Swamp Thing #3

"Come Hither, Child"
written by Scott Snyder
art by Victor Ibáñez and Yanick Paquette

Children are cruel little sociopaths.  Even in the children's ward of a hospital in which everyone has a potentially terminal disease, kids find a way to bully each other, and the target of their creative torture is William, a young kid allergic to chlorophyll, a by-product of photosynthesis that fills the air we breathe.  What the bullies don't yet realize is that this boy is hearing voices, voices of dead things.  He is William Arcane, and he can control the rot, the little pockets of disease and death in their bodies, and he is merciless with it.

The tripartite mythology that's forming between Swamp Thing and Animal Man is compelling if not entirely logical.  Life forces—the Green and the Red—of plant and animal life respectively are established in defense against the Rot, the power of death.  Abby's declaration that the Rot was in part kept at bay in the swamp makes little sense, since decay and rot are proportionately rich in places filled with life.  Many things live and many things die.  The sanctuary of the Rot in the desert is equally baffling, because, however sparse life may be there, death is proportionately diminished, though the absence of life may provide some protection against the defenders of it.  Even if the logic of the set-up is incomplete, the dynamic between the titles' heroes and the emerging villains is excellent.  Snyder has tapped into several details of earlier Swamp Thing runs, in particular, incorporating the Arcane household.

[January 2012]