Tree Pulp: Swamp Thing #16 Review

Editor’s Note: And one last quick review of the comics of 1/9/2013 before the comic stores open with this week’s new books…

I’m not gonna lie to you: the Rotworld crossover between Swamp Thing and Animal Man hasn’t really been grabbing me in the way that I’d originally hoped. I’ve found it to be relatively engaging, but at this point, it feels like it’s been going on damn near forever, with one overriding problem that’s been tickling me through the whole thing: where’s the rest of the DC Universe while all of this is going on? We’ve seen the world in ruins, and Superman, Batman and other ancillary superheroes afflicted by the Rot in these titles, and yet over in Detective Comics last week, Batman was happily battling Joker gangs while a new Penguin sets up shop.

So being isolated, the stakes of Rotworld have felt smaller than they should… but I really don’t want to hold that against Rotworld, because I really do want to see more isolated storylines, regardless of a publisher’s greater continuity, if only so I can stop hearing so many sighs from my co-editor Amanda when we walk into our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop announcing, “Attention, patrons! In a moment, I will be giving myself an event… and then I will become fatigued!”

So on its own, Rotworld has been entertaining, if dragged out a little longer than it probably needed to be… and taken on its own, Swamp Thing #16 is the biggest, pulpiest, most fun piece of it so far.