Say "Uncle"

I should know better by now than to give specifics in my teasers about what issues I'll be covering in the next post. Something always comes up. I can't get a hold of some of the issues I want to cover. I have too much to say and cover fewer issues. Etcetera etcetera.

For example, at the end of "The Mute and the Monster" I announced that in this post I'd be covering issues 10, 11, and 12 of the New 52 Swamp Thing series. The bad news is that as I was rereading those issues for this installment I recalled that while 10 and 11 comprise a mini arc, 12 is actually the prologue to the "Rotworld" crossover event, which will be covered in a later post. The good news is that mini arc of 10 and 11 involves the reintroduction of my all time favorite comic book villain, Anton Arcane!

Still recovering from his battle with Sethe, weakened, and on the run from the Rot, Swamp Thing is taken by Abby to the old plantation mansion that she used to share with Matt Cable. When I first read these two issues I had next to no knowledge of the events that occurred during Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing, so my reaction was, "Ok, that's Abby's old house. Got it. Next?"  Now, however, having become emotionally familiar with the details of Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing #29, I find myself wanting to scream at Abby during the reread "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU GO BACK TO THAT HOUSE?!!!!" 

Then again, this is not the same Abigail Arcane from the days of Alan Moore's run, both figuratively and perhaps literally. Abby has always been strong, though in the days before Flashpoint her strength seemed to lie in her ability to endure. She endured Matt Cable's alcoholism. She endured Arcane's abuse. She endured the bigotry of others, and long absences from her one true love, often at her time of greatest need. This, however, is motorcycle shotgun kill-it-til-it-dies Abby (I'm just grateful this character change didn't happen to her in the 90s, or she might have ended up doing all of this in a bikini, thigh boots, and shoulder pads, with a cybernetic eye). This is an Abby hardened by what she has endured. Given the ambiguous nature of what history remains canon after Flashpoint, though, who is to really say what of the old Abby ever existed?

(I was worried I wasn't going to have enough to say about these two issues. Silly me.)

As one would imagine, hiding out in a place where a supernatural maniac once made horrible things happen does, in fact, lead to more bad things happening. When they arrive at the house, Abigail helps Alec into the nearby swamp, where he can float among the muck and mulch to regain his strength. Abby proceeds into the house where, after a few moments, she is set upon by Arcane and his newest batch of Un-Men (though old favorite Cranius is included).

Alec eventually emerges renewed from his coma of recovery in time to stop Arcane from dragging Abby into an ominous looking portal, though both he and Abby (shotgun in hand) fail to truly defeat him. Only when Arcane retreats willingly into the portal do Alec and Abby have any respite, only to be met by the arrival of Animal Man and his family.

I'm going to be brutally honest for a moment: I don't like the Rotworld crossover. There's nothing wrong with Snyder's writing where the story is concerned. I'm just not a fan of the the-world-is-messed-up-and-we-have-to-fix-it trope. These two issues are just of a prelude to the prelude to Rotworld, but I nonetheless enjoy the tone of this mini arc.

While Yaneck Paquet carries most of the artistic duties for Snyder's run, Francesco Francavilla and Marco Rudy fill in on issues 10 and 11 respectively, and given the feel of their artwork I can't imagine that these choices were by accident. It's true that their styles aren't as "clean" as Paquet's (I use quotes because I know f-all from art... I am a would-be write after all), but they each have a flavor that gives something unique to their individual issues that may have missed the mark if done by Paquet.

Francavilla's style has a murky dreamlike quality to it, appropriate as the issue is narrated by Arcane himself, gloating to the recuperating and semiconscious Swamp Thing. These scenes of narration are especially effective when we see, through Alec's red and clouded eyes, Arcane's long and overlapping teeth inches from his face (and through his point of view, from the face of the reader).

If Francavilla's art is the disturbing dream, Rudy's is the abattoir you wake up in. Rudy's Arcane and his Un-Men, both of whom feature prominently in issue 11, look decidedly and disturbingly....wet.
Despite the limitations of comic books being a single-sensory medium, you can almost hear the slap of unnaturally moist skin, smell the half decayed flesh, feel the stickiness of a creeping touch, so visceral are Rudy's monsters.

I've mentioned often often that I like a good bit of horror in my comics and THIS. IS. GOOD. HORROR!

In issue 11 we also learn a good bit of information about this newest incarnation of Arcane. Fittingly (given events in past Swamp Thing stories) he is obsessed with Abigail. His fixation on her is stated as having to do with her own connection to the Rotworld, with "bringing her home", though there is a strong implication of something even darker and unhealthy in his motives, a call back to the circumstances in Moore's Swamp Thing #29.

(For those of you relatively unfamiliar with the Swamp Thing mythos as a whole and to issue 29 in Moore's run specifically, I don't want to give away too much right now, but I'll definitely get to it in good time.)

His appearance, while a fairly original design, is still most reminiscent of how he was rendered during his second appearance in the original 1970s Swamp Thing series: a naked, sexless, hairless muscular form with long arms, large eyes, and larger teeth. We also learn that he now possesses the ability to alter his own flesh, much the way Alec can manipulate his own plant matter, making his body larger, growing claws, and growing fanged mouths from the palms of his hands, from his abdomen, even growing a second month inside of his mouth. His power over his own body is so much that he laughs and shrugs off a shotgun blast to the head at point blank range.

(We'll talk about the implications​ of Arcane's revamped power and backstory on his established pre-Flashpoint history when we get to the 0 issue and the Forever Evil tie in issue.)

In two weeks we'll pick up where issue 11 leaves off, with Arcane disappearing ominously into the portal, and Alec and Abby meeting up with the Baker family from Animal Man. Next week, though, we'll be journeying back to the early 80s and kicking things off with Saga of the Swamp Thing #3!

Before I get into the social media self promotion, I wanted to use some lines to give a much deserved shout out. Recently John E Boylan has added a link to the Avatar of the Green blog on his excellent site Roots of the Swamp Thing. If you're looking for a detailed resource for Swamp Thing information you should definitely check out his site at rootsoftheswampthing.com.

If you want to start a discussion or a friendly debate about the issues I covered in this post, about Swamp Thing in general, or about comic books as a whole, feel free to leave a remark in the comments section here on the blog. You can also reach me on the Avatar of the Green Facebook page, or on Twitter @G_M_Richter.

Until next time, Parliamentarians, think Green and be epic!