Berni Wrightson and Berni Wrightson ( editor ) - Swamp Thing: Reunion

The saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' too often is a mantra for underachievement, rather than taking a risk that may result in interesting stories it is consider better to stay in shallow waters and produce predictable stories that say nothing new. But again and again on this title writer Alan Moore takes the basic concepts and fixes them, though manifestly there is no longer any problem. He changes the Swamp Thing from being a man that looks like a monster to being a monster that thinks it's a man, then allows him to tap into the energy of the planet itself while giving him some access to the psychic realms of the DC Comics afterlife. And this collection which contains half of Moore's second year on the title starts changing the rules again.

It opens with the two part 'The Nukeface Papers'. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the subject is and time has not been kind to this story, whilst nuclear waste was probably a new topic to most people when the comic was written some fifteen years later most of us will be better informed. That said it's not a bad story and the second part, where we find out the various facets of the story of the radioactive tramp nicknamed 'Nukeface' and the worker for a nuclear facility that has been dumping it's waste in disused mines and swamps. When Nukeface encounters Swamp Thing his very touch causes Swamp Thing's body to decay, which leads into the next story, 'Growth Patterns', important for two reasons. Firstly Moore changes Swamp Thing again, as with his original body ruined he comes to realise that he can grow himself a new one which he does over a three-week period. The second reason is that it gives us the first intimations of the next big storyline to involve the Swamp Thing and properly introduces a character that would be important to this and even eventually get his own series 'Hellblazer', John Constantine. A short, cocky Englishman, we are first introduced to him as he travels to meet various associates who all warn him that something nasty is coming, though they all disagree as to what it actually is. Constantine visits Swamp Thing as he's regrowing his body and promises him knowledge about himself if he follows Constantine's directions, which he reluctantly does.

The remaining stories in this collection are to do with this as Swamp Thing gradually comes to understand his new powers. Some mysterious force is using events like haunted houses and ghosts to try and raise mankind's fears, giving it psychic energy to feed on, and Constantine wants Swamp Thing to stop it. First off there is 'Still Waters' and 'Fish Story'. A town which Swamp Thing once flooded to destroy an infestation of vampires demands his attention as some of them have survived and returned in a more deadly aquatic form, attacking swimmers whilst they await the birth of a new more deadlier creature designed to survive underwater. What would have been an action packed single issue seems overlong stretched over two parts during which the Swamp Thing is entirely passive except for the end when he dispatches the creatures. Then there is 'The Curse', which as it's name suggests, links werewolves and that other curse that Epinions will not let me mention. Like 'Nukeface' it seems not to have aged well, but while it has some worthwhile points to make about how men treat women it falls down in three respects. In the story a woman faces being continually put down by her chauvinistic husband and society, turns in to a werewolf and finding no way to escape the constraints of her existence kills herself. Firstly there is absolutely no reason given for why she becomes a werewolf, unless Moore wants to suggest that enough anger and resentment can turn any woman into a monster, which sounds rather misogynistic. The second, as the story takes the woman's side, is a bad case of what Robert Anton Wilson calls androphobia, fear or hatred of men. Every man in this story is shown as being nasty and potentially thoroughly deserving of a violent death (except for Swamp Thing but then we're off into the realms of whether Swamp Thing is truly male, what makes 'him' so, and what to superheroes keep in their pants anyway). Finally, it suggests that women are powerless to escape this and they must submit to domestic tyranny or die, an idea which would be revisited later on in the bizarrely popular 'Thelma and Louise'.

The collection ends with another two-parter, 'Southern Change' and 'Stray Fruit' which tries something similar, linking zombies and ghosts with racism. Returning to his usual haunts and his lover, Abby, the Swamp Thing finds a film crew is using a nearby deserted mansion to film a colonial era TV series. But the place is haunted by the memories of the evil done there, when it's owner flayed and tortured a black slave he found sleeping with his wife. As everyone is possessed by the ghosts of the original tragedy history looks set to repeat itself. This story is done better than 'The Curse' but again suffers from the Swamp Thing again not doing anything until the end in a manner that could probably be seen a mile off.

The art is generally impressive throughout this collection, regular Stephen Bissette joined by John Totleben, Rick Veitch, Stan Woch, Alfredo Alcala and Ron Randall. Compared with the pyrotechnics of the other collections this is almost a quiet collection but they manage to instil it with an incredible amount of detail, the knotted roots that lie across Swamp Thing's body, or the stonework of the old plantation house. Even colourist Tatjana Woods colours seem to improve, making Swamp Thing's dreams of a nuclear-waste polluted city truly nightmarish.

As a book this collection of stories is perhaps less impressive than the ones that have gone before. That's not the same as saying it's bad though and having read the next book and seen where this is leading that more than makes up for it. New readers may feel a little confused if they attempt to start here and are advised to go back to one of the previous two collected editions.