It’s sort of amusing how Wein can construct these fantastic, devastatingly emotional moments for Swamp Thing… but still have inane plotting. This issue, Swamp Thing finds a little Swiss town in Vermont. He also discovers himself (as a human) and his dead wife living happily there. Wein soon reveals a Swiss clockmaker spent the thirty years putting together a town of androids, their identities from the obits. It’s purely coincidental he picked Alec and Linda Holland. Swamp Thing has some beautiful, depressing scenes with his wife’s android stand-in.
Now, Matt Cable and Abby show up—because no one in town has been filing their taxes. Matt’s gone from CIA agent to Interpol agent to IRS agent in six issues. Wein doesn’t acknowledge no one in town would file their taxes because they don’t have any income. They’re aware they’re robots.
Still, great art, memorable issue; albeit contrived Wein plotting.
Contrived plotting? I really think you’re being nice about it. Eh, remember, these were meant to be kids books. That still doesn’t excuse these errors couldn’t of been smoothed out in later collected editions, correct? Still, the Wrightson art sweeps you up and carries you off. Forget the reality…