‘Saga of the Swamp Thing (Book Two)’ – Alan Moore, John Totleben, Steve Bissette (Titan Books)

I know I’ve said this before but I’m afraid you’re going to have to sit through it one more time at least :o) One of the things that I really love about running this blog is that feeling of being blown away by a good book when you were least expecting it. It doesn’t happen all that often, and there are books lurking out there that will inspire the opposite reaction, but once you’ve had a taste of that feeling then there’s no going back. You just want more of the same...
I was lucky enough to get another taste of that ‘high’ when I picked up Book Two of the ‘Saga of the Swamp Thing’ a couple of days ago. “What about Book One?” I hear you all ask. Well, sometimes the path takes you places in totally the wrong order ;o) No worries though, Book Two was such an amazing read that there’s no question of my not going back to fill in the gaps...

Alan Moore’s run on ‘Saga of the Swamp Thing’ came at a time when falling sales and a change in writer meant that Alan Moore was pretty much given free rein to do whatever he wanted with the title. The result is something quite beautiful as far as I'm concerned. You should check it out.

I was under the impression that the Swamp Thing used to be a scientist who mutated into sentient swamp life when a rival blew up his lab. Apparently not though! According to Moore, the Swamp Thing was an elemental who came into possession of the dead scientist’s memories and wound up believing that he was something that he wasn’t. The end result is a lead character trying to find out who (and what) he really is while also trying to deal with the dangers of the supernatural world that exists alongside our own...

You really need to have read the first volume as the second picks up from this with references to things that have happened previously. Book Two is surprisingly easy to get into though, probably because Moore’s ‘The Burial’ serves to cut Swamp Thing off from his ‘past’ and send him off on a new path. For a character that’s made out of moss and flowers (and completely alien in a real sense) you really get a sense of how the Swamp Thing is affected by what is happening here. He’s helpless and has no other choice but to follow things through to an ending. It’s powerful stuff and that ending is also a real beginning...

The next four stories form a wider arc that is the real meat of this collection and a storyline that I found myself lost in for a good couple of hours. Swamp Thing’s fight with Arcane ends a little too easily but it’s the ramifications (as well as the little asides from minor characters) that made this tale so compelling for me. Swamp Thing may not be Alec Holland any more but he still knows what it means to be human and what this in turn means for the person that he loves. His journey into Hell is gorgeously rendered both through the artwork (Steve Bissette’s work is amazing) and Moore’s dialogue. The look on Arcane’s face when he finds out how just how long he has been in Hell has to be seen to be believed! I’m not a big expert on the DC universe but I know a few names and it was fun to see those connections come out on the page.

‘Pog’ is a one off tribute to a comic strip that I’m not familiar with in the slightest but I was still touched by these earnest little aliens trying to find a new home to live on, especially when the First Mate decided to take his fateful swim. I found myself telling him not to go in and the look on his face when he thought he had made some new friends (who were totally the opposite) almost broke my heart. Some planets are not made to be settled on and ‘Pog’ adds our own home to that list.

‘The Abandoned House’ hints at trouble to come in the future for Swamp Thing but there is no room here to find out just what that is. Instead, we get Moore showing us how there has been more than one Swamp Thing across the years and what their purpose has been. I was happy to take that trade and the ‘throwaway’ ending of the story illustrates perfectly how the smallest occurrence can lead onto far greater things...

The collection ends with ‘Rite of Spring’ where love is both declared and returned. What a way to end the book! A story full of the awkwardness, joy and sense of the carefree that those first moments of love bring; all beautifully illustrated with a sense of optimism that you can’t help but feel the characters in question really deserve.

‘Saga of the Swamp Thing’ is one of those books that I’ll always be glad I picked up on a whim. It’s haunting and hopeful all at the same time and shows us perfectly how humanity isn’t just limited to humans. A perfect read.