Blake Petit
January 3rd 2005, 06:51 PM
Review by: Blake M. Petit Blake@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Below Average
Title: Love in Vain
Arcane makes his move against the Swamp Thing’s family.
<a href="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/501/st11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/thumbnails/501/st11.jpg" align="left" border="0"></a>Writer: Joshua Dysart
Art: Enrique Breccia
Colors: Martin Breccia
Letters: Phil Balsman
Editor: Jonathan Vankin
Cover Art: Enrique Breccia
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Review: My, how this title has fallen since Andy Diggle left. It went from a smart reexamination, rejuvenation of one of Vertigo’s classic properties to just another stereotypical “Trust Us, This is Scary” comic that fails to deliver.
Arcane makes a move against the Swamp Thing and against Abigail, and the hospital she’s laid up in turns into a bloodbath. And not just any ordinary bloodbath, a gory, gruesome, over-the-top bloodbath that Quentin Tarentino would blanch at.
Meanwhile, the lost Sallie wakes up in the home a kindly old couple who clearly identify her with their own lost daughter. It’s the setting of this scene that makes it fail. There’s a line where the old woman tells Sallie, “You’re in Houma, honey,” which just makes me laugh. She’s not in Houma, Louisiana. Three days before Christmas my brother got engaged, and his fiancé happens to live in Houma, Louisiana, and I’m sure she would be quite astonished to learn that all of her neighbors live in houses on stilts built out directly over the bayou (or that there’s a bayou there at all), have straw roofs, and have a collective seven teeth among them.
Given what he has to work with, Enrique Breccia does a solid job on the artwork. He draws the monsters, the blood, the gore and the swamp wonderfully. He’s especially good with the monsters – to the detriment of his human characters, really. They’re pretty uniformly ugly, although whether that’s his style or another social commentary on life here in Louisiana, I’m not sure.
It’s time for another writer on this title, and quick. And with luck, next time DC will hire a writer who has actually been to Louisiana instead of having formed his entire concept of the state based on old, bad Swamp Thing comics.
Rating: http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/full.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/full.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/none.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/none.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/none.jpg
Buy Swamp Thing products from X-World and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=1135&cat=SWAMP+THING)
Quick Rating: Below Average
Title: Love in Vain
Arcane makes his move against the Swamp Thing’s family.
<a href="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/501/st11.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/thumbnails/501/st11.jpg" align="left" border="0"></a>Writer: Joshua Dysart
Art: Enrique Breccia
Colors: Martin Breccia
Letters: Phil Balsman
Editor: Jonathan Vankin
Cover Art: Enrique Breccia
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Review: My, how this title has fallen since Andy Diggle left. It went from a smart reexamination, rejuvenation of one of Vertigo’s classic properties to just another stereotypical “Trust Us, This is Scary” comic that fails to deliver.
Arcane makes a move against the Swamp Thing and against Abigail, and the hospital she’s laid up in turns into a bloodbath. And not just any ordinary bloodbath, a gory, gruesome, over-the-top bloodbath that Quentin Tarentino would blanch at.
Meanwhile, the lost Sallie wakes up in the home a kindly old couple who clearly identify her with their own lost daughter. It’s the setting of this scene that makes it fail. There’s a line where the old woman tells Sallie, “You’re in Houma, honey,” which just makes me laugh. She’s not in Houma, Louisiana. Three days before Christmas my brother got engaged, and his fiancé happens to live in Houma, Louisiana, and I’m sure she would be quite astonished to learn that all of her neighbors live in houses on stilts built out directly over the bayou (or that there’s a bayou there at all), have straw roofs, and have a collective seven teeth among them.
Given what he has to work with, Enrique Breccia does a solid job on the artwork. He draws the monsters, the blood, the gore and the swamp wonderfully. He’s especially good with the monsters – to the detriment of his human characters, really. They’re pretty uniformly ugly, although whether that’s his style or another social commentary on life here in Louisiana, I’m not sure.
It’s time for another writer on this title, and quick. And with luck, next time DC will hire a writer who has actually been to Louisiana instead of having formed his entire concept of the state based on old, bad Swamp Thing comics.
Rating: http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/full.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/full.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/none.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/none.jpg http://www.comixtreme.com/reviews/none.jpg
Buy Swamp Thing products from X-World and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=1135&cat=SWAMP+THING)