The Saga of the Swamp Thing – Page 2

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 its silly villains. The other villain is revealed to be secretly German, something he’s kept hidden.

The story itself moves fast. Pasko gets in a resolution to the cliffhanger, a chase scene (a slow one, Swamp Thing can’t run) and then a big finish. He even hints at what’s coming next, something with punk vampires in rural Illinois.

It’s fine, if familiar. Yeates’s style is changing, getting into his creepy renditions of normal people.

Mike W. Barr joins Spiegle on the Phantom Stranger backup. It’s okay, though Spiegle foolishly illustrates the Stranger unveiled.

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 opens with a flashback of the old series, concentrating on the origin not the subsequent developments, and Pasko does well with Swamp Thing’s internal monologue.

There’s another secret organization and a man in the shadows and someone out to exploit Swamp Thing. The big revelation here is the bio-restorative formula is slowly killing him, something both Swamp Thing and the bad guys know.

Thomas Yeates’s artwork is great, bringing out the horror elements in an otherwise straightforward story.

Then there’s a Phantom Stranger backup from Bruce Jones and Dan Spiegle. It’s pretty good too.