REVIEW: Swamp Thing Halloween Horror Giant #1

Writer/artist: various 

Review: Will Dubbeld

Well, ‘it’s the season... 

Halloween is one of my most favorite bits of the year. Ghouls and goblins and panhandling urchins rub elbows with Scary Monsters and Super Creeps whilst all-nite horror marathons ride the airwaves.

Granted I can enjoy these flavors year-round, but the whimsy isn’t the same.

Comic companies ofttimes join in the Halloween festivities with a themed one-shot or standalone regular series issue and this year’s big winner is DC Comics.

Which is not a phrase you’ll hear uttered with frequency...

This 100-pager features an original Swamp Thing vignette and several reprinted All Hallows’ pieces.

“Hollow”

The new Swampy bit is scribed by Brian Azzarello with Greg Capullo pencils and is a frankly intriguing story.

I’m fairly behind on my monthlies and unsure if there’s a frame of reference in a book I’ve not read yet, but “Hollow” seems like it sets the stage for an upcoming Swamp Thing series.

It’s extremely vague but follows a young lady named Twiglet who is acting as Swamp Thing’s herald or acolyte after having been rescued by him at some point. 

The rescue is amazing as it features Swamp Thing fighting a giant albino alligator. There’s the price of admission.

Right there...

Azzarello teases an upcoming war with a being/force called The Barren and flexes Swamp Thing’s muscles in a fight with some demon creatures masquerading as trick or treaters.

While usually nonplussed about Azzarello’s writing and persona, this was a win. He comes off as a pupal version of Warren Ellis and Ed Brubaker’s atomic love child who hadn’t fully gestated and always falls short of truly spellbinding writing.

Greg Capullo really hits his stride here, showcasing his omnipresent slavish attention to detail, accentuated by Jonathan Glapion’s inks and colors from FCO Plascencia.

I’m looking forward to following along with this storyline. 

“The Pumpkin Sinister”

A Blue Devil and Enchantress story, this turns incredibly dark, incredibly quickly. Thinly-veiled pastiches of Peanuts’ Linus and Charlie Brown summon the Great Pumpkin to extract revenge on Blue Devil for sins past. 

And I’m almost 100% certain the pair binds the Great Pumpkin to their will with the blood sacrifice of Snoopy.

Good grief...

“Kcirt ro Taert”

I’ve always had a soft spot for Zatanna.

Probably most certainly definitely because she’s a sweet wizard in a sexy-ass costume.

In any case, this short plays on the urban legend of sinister folk contaminating Halloween candy with drugs, in this case hellish hallucinogens.

Performing at a children’s hospital, Zatanna sees firsthand the afflicted children and exacts poetic justice on the offending criminal chemist.

“Strange Cargo”

Superman Vs. Zombies.

‘Nuff said.

So goofy, so f’n rad.

The Man of Steel takes on a shipping container full of zombies before they can infest Metropolis and start an outbreak and learns the undead have been irradiated with magic and/or kryptonite.

You’ll be shocked (SHOCKED, I say!) to learn Lex Luthor is the perpetrator smuggling zombies into the city for reasons unrevealed in the segment.

Not that it’s extremely relevant. Readers just need to know this is a punch-up between a horde of undead and the Last Son of Krypton.

“The Ballad of Jonathan Crane”

It’s Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow through the lens of Batman and Gotham City.

The story is pretty mediocre until the final page, which recontextualizes the previous pages and altered my opinion for the better.

“Night Gods”

Etrigan the Demon teams up with Aquaman to fight Cthulhu, and it’s the buddy superhero story I never knew I wanted.

I’d never in a million years paint Aquaman in a Lovecraftian story but here we are...

Etrigan and Aquaman, years ago, swore an oath to keep the world safe from an otherworldly invasion force that appears "When the Stars are Right".

Etrigan and Aquaman, primal forces of fire and water, battle an army of Deep Ones and undersea zombies.

We learn Etrigan can breathe hellfire underwater and Aquaman telepathically bludgeons a Deep One into submission.

You guys, this story...

We delve pretty deep into Lovecraftian territory here with Unspeakable Horror and  Non-Euclidean Geometry as well as aforementioned Deep Ones and Cthulhu himself.

Or at least some creature that is heavily Cthulhu-flavored.

Anything featuring Etrigan and the Cthulhu Mythos automatically gains favor, and even the fishspeaking goof from Super Friends was pretty badass.

“Night of the Reaper!”

Crucify me now, but Neal Adams used to be a great artist and has since lost his touch. His most recent Deadman comic is subpar compared to the glorious art of yesteryear and this Batman piece from ‘71 proves it. Adams was known, renowned even, for his pencils and they are sublimely represented here.  

Unfortunately, the script from Denny O’Neil falls a bit short.

All the elements are there. Vigilante justice, The Dark Knight, Nazis...

Yet, something is off. It might be the inordinate amount of time spent on the Rutland Halloween Parade Crossover inside joke.

The more I think about it, I’m certain that’s what turned me off. 

O’Neil, Adams, and credited inspiration from Berni Wrightson and Harlan freaking Ellison should be a home run but this ends up grounding out. 

We get kind of a proto-Year Two Reaper out of the deal so that’s neat...

“The Origin of Swamp Thing!”

Now we’re talking.

Len Wein and Berni Wrightson spinning the first Swamp Thing tale, long before Alec Holland was the champion of The Green. Our original Swamp Thing was Alex Olsen, a (presumably) 19th Century scientist betrayed by his best friend and embraced by the swamp. A classic monster revenge tale that was intended as a one-off and later retooled into the Swamp Thing we know and love today. Ever the master, Wrightson illustrates the plaintive agony in Alex Olsen/Swamp Thing’s mushy vegetable-face and Alex’s wife is a thing of beauty. Wein’s tortured inner monologue seals the deal and perfectly bookends our Halloween Special with the opening Swamp Thing story.

These 100-page specials are a fantastic marketing move. They’re $4.99 and feature 1  segment of new content and 2 reprints. I’ve picked up all of them thus far and have been exposed to books (Sideways, Super Sons) that I never would otherwise have read.

On the downside, they are available only at Walmart and only in the U.S. from what I understand.

I’m loathe to buy comics from that particular megacorp, but it supports the industry and puts food in mouths.

A lot of folks have cried foul, believing this will hurt brick and mortar shops, but I’m inclined to disagree. Anyone spontaneously buying a 100-page comic from the Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering aisle doesn’t buy from a brick and mortar store, and customers from said LCS aren’t going to stop shopping there because Wally World sells $5 DC reprints.

If anything, there’s a slim chance this’ll create a base of the fabled “new readers” that folks insist are out there.

That aside, this is one of the best ‘bang for your buck’ purchases I’ve made in quite some time. 

Good show, DC.