Swamp Thing: Spontaneous Generation

 

By Rick Veitch & Alfredo Alcala (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-260-6

The post-Alan Moore Swamp Thing comics have long been overlooked, and DC’s inevitable collecting of these tales is a genuine treat for fans of the muck monster and horror-fans in general. Writer-artist Rick Veitch, aided by veteran inker Alfredo Alcala, produced a run of mini-classics with these stories from Swamp Thing issues # 71-76 that built on Moore’s cerebral, visceral writing as the world’s planet elemental became increasingly involved with ecological matters.

Having decided to “retire”, Swamp Thing (an anthropomorphic plant with the personality and mind of murdered biologist Alec Holland) is charged with facilitating the creation of his/its successor, but the process has become contaminated by consecutive failures and false starts, leading to a horrendous series of abortive creatures and a potentially catastrophic Synchronicity Maelstrom.

Alec, his “wife” Abigail and the chillingly charismatic magician John Constantine have to combine forces – and indeed some body-fluids – to create a solution before the resultant chaos-storm destroys the Earth. ((see Hellblazer: Original Sins ISBN 1-84576-465-X and Swamp Thing: Regenesis ISBN 1-84023-994-8)

More than a decade and a half after the initial run, and with some necessary distance from grossly unfair comparisons to his predecessor, Veitch’s Swamp Thing stories can be seen as innovative, sly and witty, by a creator capable and satiric, but still wedded to the basic tenets of his craft, “keep them surprised, keep them wondering, keep them spooked”. You can do all this to yourself just by buying this book.

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