This issue, even for an annual, has way too many hands in the art pot. Besides Veitch, who pencils some in addition to writing the script, there’s Shawn McManus, Jim Fern and Stan Woch. Tom Yeates gets the unpleasant task of inking the hodgepodge. He fails at marrying them together.

Just guessing, Woch does the worst work. He gets the finish and some of the interior and Abby and Alec just look wrong. The rest of the comic is a bunch of guest stars–DC ape guest stars. There’s Angel and the Ape, there’s Monsieur Mallah and the Brain, there’s B’wana Beast (or, more accurately, his female ape friend), there’s Congorilla, there’s some other apes.

And, of course, there’s Gorilla Grodd. Now, Veitch is basically doing an eclectic DC crossover here–the Flash’s Crisis death is mentioned–but it just doesn’t belong in Swamp Thing.

It’s not bad, just useless.

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p style=”font-size:11px;”>CREDITS

Distant Cousins; writer, Rick Veitch; pencillers, Veitch, Shawn McManus, Jim Fern and Stan Woch; inker, Thomas Yeates; colorist, Adrienne Roy; letterer, Agustin Mas; editor, Karen Berger; publisher, DC Comics.