Swamp Thing By Brian K. Vaughan Vol. 1 (Swamp Thing (2000-2001))

The first thing to be aware of is that the protagonist of this book is Tefé Holland, daughter of Swamp Thing, and the titular character is only in the book for a few frames of flashback. This has the advantage of making for a confused and tormented lead character, a sort of coming-of-age element. Tefé struggles with who she is, and this leads to some wonky behavior. At times, she doesn’t do what would be expected of a superhero, but at other times she does, and this makes her character feel constantly off-kilter. One doesn’t straight away develop an affinity for the character, or – if one does – it comes and goes as she responds to varied situations in various ways. However, this seems to be intentional, a reflection of the fact that she doesn’t know if she’s the protector of the plant world, of humanity, of both, or of neither. She’s at once a pretty and sweet young woman and a terrifying god-like Elemental. She has a couple of “sidekick” characters, Barnabas and Pilate that help lend humanity and provide contrast (given the hardcore nature of these two men, they tend to make Tefé seem even more extreme as they are the ones to talk her down.) While the Swamp Thing and its extended character-verse is heavy with environmental message, the book is not written to bludgeon the reader with rebukes or preach to the choir. It keeps the lessons subtle enough that I didn’t feel the book swerving into preachy mode, and it remains entertaining throughout. I enjoyed this volume. It can feel a little disjointed and might read more smoothly for someone who’d read previous Swamp Thing series, but with attentive reading, one can certainly follow the action. (Another potential advantage of it focusing on the daughter character.) [FYI- This is the third of seven series.]

Graphiquement inégal.Qualité graphique de l'introduction sans commune mesure avec le «roman».Apparition très tardive du personnage principal.Lenteur de l'intrigue.On perd l'intérêt après les trente premières pages.Certaine originalité cependant, on cherche visiblement à créer un nouveau personnage, lui donner un souffle.Dommage, car le personnage conçu principalement par Bernie Wrightson, la «chose» des marais, était fabuleux... il y a de cela plus de trente ans déjà.Aucune récompense nostalgique ici.Mikenike

Parfait merci bcp

I'll start this off by prefacing that I had big hopes for this book. Im a big fan of BKV's writing and an even bigger fan of Swamp Thing (he's my favorite comic character). You would assume we had a winning combo here, unfortunately this was not the case.What fails in this series for me is it is a Swamp Thing book without Swamp Thing. I can appreciate a different twist on a series, but for me this did not work. I struggled reading this. The Parliament of Trees is reduced from omniscient powerful entity to a city where Swamp creatures travel in pea pod subway systems. That's about the time I put this book down. It may be because it is one of BKV's earlier works, but I really couldn't get through this one. I respect the originality.If you are interested in reading something really worthwhile, Brian K Vaughn writes several really rad series. Check out Saga, Y: The Last Man, We Stand in Guard, and Papergirls are all fantastic! Skip this one and check out those.If you are here because you are already a BKV fan but are also new and interested to the beautiful world of Swamp Thing, I highly highly highly recommend picking up Alan Moore's run on the series. You won't be disappointed.Im sad I didn't like this series.

You the buyer are looking at this book on the aspect that you are either a Swamp Thing fan or Brian K. Vaughan fan. Or maybe both. I think the biggest selling point is Vaughans name seeing as he's become a huge name in the pantheon of modern day comics like Ex Machina, Y: The Last Man, Runaways, and his current epic sci-if series, Saga. So when a writer or artist become successful, it's always interesting and imminent when some of their earliest material gets released due to said success. Case in point this collect of Swamp Thing, a series Vaughan wrote from 2000 to 2001 that last only 20 issues. Even is this series was a little rough for a young Vaughan, it's still a pretty good series on the up-incoming writer.SWAMP THING BY BRIAN K. VAUGHAN collects issues #1-9, SECRET FILES & ORIGINS: SWAMP THING, and a shot story from VERTIGO WINTER'S EDGE #3. (Amazon has the listing wrong. This collection does not collect issue #10 and it does include the secret files & origins segment). Mary Conway is a high school student on her last day of school with a promising future. Loving parents, a good boyfriend, and a best friend for life...but she everything feels wrong, to which, everything goes wrong real fast. Her parents are not her biological figures, her best friend and boyfriend are having an affair together, and she is not really Mary Conway. She is really Tefe Arcane, the daughter of Abigail Arcane and Swamp Thing Alec Holland, making her the only being on the planet with the power over the Green and part human. With her past and existence turned upside down, Tefe takes it upon herself to go across the United States and find her place in the world.Vaughan's early material showed his wit, off-beat writing, and sense of emotion depth he's come to be known for. It's not as spot on as he's become today, but it shows he had the makings of a great writer 14 years ago. His creation of Tefe takes its inspiration from various Swamp Thing stories before it, with aspects of horror and oneself on being an elemental god in a human world. In this case of Tefe, Vaughan's treatment of Tefe lacks any knowledge of either humanity or the Green and so goes about many adventures seeing the aspects of humans and plants in the world in a metaphorical and philosophical manner. It also ties into Tefe representing a coming-of-age story as well, where teenagers grow up and have to deal with the outside world. What's expect of them? What is right and wrong? What makes everyone so complicated? These are the aspects of the story that makes Vaughans Tefe an interesting series of conflict where you see the many aspects of good and evil within humanity and the Green.Most of the art is supplied by Roger Peterson, with accompanied work by inkers Joe Rubinstein and Rick Magyar. Peterson's art is for the most part decent. Some parts or well done and show the emotional aspects of Vaughan's narratives. It does get a bit rough here and there, but it holds up fine. The Secret Files & Origins tale is drawn by none other then a young Cliff Chiang (of the current New 52 Wonder Woman series), which it too is crude for his early drawings, but it's still solid. Numerous artist take over in issue #9 including Paul Pope, Steve Lieber, and Guy Davis.I didn't really find any flaws in this collection, but most of the story Vaughan is building up to will not happen until volume 2. This makes volume 1 mostly character building, so it doesn't answer many questions yet. If you're also looking for Swamp Thing and Abby show up, you'd be sadly mistaken. A good majority of this series is dedicated to Tefe's tale, so although Abby and Alec do have a tiny bit of panel time, those Alec Holland fans expecting to read Swamp Thing might be disappointed.Volume 1 of SWAMP THING BY BRIAN K. VAUGHAN shows fans on Vaughan's early work just what the writer was capable of, with a good sense of emotion, morals, and off-collar writing that he's been known for. It has decent art to back it up and this collection is collected for the first time ever at a reasonable price. But Vaughan's writing is still a tad lackluster than his current work and many plotlines will not get resolved until volume 2. If you are a Swamp Thing fan or Brian K. Vaughan fan, you might want to give this short series a shot because after volume 2, Swamp Thing was cancelled and rebooted in 2004 under a different writer. So this short series is worth taking a look at.

I loved this. It is actually older than you would think, but was rereleased because Brian has got a lot of attention for his more recent books. The story line is amazing and the artwork is beautiful.