Moore's Swamp Thing is one of the most complicated and subtle runs of any writer on any monthly series. Again and again, I go back to stories like "The Nukeface Papers (part 1&2)" "The Rites of Spring," and "Reunion," because they just say so much about the relationship between human culture and the natural world. It is a truly profound work about the immense difficulty (and perhaps impossibility of putting the needs of the environment before the needs of society.
Among Moore's more interesting ideas, especially when Bissette and Totleben illustrate it, is the green, a universe spanning plant-mind that connects all plant life living or dead. Neil Gaiman, in the introduction to Vol. 2, calls the green a "communal undermind" of plantlife, and I think that is pretty interesting to think about. I'm pretty interested in theories of the unconscious, and it is clear that Moore is too. The green acts like a sort of unconscious part of Swamp Thing's mind and body that grants him immense power when he accesses it. And that is just cool to think about!
Also, the supporting characters really get some great stories in Moore's run. In many ways, it becomes just as much Abby's book as Swamp Thing.
After Moore's run, check out Neil Gaiman's three unpublished Swamp Thing stories in the Midnight Days collection. They are just as subtle, complicated, profound, and just damn entertaining as any story Moore wrote.
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