I picked this up yesterday because I saw Tom King’s lead story in this collection, “Talk of the Saints,” a couple of days ago won the 2019 Eisner comics story of the year. King is one of the very best writers around today, so I wanted to read that. The volume is basically a glossy, “deluxe” hardcover created in tribute to original Swamp Thing creators Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, who both died in 2017. The collected stories are written/drawn by comics worthies such as Brian Azzarello, Mark Russell, and Tim Seely, and are less focused on action than reflective talk, in keeping with a tribute album, I guess. Half of the book is “the making of” chapters.
Besides the King story, I think the highlight for collectors and Swamp Thing fans would be the last story Wein had been working on, which remains wordless, illustrated by Kelley Jones. Wein had been working on a series that would have Swamp Thing and Batman (his favorite DC character) join forces. I like the reveal in the very last image, Wein’s last word(less).
In King’s story, illustrated by Jason Fabok, Swamp Thing is not in the swamp but in a blizzard, leading a lost little boy to safety. It’s a kind of touching story of survival and what seems truest about the Swamp Thing as Wein may have conceived of him. Swamp Thing, as you may know, is basically a monster who operates in the cause of truth and justice, a good guy.
Collects Swamp Thing: Winter Special #1 and stories from Swamp Thing: Halloween Giant, Cursed Comics Cavalcade #1, and Young Monsters in Love #1
So it’s a collection, it’s a tribute, it’s good, each story accomplished and beautifully illustrated, and yet the feeling is somewhat thin, since it’s not a series, developed over time. It’s a few short vignettes, filled out to a volume with a bunch of extras. But for Swampy fans it’s required reading, of course.