The truly nightmarish quality of Moore’s Swamp Thing shows itself here in his ability to gradually peel back the layers of a small incident.
Moore frames this story around a collection of newspaper headlines (about nuclear power and, more importantly, nuclear waste) and a guy addicted to it. To nuclear waste. It’s really gross, but it takes Moore about half the issue before he lets Bissette and Totleben show the full effect.
The result is an uncomfortable reading experience. It’s not the worst thing Moore could focus on–he’s touched on worse in previous issues–but when the artists take so long to fully reveal… well, imagination gets the better of the reader.
The issue consists of a few contemporaneous conversations; its present action is mostly just Swamp Thing going for a walk.
Moore needs to get the exposition out of the way. Layering is a great device for it.
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