Review- SWAMP THING VOL. 1: RAISE THEM BONES

SWAMP THING VOL. 1: RAISE THEM BONES (DC, 2012; Softcover)

Collects Swamp Thing Nos. 1-7 (cover dates November, 2011- May, 2012)

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artists: Yanick Pacquette and Marco Rudy with Michale Lacombe and Sean P. Parsons

Everything that you know is a lie...only it's not. Everything that came before was wrong...and this is right. Such things are known to comic book fans as ret-cons, short for retroactive continuity, where a new writer comes in and changes some established continuity for the sake of where they're going with their story. Scott Snyder has set the Swamp Thing mythos entirely on it's head in much the same way that Alan Moore did when he came in and brushed aside Len Wein's established continuity. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so I don't want to hear people bemoaning that their sacred cow (Alan Moore) has once again been disrespected by DC.

Alec Holland/ Swamp Thing and Abigail Arcane are once again the focal point of the series, with Abigail's little brother William being the avatar of The Rot. The Rot in the antithesis of both The Parliament of Trees' The Green and the animals' The Red. While The Green and The Red are a check and balance system, The Rot undermines them both. 

The writing and artwork are perfect. There isn't a word or a panel or even a brushstroke that I would change. These are genuinely creepy stories, which is something that was missing for the bulk of Alan Moore's run. Moore went for a more cerebral trip with the character, which was great, but this brings the character back to his more macabre roots. I have now read 2/52 of The New 52, and unlike Demon Knights, this one is a winner that I will follow until the end. 

Junk Food For Thought rating: 5 out of 5.

The OCD zone- DC has really upped the quality of their trade paperbacks. The coated paper stock is much thicker than they used to offer on their collections of modern material. The cover has a super thick coating which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. The glue seems solid. (Glued binding seldom gets a 5-star rating here at Junk Food For Thought.)

Paper rating: 5 out of 5.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5.

Cardstock cover rating: 5 out of 5.

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