The Green: Swamp Thing Appreciation 2024

[The Frog Bros]

Last couple years were pretty decent for Swamp Thing. Would love to see another mini this year (RamV’s was pretty great). Any news about the upcoming movie will be nice to hear as well.

Here’s to a nice year for Swamp Thing!

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[K7P5V]

Hoping 2024 will be Awesome for Swampy

[Styles]

[K7P5V]

[HsssH]

Have spent some time re-reading older Swamp Thing stuff and I have bunch of barely connected thoughts that I feel like sharing.

I feel like with each year I get more and more annoyed when someone mentions only Wein when talking about classic Swamp Thing. In my opinion only issues with Wrightson are good or great, his work with other artists was mediocre at best. I don't know if Wrightson had more of an input than the credits would suggest or maybe Wein didn't feel like trying as hard with other artists. Doesn't matter, I'd just prefer if people didn't forget the wonderful artist that created many iconic pages.

Speaking about artists I feel like Bissete is often forgotten as well. Moore is obviously on another level and unlike Wein produced great Swamp Thing stories with other artists as well, but Bissete to me developed the look of Swamp Thing comics and was instrumental in its success. His few written Swamp Thing stories ain't bad either.

My hot take is that after Veitch left the title nothing with Swamp Thing has been worth reading till New 52. Sure, there were good issues here and there, but I don't feel like any run has really stood the test of time. Has Snyder's run fared better? No, it collapsed before it was even completed, but I think that first 10 or so issues are really good. But what really stands out to me from that era is Soule's run. Depending on my mood it is either my third or fourth favorite switching places with Veitch's run.

While I do think that Snyder's run flopped I don't think that Rotworld was that bad. It is a fine story if you read only Animal Man Vol. 3 - Rotworld: The Red Kingdom and Swamp Thing #18 for an epilogue. After Morrison's Animal Man run ended we got two attempts, one by Veitch's brother and another by Delano, to develop something to what Moore did for Swamp Thing so it is not surprising that we got another attempt with Rotworld. On one hand you can make an argument that Rotworld made mythos of both characters a bit too similar with different kingdoms playing by, mostly, the same rules. On the other hand Veitch's brother had objectively bad run and while I can see why some people like Delano's run it does lots of things that I don't want in Animal Man comics. So I feel like Lemire did a good job in connecting Animal Man with Swamp Thing.

Both of these runs are also connected a bit in how they started. People often mention how good comics from New 52 didn't really need a reboot, but I think that vast majority of good runs from that era were either reboots or had big continuity changes. Animal Man started with an idea that Morrison's run ended fairly recently, maybe Milligan's filler arc happened, but certainly nothing after that. Swamp Thing started with the same approach - Moore's run happened and after that nothing till now. Unfortunately Snyder (and later Soule) did lots of little changes that eventually made it incompatible with Moore's run. Lemire fared much better and I feel like you can easily read Morrison's and Lemire's run one after another and it feels like the same character. I guess I'm just using Swamp Thing's thread to promote Lemire's Animal Man, but it is real good!

I have read New 52 JLD ongoing, but I really don't remember anything Swamp Thing related from it. Did I forget it or nothing really memorable happened with Swamp Thing there? I know that he played more of a rule in Rebirth JLD, but I haven't really read much of it yet. Anyway, I looked at the fan wiki and saw that there was some Composite Swamp Thing in the second half of the run? Whatever happened to him?

[M@Bowers2014]

You should check out Ram V and Mike Perkin's Swamp Thing run that started in 2021. I wasn't sure at first considering that it is about a new character becoming the new Swamp Thing but it's very, very well done. It's a nice continuation of the Swamp Thing mythos and feels like the Moore era mixed a modern touch.

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[HsssH]

I have read it and enjoyed it, currently my top 5 runs are: Moore, Wein/Wrightson, Soule, Veitch, Ram/Perkins.

[K7P5V]

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Way back when "The Anatomy Lesson" first debuted, what was the initial reaction from fans about this massive retcon of Swamp Thing's origins?

[ducklord]

Way back when "The Anatomy Lesson" first debuted, what was the initial reaction from fans about this massive retcon of Swamp Thing's origins?

I can't speak for fandom as a whole, but when I picked it off the racks at my supermarket, my immediate reactions were, in no particular order:

"Oh, that's brilliant!"
"So THAT'S what really good writing looks like!"
"This art is spectacular!"
"I don't know who this Alan Moore guy is, but I'm going to buy every book he writes from now on."

So, um, yeah, I'm maybe not a representative sample.

[K7P5V]

[batnbreakfast]

Did James Mangold drop out of Swamp Thing? Is it still coming?

[K7P5V]

[Yohei72]

Did James Mangold drop out of Swamp Thing? Is it still coming?

Why do you ask? Have you seen something to indicate so? A google search turns up no such announcement or even rumor for me. A couple articles published within the last month mention him as director, such as this one. It does say he’s very busy with other projects, so when he’ll be able to make Swamp Thing isn’t clear.

[K7P5V]