swamp thing

Holiday Hiatus #1 – Swamp Thing versus a car.

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Your pal Mike needs to recharge his batteries something fierce, so it’s gonna be Low Content Mode on the site through the end of the year. But it’s Low Content Mode with Swamp Thing, so hopefully that’ll be okay.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and hopefully with the New Year will come a newly-refreshed Mike.
 

image from Saga of the Swamp Thing #1 (May 1982) by Marty Pasko and Tom Yeates

Or the cover could be a representation of the swordfight scene.

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  • Hey, got a buck? Sure you do, and you should spend it on the first digital-downloadable issue of Dracula the Unconquered, from Chris Sims, Steve Downer, and Josh Krach. A free six page preview is available at the site, but I’ve read the whole thing, and I assure you…it’s vampiric action as you like it!

  • As I write this, the final installment of The Loneliest Astronauts isn’t up yet, but should be up sometime on Tuesday, and I’d like to congratulate Kevin Church and Ming Doyle on the completion of this entertaining project. …And if you folks out there haven’t read any of The Loneliest Astronauts…start right here!

  • Speaking of that Kevin Church cat…perhaps you’ve heard of Fake Criterions, where folks design their own artsy-type covers for films that likely would never make it into the Criterion Collection, but if they did, maybe they’d look a little something…like this. But anyway, Kevin whipped up a theoretical cover for a classic film that the Criterion folks have, thus far, overlooked. And here’s a second cover for the same film, because, you know, if any film deserves two Criterion editions….

    It’s a good thing I didn’t contribute my own Criterion-style cover, because it probably would have been inspired by the movie still I put up in this post.

A very minor spoiler for All New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #12 is in this post.

filed under Categories swamp thing, this week's comics 8 Comments


So anyway, at the shop on Wednesday, pal Dorian was flipping through some of the comics in his stack, and, while perusing All New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #12, he says to me “hey, Swamp Thing is in this issue.”

Me: “C’mon. Really?”

Dor: “Yes.” (shows me page with Swamp Thing)

Me: “Well, shit.” (takes copy of comic off rack)

Dor: “Well, I guess we know what you’ll be blogging about tomorrow!”

…Sigh. He knows me so well. And just to be clear, my expletive-enhanced reaction wasn’t to the fact that Swamp Thing was in a comic…that’s always okay by me, of course. It had more to do with the fact that I’m such an easy mark. I must buy the comics with Swamp Thing in them. It’s a sickness.

It’s a fun Halloween-ish comic, by the way, with Batman and Zatanna trying to solve a crime at the House of Mystery, with cameo appearances by lots of DC’s horror characters, such as the aforementioned Swamp Thing, who gets in a panel or three.

Other notable items this week: the new Smurfs collection The Smurfs Apprentice, which I haven’t read yet but I’m sure it’ll be as fun as the rest in the series; Superman #2, which is slightly more readable than #1, but only just; Breed III #6, guest-starring Dreadstar…man, I do love the Dreadstar; Fury of Firestorm #2, which again I haven’t got around to reading yet, if only because I didn’t care for the first one so much, but I like the Firestorm character enough to give it another shot; The Incredible Hulk #1, which gives us Bearded Hulk, and Bearded Hulk is nearly always a mark of quality…as is the fact it’s written by Jason Aaron; and Jason Aaron as writer on Wolverine and the X-Men #1 got me to at least flip through the comic and check it out…well, X-Men books are still not for me, I guess, but folks I know who are more mutantly-inclined seem to really like it, so there you go.

GRATUITOUS PARAGRAPH BREAK: Aquaman #2 was probably one of the fastest selling second issues of DC’s New 52 relaunch, so that’s a good sign…the comic wasn’t bad either; I’ve been hearing here and there people are having trouble finding the free Legion flight ring that’s out to promote the Legion Secret Origin #1…I know we didn’t get our full allotment, so maybe there was a shipping issue with this? I don’t know; Daredevil #5 continues to be remarkably good, and hopefully no editorially-mandated crossover events will come along to spoil things; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3 continues the series that really, really surprised me with the demand I’m seeing…this is a series that has had moribund sales for years, and it’s really taking off. Good, I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for TMNT; and a couple more strip collections: volume two of Fantagraphics’ Mickey Mouse strips, gorgeous as ever, and Reheated Lio: Still Another Lio Collection, peculiar as ever.

Oh, and drop a buck on Spaceman #1 by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso…an intriguing, and beautiful-looking, first issue.

And in conclusion: Comics! I have…won’t you?

What the well-dressed Swamp Thing fan will be wearing very soon.

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I was going to save these for my next End of Civilization post, but decided I couldn’t wait. Now, I’m not much of a t-shirt wearer, but I think I will make an exception for these fine items, available in the October issue of Previews:


That’s the cover of the new Swamp Thing #1 by Yanick Paquette, and here is a plain ol’ logo shirt:


…one of which I’ve been awaiting for a long time. At last, I can finally retire (well, more retire) this worn-out piece of clothing.

• • •

In other news…I picked up five of the new DC #1s this week (minor spoilers ahead):

  • Superman #1: lots of stuff crammed into this issue — interesting, but can’t really describe it as “enjoyable” — and the last hope that someone, anyone, could make Superman’s new costume look good is finally dashed…though George Perez comes closest on the cover.

  • Aquaman #1: pulls off the nice trick of taking all the criticisms and mockeries aimed at Aquaman over the years and putting them in the mouths of a bunch of folks harassing our fishy friend. Effectively puts reader in position of siding with the hero against all those old jokes, probably a more effective defense than attempts at bad-assifying the character. I wasn’t planning to get this, but picked it up on a whim and, surprisingly, turned out to be one of my favorite relaunches of this whole New 52 hoohar.

  • Fury of Firestorm #1: noted just recently that I love the Firestorm character, but I’m not quite sure what I think of this new version. It’s a complete reboot, which seems to be taking things in a slightly different direction, and…I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. I’ll keep reading and see what happens. However, I am not down with reboot Cliff Carmichael…sorry, this is “Superman’s new costume” level of tragedy.

  • Green Lantern: New Guardians #1: think this may be the “one Green Lantern title too many” series. I’ve said before that I’ve probably had enough of the different-colored Lantern corps for the time being, so it’s probably not you, baby, it’s me. However, totally judging this from just this one issue, this feels like it’s more suited to a storyline in another GL book rather than a series on its own. Then again, you can probably say that about every GL series beyond the first one.

  • Justice League Dark #1: only picked it up because of John Constantine, not expecting much…but turned out to be not half-bad. Still in the “let’s get the band together” part of the story, being only the first issue an’ all, but am looking forward to more. And looking forward to any possible Swamp Thing cameos, but that goes without saying.

Also picked up Love & Rockets #4 by those Jaime and Gilbert cats, which is, as usual, a masterpiece of comics storytelling despite its lack of Swamp Thing. L&R, always recommended.

…If you want reviews of all of last week’s DC #1s, pal Dorian has got you covered.

And then there was the time sarcastic time-traveling Clark Kent got put in his place.

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from DC Comics Presents #26 (May 1984) by Mark Evanier, Irv Novick & Dennis Jensen


• • •

In other news:

  • That Chris Sims, he’s got more free comics for you to read: The Hard Ones, with cowriter Chad Bowers and artist Rusty Shackles, is available right here for free download!

  • It’s not often I see Swamp Thing on Yahoo’s front page:


    …but hey, there he is.

    It’s a story celebrating both Heather Locklear’s 50th birthday, as well as her…colorful film career. It refers to her part in 1989’s Return of the Swamp Thing as “her first awful film role,” and I can only assume that was a typo, and they actually meant “awe-inspiring.”