It’s a divisive tale, though, which could be considered inspiringly poetic or floridly over-written. Moore supplies what’s effectively a long form poem about experiences for Bissette and inker John Totleben to break down, and they deliver in stunning fashion. Or if you’d prefer the trivial, it’s the vegetable sex chapter. That’s a trip of another kind as Abigail Arcane partakes of a tuber Swamp Thing generates in order to more fully embrace what he’s become. Primary artist Steve Bissette pours his dark heart into the pages, from bugs crawling around the edges to the sheer craft of being able to illustrate the final chapter here. This is underlined by a journey to the afterlife to recover a soul, an allegorical trip guided by some of DC’s more out there characters. Previously unsettling, Anton Arcane is now a primal fear, the flies in his wake indicating decay, yet for all the terror he’s able to generate he’s also merely an illustration of the power Moore’s redefined Swamp Thing is able to draw on. The title of ‘The Burial’ indicates an end to the Swamp Thing of old, and thereafter we’re immediately into creepy territory with an infestation of flies signalling the return of an old foe. Until Moore he’d always been presumed to be Swamp Thing’s guiding intelligence.

Having revolutionised Swamp Thing in the first volume, Alan Moore moves toward revolutionising the concept of horror in comics here, although kicks off with a touching, but lightweight, farewell to Alec Holland.

Saga of the swamp thing book 2