Swamp Thing #6

In the fight of the century, Zatanna's vagina loses to her leotard!

 The Review or Whatever!
Just in case you haven't read this issue yet and you just love having stories spoiled, either because you're filled with a false passion that pretends to a passion for knowing things before you experience them or because you never intended to read this comic book any way, I'm going to expose the big twist in this comic book right now: Len Wein name drops a few poets. They're a couple of the typical poets that are easy to name drop because everybody knows them: Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot. When you want readers to know you're super literate and intelligent enough to appreciate poetry (which, let's face it, you have to have something weird going on in your head (like a high IQ!) to appreciate all of that rhyming--and sometimes even non-rhyming!--gobbledygook!), you can't be dropping names that they might not recognize like John Betjeman and those other ones nobody remembers without grabbing an anthology of poetry and flipping through the pages to find some more names to list other than John Betjeman! Like, um, Patrick Kavanagh? He's a poet? I guess? And, um, Louise Bogan?

No wait! I just realized the big twist was that Matt Cable's body was actually possessed by Anton Arcane and now Anton Arcane is the Swamp Thing! Holy goose penises! The world is in big trouble! Except that this is the final issue of the limited series, so I think the world will be fine. So it isn't ending in fire or ice or with a bang or with a whimper or choked by plants. It's just going to keep going on and on and on. Of course, that's what would happen anyway, even with the fire or the ice or the bangs or the whimpers or the plants! But then, we understand that when somebody says "the end of the world," they actually mean "the end of all human life on the world which is really basically the same thing, and which probably includes the dolphins as well, leaving no intelligence grand enough to think about existence, or consider any scale larger than the creature's own sphere of needs." Effectively, that would kill "the world" because nothing would be left that could conceive of the world. But Earth itself would keep chugging right along. We all understand that, right? Because I'm sick to death of people who hear the phrase "destroying the Earth" and respond "the Earth will be fine!" Yeah, we know that, chicken dumpling! What people are concerned with saving is a world in which humans can continue to live in peace and prosperity and little private dwellings where they can masturbate in peace and quiet!

Is that a good enough review? I haven't even finished reading the comic book yet! But I have a stupid friend coming into town for couple days that is going to completely throw off my schedule! And just when I was getting my backlog down to one week of comics! I mean, a lot of my comics in my stack have been there for far longer than one week! But that's because I keep putting the Rebirth stuff first. One week behind to me is having only 14 comics in the stack before new comics come out on Wednesday! So, um, what that means is I'm too busy for a proper review! Especially since I have to go pick up that jerk friend at the airport in about an hour! And I have to go catch Pokémon! They're all getting away!

Never mind how ridiculous it would be to have ensure a fair fight when fighting for the fate of all humankind! I'm curious as to what the fuck pose Zatanna is trying to strike?!

Etta Candy and Steve Trevor discuss how to save the world from Swamp Thing. Their top two options are sending in Seal Team Six and nuking Louisiana. I suppose that's some kind of joke? That Seal Team Six is so great at their job (which is killing, I guess? Being good at killing is heroic?) that they're almost as good as just nuking a place. That doesn't sound like a good comparison, does it? I suppose Seal Team Six is who you send in to kill precisely but with the efficiency of a nuclear bomb! Or, just use the nuke, if you don't give a shit about the people of Louisiana because, let's face it, do we?

I'm fairly certain the ARGUS scenes are parody or satire or one of those things where you portray an organization as ridiculous in a matter-of-fact way. It's social commentary or something. Or maybe Len Wein just hates ARGUS and Steve Trevor and New and Less-Improved Etta Candy (aka Baby Amanda)?

Zatanna and Alec use the Hand of Fatima to reverse the spell and Alec is once again the Swamp Thing. After that, Anton Arcane mistakes The Spectre for Jesus and winds up getting dragged to hell. See, Jesus would never do that! I mean, not literally. He doesn't sully his hands with the physical dragging of souls to hell. He just damns everybody right from the get go by covering his ears and screaming "LALALALALALALA!" whenever they say or do anything until they say, "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior!" And also they must have to say it in just the right way or Jesus won't believe them. Because I've said it out loud many times but never actually meant it. I don't mean to suggest I've said it in an attempt to fool Jesus Christ just in case he was really the son of God (he wasn't, if he existed at all). I just meant there have been times I've needed to say that phrase in a conversation where I was probably shitting all over Jesus's supposed merit badges. Anyway, my point is that Jesus Christ is sending everybody to hell for his ego's sake and we're supposed to believe he's merciful? One thing I'm fairly certain isn't in the definition of mercy is "declarations of fealty with horrible strings attached."

Kelley Jones and Michelle Madsen do a masterful job with Etrigan.

Another silly ARGUS scene and the story is almost over! There's just time for a final scene between Swamp Thing and The Phantom Stranger. It will probably go something like this:

Swamp Thing: "This sucks!"
The Phantom Stranger: "I can't help you! I'm not allowed! Stop asking me for favors!"
Alec Holland: "I want my dick back."