Swamp Thing #4

Swamp Thing doesn't meet anyone. Hell, Alec Holland doesn't meet anyone either!

Three issues down and there has only been one real fight scene. That's a pretty novel idea: build up the character and the background instead of just showing the main characters in flashy poses while pummeling their enemies. Plus, who wants to see a normal looking guy in a construction hat get into a fist fight with a deathly ill kid in a scuba suit? Okay, okay. So do I.

Here's a little summary. Thanks, Alec!

Most of this episode consists of Alec speaking to the Parliament of Trees in his dreams. They want him to kill Abigail Arcane because she is connected to The Rot. They also want Alec to become the Swamp Thing again because they believe he's their warrior-king. But Alec still doesn't become Swamp Thing. And he doesn't kill Abigail. They just wake up and, after arguing a bit about Abigail trying to leave without him, head off to find William somewhere in the Deadlands.

I'm not really sold on the concept of The Rot. Perhaps that's just the way The Green and other organic beings see it. The Parliament of Trees says that they don't speak its actual name. So organic matter would look at what this entity does and call it The Rot. If that's all it does, then of course it would kill itself by destroying organic matter completely. That brings me to the conclusion that The Rot has other powers than the control of necrotic flesh and it must destroy and manipulate other things as well. Unless it just travels across the universe making worlds rotten.

Overall, I find Swamp Thing fairly average. At least I don't have a problem with the writing. I just think the concept is a bit off. But I can see how Snyder is setting up a long term nemesis for Swamp Thing and The Green with this Rot stuff. And it's not the first time (or the half dozenth or the hundredth) where DC has created characters that take the science out of the world and replace it with a creature or being or God that explains why it happens. Maybe everything in the DCnU has a rational explanation and a mystickal/religious/elemental/technobabbly explanation.

Anyway, that's it for the first four issues of Swamp Thing. I guess I'll be reading Issue #5 in a few weeks!