Swamp Thing: Green Hell #2 – Jeff Lemire, Writer; Doug Mahnke, Artist; David Baron, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: Black Label has dealt with some heavy delays, but nothing like this—a whopping fourteen months between the first and second of what might be Jeff Lemire’s final DC work due to his new Image contract. Which is a shame, because the first issue was fantastic—a post-apocalyptic thriller set in a world where the Green, Red, and Rot all decided to wipe out humanity, and a few surviving refugees sought out an elderly Constantine to summon Swamp Thing back from oblivion to take on his deadliest enemy yet—the Green. Swamp Thing only appeared briefly in the first issue, replaced by a monstrous, savage avatar of the Green who tore through both sides of the warring survivors, and a prequel here shows Alec in a mysterious refuge along with Abigail and Tefe—at least, until Constantine pulls him out of it and binds him to Earth, forcing him into the fight. To say he’s not pleased would be putting it lightly.
What ensues is one of the most brutal Swamp Thing comics I’ve read in a long time, with Alec cut off from the Green after challenging the Parliaments, and facing an army of violent avatars sent to wipe out humanity. The new human characters don’t make as big an impact, as it sometimes seems like every post-apocalyptic drama has the same three characters, but the young Ronnie and her open-mindedness towards this strange, shambling green man is charming. It’s a nice dose of hope amid the horror. Watching Swamp Thing come to terms with his mortality as he faces one more battle is compelling, but the old man Constantine in this story is its hidden star—the perfect world-weary, conniving anti-hero. He winds up pulling in not one but two new characters from DC lore as the issue wears on. This is a fantastic comic, one of Black Label’s best—and hopefully we’ll get the next issue less than fourteen months from now.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
