Category: The Saga of the Swamp Thing
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Okay, this story line has gone on way too long at this point. Pasko sets up a decent finale only to reveal it’s still not over… they still need to fight the Antichrist. The story’s awkward, mostly because there’s a huge supporting cast and no reintroduction to them. I’m reading it at a fairly accelerated…
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I think this issue must have been an informal “jumping on” point. Over the first four or five pages, Pasko recaps every major event in the series in a flashback. Then he spends another five or six pages on expository dialogue. The Yeates art, along with some of the concepts, make those dull pages work.…
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John Totleben joins Yeates on the art this issue, but it’s hard to see what effect his inks have on it. The issue is almost incomprehensibly dense, with Pasko starting in the States somewhere and ending up in Dachau. Not sure how well the big reveal works—the Nazis were fueled by a powerful psychic who’s…
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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…
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This issue features Swamp Thing and company–I’m tempted to start singling Liz out because I think she remains a character, but I’m not sure yet–on an island with a bunch of scenes from classic movies. You get to see Tom Yeates, for a couple pages, do a King Kong adaptation. It’s awesome. Unfortunately, Pasko established…
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Swamp Thing continues his cruise ship adventure, ending up fighting a giant undersea monster. It reminds a lot of the first series, only this time there are subplots. Casey, Swamp Thing’s former charge, has turned out to be an evil psychic. Or something along those lines. It means more action scenes for Yeates, who handles…
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Yeates’s art takes a strange turn this issue. He spends less time on Swamp Thing than he does on the supporting cast. There’s a lot of action this issue too—Pasko does a great job pacing, considering how many big events occur—and even those Yeates handles oddly. He hurries through them, not taking the time to…
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So Swamp Thing now has his supporting cast… at least for now. Casey the mute wasn’t cutting it. It impressive what a good issue Pasko and Yeates produce with all the handicaps. It’s all about the evil organization running an evil clinic. Swamp Thing shows up and gets duped into believing it’s real–his doctor turns…
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This issue concerns a demon who possesses people in order to feed on children’s souls. The children in question must be murdered, of course. The demon targets minority children as it turns out their troubled souls taste the best. So it’s definitely disturbing, but not as terrible as he could have made it. In some…
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And here’s where Pasko hits his stride. The issue features Swamp Thing versus a town of teen vampires who have not just ruined the town but done so out of boredom. Though I suppose their argument vampires don’t have to worry about money rings true. Pasko handles the villainy of the characters and their supernatural…
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Pasko immediately identifies the bad guys this issue—not just the regular bad guys, but the bad organization too. It’s the Sunderland Corporation and I’m pretty sure they’re around the rest of the series. As for the regular bad guys, Pasko’s got a goofy, steel-handed corporation espionage guy who’s straight out of the first series and…
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For his first issue, Martin Pasko basically just rewinds a little from where the seventies series left Swamp Thing and picks up like it’s just another issue. There’s an ignorant small town (this time in the South), a helpless child everyone calls a witch and Swamp Thing’s miserable. It’s like nothing has changed. The issue…
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