention to write a two-issue prologue to their crossover event.  With the #0 issues coming up, I think they wanted to ensure the body of their story didn’t get cut off right in the middle by a sudden “secret origin” tale.  To that end, I think they adapted their prologue to leave us at an exciting, but not crucial, juncture of the arc.

Otherwise, the prologue in itself isn’t all that interesting, certainly not enough to merit two whole issues.  Most of the action involves the characters mindlessly cutting their way through the endless tide of Rot minions, and this kind of thing feels more suited to a superhero book than the usually tone and concept-focused Swamp Thing—or Animal Man, for that matter.  If all this bloodiness helped demonstrate some of the characters’ skills or powers, it might be worth the time spent, but there’s nothing new here, so it mostly feels like a way to eat up extra pages.

Snyder and Lemire also spend an inordinate amount of time summing up points from previous issues.  As in Animal Man #12, this benefits potential bandwagon-jumpers (and I tend to question how many of those there are), but no one else.  Most of us consist early fans already know all the basics by heart: who belongs where in the hierarchy of the Rot, the Red, and the Green, how the three natural forces interact, and the strength of the enemy in question.  Hearing it all again just makes you impatient, especially when the characters start treading over information introduced in the same week’s companion issue (“It’s as we said in the swamp.”).

The only real useful bit to come out of this issue that also has the value of being new information is Abby’s questioning of Anton Arcane’s return.  Initially, I thought it seemed natural that the avatar of the dead would have the power to return from death as often as he pleased.  Didn’t he say in #10 that he’s sired a ton of offspring?  That gave me the impression he’s been kicking it over and over in this world for ages, but then Abby claims, “Once an avatar dies, there should be no bringing them back.”  So what power is the Rot tapping into to contradict such tradition?

Then you have the even more confusing task of figuring out what exactly happens at the end of the issue.  Spoiler alert—Alec and Buddy eventually find themselves back in the real world after a surprisingly brief sojourn in the Rot, only to discover a year has passed (announced by Anton in a sing-songy, “She’s been dead for twenty-five years!” kind of moment) and the Rot has already won.  But is this the real world?  If it is, that means we’ve not only skipped over a huge chunk of time, we’ve also missed two major plot threads somewhere in there: Cliff’s ultimate fate and Abby’s attempt to make contact with the Rot’s Parliament of Decay.

I haven’t missed Yanick Paquette to much since Rudy started taking over so many issues, but this time I desperately wished Paquette had handled art duties.  Rudy starts off strong, but as the issue goes on, his lines grow looser, his composition more generic, and his paneling less dynamic.  By the last few pages, Buddy’s face, with its flat, oversized eyes and unusually wide bone structure, is practically unrecognizable from what he looks like in the opening.  Rudy also skimps on the action, suggesting rather than showing the characters’ movements.  For example, what exactly is Maxine doing during the battle with the Rotlings?  It looks uncannily, if inexplicably, like she’s shooting Starfire-like energy blasts from her hands.

Conclusion: All in all, a less than spectacular first outing on one of the most highly anticipated storylines of the year, but it has plenty of potential to redeem itself—once September is over.

Grade: B

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – Call me crazy, but it feels like the Red is definitely working at a disadvantage in fighting the Rot, doesn’t it?  How is an agent of the Red supposed to maintain a tether to the surface world like Swamp Thing can?  As Alec remarks, a preternaturally long tail “would be…disgusting,” as would a giant blood vessel, as Buddy pitched in Animal Man #12.

Animal Man #12 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Scott Snyder (story), Steve Pugh (art), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Animal Man and Swamp Thing do their best Starsky and Hutch impression.

The Review: And so it begins.  Hokey and overused, yes, I know, but the line seems apropos here, considering we are talking about an event long in the works and which every fan of DC’s “Dark” line of books has been looking forward to for months.  We have here two of the biggest hotshots in the wake of the new DCU working together on two of the biggest figures of DC’s counter-mainstream culture—for a mainstream book.  That is also popular, of all things.

So excitement definitely feels deserved in this situation.  That said, the meeting between our two heroes doesn’t have quite the punch it did in Swamp Thing #11.  Buddy finds it necessary to brief his new partner on everything that’s happened to him in the last ten issues, which might be handy for readers hopping aboard the Animal Man hayride for the first time, but a dull exercise for us longtime fans.

Swamp Thing #11 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Marco Rudy (art), Val Staples (colors)

The Story: Who knew Swamp Thing had his own potent brand of kung fu?

The Review: Can you believe it’s been nearly a year already?  This time last year, none of us knew how this DC relaunch would play out; some people thought it’d be a game-changer and others thought it’d tank and of course, the truth turned out somewhere in between.  But I think by the most important standard, this has been a win for DC, and I’m talking about this storytelling environment where Swamp Thing is a mainstream hit, not just a favorite for the cultists.

The success has been even more impressive considering how underwhelming the return of Alec Holland and Swamp Thing to the DCU was at first.  Once the initial surprise fizzled out, no one seemed to know what to do with these characters, now that they were available.  Jonathan Vankin wrote a horribly misguided mini which painted Alec as a helpless victim, the material from which S. Thing arose from, but otherwise a minor figure in the monster’s life.

Animal Man #11 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Wayne Faucher (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: I’m not sure you want a makeover from two yellow Coneheads in leotards.

The Review: To be perfectly frank, Animal Man has been in desperate need of a major upgrade in power set for a while.  Lemire made that clear every time he had Buddy face off against the Rot, only to quickly find himself overwhelmed, outmuscled, and just downright ineffective.  Granted, he’ll probably never be capable of his daughter’s feats, but you’d think at such a critical time, he should have more options than channeling the strength of a gorilla, or whatever.

So when the Totems offered to give Buddy a newer, better body last issue, it was about time.  At first glance, however, we don’t see any radical changes.  He certainly doesn’t look any different, though he says he feels “stronger…more pure…”  The Royal Tailors give him “limited species-shifting abilities,” and we see a bit of that here, as he transmogrifies in and out of several half-man, half-animal forms, similar to his bolstered powers in the Red.  But it’s not totally clear how this mere shapeshifting ability is more beneficial than his normal channeling powers.

Swamp Thing #10 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Francisco Francavilla (art)

The Story: Abby’s just another person with a father who’s proud of her for all the wrong reasons.

The Review: Now that all the gushing about Jeff Lemire is out of the way, let’s start it up again in favor of Snyder, easily the other hotshot spearheading the latest generation of DC writers.  Whereas his pal and peer romps across the sci-fi genre, shedding big ideas behind him, Snyder has given the DC mystery a good name again.  To be perfectly fair, his concepts aren’t quite as audacious, but his execution is so well-crafted that his product is no less weird and wonderful.

When it comes to mysteries, execution is pretty much everything.  In nearly every story of that kind, all the major elements remain the same: the crime, the criminal, the victim, the detective, the suspects, and the clues.  Nowadays, audiences have gotten so savvy that they can pick out the conclusion before the story is halfway over.  So to some degree, mystery writers have given up trying to shock the reader with the “Whodunnit” question and instead poured their efforts into making the journey to that answer as gripping as possible—it’s “why” versus “what.”

Animal Man #10 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: They may be shady people in a podunk motel, but it’s not what you think!

The Review: Ten, fifteen, or maybe twenty years in the future, I predict Lemire will be a renowned writer, famous for his revitalization of Animal Man, just as Grant Morrison is now for the same thing.  Just like Morrison, Lemire is pushing the boundaries of where our star character can go, only instead of driving Buddy Baker out to the furthest reaches of space, Lemire dives deeper inward into Buddy’s inner mythology.

The Green has always had a fairly rich lore, with its Parliament of Trees and avatars and prophecies, and Lemire has made it his goal to give the same kind of richness to the Red, which now not only has its own venerable council in the Totems, but also a whole landscape of “geographical” features, a warrior class of agents patrolling it all as a national guard against the Rot, and even a castle headquarters, the literal heart of the Red.

Animal Man Annual #1 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Timothy Green (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Socks has a very “unique” idea of what makes a good children’s story, to say the least.

The Review: Most of the annuals we see tend to use the showcase format, offering short pieces by a variety of writers and artists, a mixture of exercises by creative veterans and samples from potential new talent.  Then there’s the other kind of annual: the self-contained interlude, a story which wedges itself between arcs and has some importance in its own right, but with a higher price point which limits how important it can actually be.

Lemire manages this tricky balance by giving you some details which help you understand the bigger story of the “Rise of the Rot,” but which aren’t so crucial that anyone who didn’t buy into the annual would be left out when they picked up their next monthly issue of Animal Man.  And there is no better narrative tool to accomplish all this than the flashback.  Diving into the past avoids any substantial interference with the ongoing action, but it could yield enough revelations to make the reading worthwhile.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #9 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Wayne Faucher (inks), Jose Villarrubia (colors)

The Story: Undead versus the undead—sounds like a nice break for the living to me.

The Review: While this week’s issues of Batgirl and Batman and Robin demonstrated the bigger scale tie-ins to major Events, there are, of course, smaller, less intrusive crossover issues.  With this series, Lemire takes S.H.A.D.E. on an incidental side-mission which intersects with the storyline pulsing along in his other DC ongoing.  Unlike the “Night of the Owls” tie-ins, this mini-crossover has several advantages going for it.

For one, Lemire has a knack for quickly laying out the context of the crossover, so you don’t actually need to read anything else to get the idea of the story.  Through Father Time’s mission brief, he gives you the gist of Animal Man, why the “costumed dweeb” (Time’s words, obviously) even registers on S.H.A.D.E.’s radar, and why it’s important to us.  And as the story goes on, Lemire only further integrates his “Rise of the Rot” plotline within Frankenstein’s own story, making it relevant and contextual.  But then, Lemire has the luxury of writing both.

Swamp Thing #9 – Review

By: Scott Snyder (story), Yanick Paquette & Marco Rudy (art), Nathan Fairbairn & Val Staples (colors)

The Story: Abby hasn’t learned that it’s rarely a good idea to trust canned food of any kind.

The Review: One thing that’s become obvious about Snyder’s writing is he loves to take his time.  I don’t mean his pacing is slow; I mean that every issue feels like a clear stepping-stone to the next, and all of them together form a path through the woods to some great destination only Snyder knows about.  In short, Snyder is very much a student of the decompression school of comic book writing, which is not a bad thing if you’re diverted enough along the way.

Snyder’s sprightly writing ability will keep you occupied most of the time—how can you not appreciate lines like, “You like the way the foxfire makes the bayou glow at night”?  But great prose can’t always disguise the fact that there’s not a whole lot going on.  This series has always struggled to fill the pages with its tiny cast (with only two regular characters and perhaps the same number of recurring ones) and its one plotline.  Unlike the hive of activity over in its sister title, Animal Man, you rarely get an opportunity to break away from the main event.