Books like Swamp Thing, Vol. 6: Reunion

Saga of the Swamp Thing Book 6 collects issues 57-64 of Swamp Thing, Alan Moore's last.In the aftermath of the previous book, Swamp Thing finds himself light years away from home. He travels from Rann to Apokalips and all points in between, looking for a way to get back home to Earth and to Abbie Cable.Alan Moore was stretched very thin at this point, simultaneously working on Watchmen. Whatever happened to that book...Anyway, this volume is more science fiction and fantasy than the thought provoking horror of the previous volumes. Old Swampy ends the famine on a dying world, fathers children against his will with a clockwork cyborg plant thing, visits a world of sentient plants, bumps into Metron of the New Gods, and finally ends up back on Earth.In some ways, this feels like a reset to status quo, a fitting end to Moore's run. It's also a good ending for the Alec Holland Swamp thing if one never reads another Swamp Thing comic. It feels tired in a lot of ways, though, like Moore is running out the clock. The cynic in me thinks maybe Alan Moore should have stopped with the last volume and let Rick Veitch get Old Swampy back to earth but he still delivered the goods. The writing is still top notch, though, even in the fill-in issues written by Stephen Bissette. Rick Veitch, John Totleben, and Alfredo Alcala did a fine job on the art chores, along with Tom Yeates. It's amazing that Moore's run has such a unified feel to it given how many artists were involved.Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing paved the way for a lot of great things down the line and is a great work in and of itself. All good things must come to an end, a wise man once said. 3.5 out of 5 earth elementals.