Swamp Thing (2004 Series) #2

April 10, 2004

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: Bad Seed Part Two

Tefé finds help in strange places, while the Swamp Thing declares his separation from humanity.

Writer: Andy Diggle
Art: Enrique Breccia
Colors: Martin Breccia
Letters: Phil Balsman
Editor: Will Dennis
Cover Art: Enrique Breccia
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo

As Tefé’s body literally gets up and walks out of the morgue, Swamp Thing and Abby share a tender little moment where he announces his disdain for humanity.

While I do enjoy this title more than Andy Diggle’s work on Losers, I have a similarly blasé reaction to it. There doesn’t seem to be anything exciting, anything that pops and makes me want to keep reading. The elemental who hates humankind scheme has been done and done and done some more, and Tefé’s plotline is just plain confusing. I do, however, give Diggle credit for bringing back an old character that was pretty well forgotten – that’s something I’m always in favor of.

Enrique Breccia’s artwork has both its high and low points. He does a fine job with the otherworldly elements like Swamp Thing himself or the reanimated corpse of Alex Hammond. His human characters don’t work as well, though, including a few police with blank faces that look like they were peeled right out of an old John Severin Mad comic book.

This is a book that will mostly appeal to old Swamp Thing fans, and while most people will find something or other to like, the casual reader probably won’t find enough to come back month after month, not necessarily because there’s anything wrong, but because there’s a lot of other stuff out there that’s a lot better.

Rating: 6/10