I never thought, reading the issues before this one, I would see cheesecake in Pasko and Yeates’s Swamp Thing run. But this issue isn’t Yeates, it’s Jan Duursema. Duursema handles the art in varying degrees of quality. With Tom Mandrake inking, there are some very iconic Swamp Thing action moments. Duursema and Mandrake make Swamp Thing look even more like Redondo’s rendition in the first series than Yeates ever does. But there’s also a strange approach to people—Duursema likes long shots, with the moving figures looking awkwardly static.
It’s not terrible art, it’s just not great.
It’s also strange because there’s no gimmick, no monster. It’s a very plot-filled issue, with Pasko working through a lot of the series’s threads, sort of unraveling a ball of yarn.
Joey Cavalieri takes over Phantom Stranger scripts this issue and he and Carrillo’s story is fine supernatural mystery. It’s perfectly serviceable.
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