It never occurred to me Mike Perkins would be such a great Swamp Thing artist. There are a handful of ways to really nail Swamp Thing, with Perkins doing the passive movement thing—Swamp Thing’s branches sway in the wind (and he has branches to sway). Perkins’s art is excellent overall, but his take on Swamp Thing is very nice. Classical and very nice.
Similarly, writer Ram V goes for a wordy but concise Swamp Thing. There are occasional interludes—presumably about how, in a future after he’s destroyed the planet for humans with plant life, Swamp Thing is now making his own plant creatures. All except one—Indigo—who has a different style of word balloons and seems ever ready to reveal a familiar secret identity, based on how he chides Swamp Thing with such fervor.
Of course, I haven’t read a Swamp Thing comic in a decade and so maybe Indigo’s a regular. The dialogue’s the more concise part; there’s a chance the narrated plant creature physiology stuff will turn out to be a twist next issue, but V and Perkins seem to have a fairly good handle on the comic.
Swamp Thing and his band of (unknowing) children are roaming the planet looking for humans. Not clear why yet, though it never occurs to Swamp Thing the humans might be looking for him too.
The post-apocalyptic setting is good, the characters have enough attitude to compensate their shallowness, and the Perkins art is awesome. It’s a perfectly serviceable Swamp Thing comic, something I’ve been missing for ages.
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