Good & A Bit Weird Graphic Novel: Swamp Thing: Love and Death 1990

Since I've been re-watching the Swamp Thing TV show from the CW network, I opted to buy a couple of old Swamp Thing graphic novels that I had never read. So today's blog is my review of the 1990 trade paper back of "Swamp Thing: Love and Death" by writer Alan Moore.

WHO IS ALAN MOORE THE WRITER? - If you don't know Alan Moore, he's pretty famous in the realm of comic book writing, and he can get weird. This collection showed that weirdness! Alan Moore is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Swamp Thing, Batman: The Killing Joke, and From Hell.

WHO IS THE SWAMP THING? - If you don't know who Swamp Thing is, I'll give you a brief introduction. Biologist Alec Holland was working in a lab in a Louisiana Bayou when his lab was sabotaged with explosives. He was caught in the explosion, doused with burning chemicals and dove into the nearby swamp to save himself. Instead, he emerged as a giant, plant-like monster. An investigation revealed that the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland transformed into a plant, but actually a wholly plant-based entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, having somehow absorbed duplicates of Holland's consciousness and memories into himself. Now, the Swamp Thing roams the bayou and punish anyone who threatened his new home.

MY TAKE ABOUT THE COLLECTION - Swamp Thing "Love and Death" is a graphic novel that collects the 3rd series run of the Swamp Thing comic book, and contains issues #28 through #34 and Annual #2. The comic books originally came out in 1984 to 1985. The stories are a bit weird, as Abbey Cable's husband Matt gets possessed by Arcane, Abbey's former (now dead) insane uncle who is now some kind of demonic thing. 

 Then Arcane arranged for Abbey's soul to go to a hellish place and Swamp Thing has to recruit the assistance of many of DC Comics' strangest heroes to rescue her. That was my favorite part of the entire 8 issues collected here. Swamp Thing teamed with heroes like the Phantom Stranger, the Demon Etrigan, the Spectre, Deadman and Cain and Abel from the House of Mystery. That made for a good read. 

However, the last 2 stories were just way too weird for me. One was about aliens that looked like the cartoon characters from the old cartoon animal newspaper comic strip "Pogo" and the other was about Abbey falling in love with Swamp Thing... and it got really weird. I enjoyed reading all except those 2 stories.