Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 3

Comic Info

Saga of the Swamp Thing #37

Reprints Saga of the Swamp Thing #35-42 (April 1985-November 1985).  Swamp Thing is uncovering more and more about himself.  While facing illegal nuclear waste dumping, an underwater city of vampires, horrors of the Old South, and the arrival of a strange Englishman named John Constantine who seems to know more about Swamp Thing than he even knows.

Written by Alan Moore, Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 3 continues Moore’s historic run on the comic book series.  This volume of the collection was previously collected as Swamp Thing 3:  The Curse and features the introduction of John Constantine in Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 (June 1985) who went into his own long running series in Vertigo’s Hellblazer.

I was always more of Man-Thing fan than Swamp Thing due to being a Marvelite growing up.  Despite this, Alan Moore’s run was fantastic and this volume continues the creative series.  Moore who often deals in limited series or short runs finds himself in an interesting position at this point with a much longer run.

Swamp Thing (2) #41

The stories as a whole aren’t my favorite in this run.  I thought both the illegal nuclear pollution storyline (though topical in the ’80s) and the vampires so-so, but the big draw of this one is John Constantine.  The destruction and re-growing of Swamp Thing was an interesting idea, and the exploration of Swamp Thing’s powers opens the door to John Constantine who’s knowledge of all things weird leads to an uneasy relationship.  With so many different Constantine writers, it is sometimes hard to remember that Moore was his original creator.

The art for Swamp Thing is pretty basic ’80s comic book art.  I’m fine with that, but others who like the more stylized art which developed in the ’90s might be looking for more.  Here, you get multiple artists but you have consistency between stories that doesn’t always happen.

Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 3 is just another segment of a fun series.  Swamp Thing has its ups and downs but it generally is consistently good.  Alan Moore had a plan for the series and it is fun to see the series unfold.  Sometimes I wish Moore had been even a bit more daring with Swamp Thing, but overall Swamp Thing is a great ride.

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Related Links:

Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 1

Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 2

Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 4

Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 5

Saga of the Swamp Thing—Book 6