Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book Four

Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book Four by Alan Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book Four collects Saga of the Swamp Thing #43-50.

In this volume, we finally find out what Constantine was grooming Swamp Thing for and it's a big hairy deal. A secret society is bent on summoning an ancient force to destroy heaven. There's also a junkie that finds one of Swamp Thing's tubers, a serial killer, the sprawling mansion of a firearms heiress, and Swamp Thing learns more of his heritage.

Alan Moore gets some serious mileage out of the Swamp Thing in every outing and this volume is no different. The Parliament of Trees is introduced, Crisis is touched upon, and even Mento gets his time in the sun as all of DC's occult characters unite to fight a menace older than time.

I'm impressed that with all the shifting artists in Moore's run that the series manages to maintain a unified feel. In this volume, art is handled by Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala, Ron Randall, and Tom Mandrake.

Alan Moore delivers the goods as far as big confrontations go. At times, the final battle reminded me of one of the Doctor Who specials where multiple Doctors team up to face some universe-threatening villain.

I'm running out of ways to praise Alan Moore's run. Aside from Abbie Cable not doing much, the only thing I can gripe about is how out of place Batman was in the Bogey Man issue, although Batman not remembering being at Elasti-Girl and Mento's wedding was kind of funny.

I'm both excited to read the next volume and sad that I only have two volumes left. Alan Moore created a generational work with Swamp Thing. I can't recommend it enough.

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