Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Three

This Swamp thing collection brings together the "American Gothic" story arc from Alan Moore's seminal Swamp Thing run.As well as being an excellent arc, brilliantly written with excellent artwork it also introduces John Constantine, a modern classic of adult comic books who would go on to have a 300 run issue run in his own "Hellblazer" series.This is an essential book for any fans of Swamp Thing and Moore.

Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore is some of the best Swamp Thing story's you can read, there is a hardback version in two part but you can buy the single volumes, there are eight of them, far cheaper.

Perfect

This third hardback volume of the collected Alan Moore Swamp Thing is important for several reasons as it's here he began to use the comic as a vehicle for commenting on contemporary American society and important issues of the time. It opens with the two-part Nukeface Papers and was written not long after 3-Mile Island almost went into meltdown and after (though I may be wrong here) the Chernobyl disaster. In the next chapter John Constantine (who was to become a major part of the Vertigo mythos) appears for the first time, we get hints via JC of Swampy's potential powers, and we have what is effectively a prologue to the American Gothic sequence which is continued with a memorable and innovative vampire two-parter. But good as all this is (and it is very good indeed), what follows had jaws bouncing of the floor as Moore merged menstruation and the oppression of women with the werewolf legend, signalled to everyone that this was a writer to be taken very seriously indeed, and had the prudes climbing the walls in shock. You had to have been around at the time to realise what an impact that this story had. That the final sequence in this collection which deals with slavery, racial memory, and zombies, seems almost pale in comparison (though it's more than good in its own right) just shows how strong it was.I've said it before in my previous reviews, but this really is an essential addition to anyone's collection of graphic novels. There's also a new substantial and worthy introduction by penciller Stephen Bissette who, along with inker John Totleben, collaborated so well with Moore on this magnificent effort.

Im dritten Buch dekonstruiert Alan Moore die Mythen der amerikanischen Wohlstandsgesellschaft.Wir erleben die Folgen uneingeschränkten Glaubens an den technischen Fortschritts als Nukeface als dunkler Prophet der Atomgesellschaft auftritt. Wir sehen in einer Abwandlung der Vampirgeschichte die Idylle des Lebens mit einer Kleinfamilie in amerikanischen Vorstädten gefährdet, wir sehen mit Entsetzten die unverarbeitete Geschichte der Stigmatisierung der weibliche Periode und wir beobachten wie in einer sehr düsteren Geschichte wie die dunkle rassistische Vergangenheit der Südstaaten in den Vordergrund tritt. Moore zeigt uns wie brüchig die Zivilisation an sich ist. Hinter ihr wartet das Andere. Jenes was wir gerne ausblenden.Besonders zu erwähnen ist das erste Auftreten der Figur Jon Constanine in diesen ersten Heften, auch wenn Moores Charakterisierung sehr von den späteren Prägungen der Figur abweicht. Ebenfalls hervorzuheben sind hier die Zeichnungen von Totleben & Co. In vielerlei Hinsicht stellt dieses Buch den Höhepunkt der Swamp Thing Reihe aus künstlerischer Sicht dar. Ob Vampire, die unter Wasser leben, Frauen, die sich in Werwölfe verwandeln oder Menschen, die sich in Atommüll auflösen, all noch so groteskes und abscheuliches ist hervorragend illustriert. Wer die ersten Bände gelesen hat wird mit diesem Band nicht enttäuscht werden.