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A review by cesspool_princess
Swamp Thing, Vol. 4: A Murder of Crows by Alfredo Alcalá, Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, Rick Veitch, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Ron Randall
4.0
In the context of Moore's run, this is like dead middle of the road. There were some very epic and satisfying moments but also there were some things I had serious problems with.
Lets start with the gun violence arc. This was good but after the whole last volume felt a little tacked on / like a rehash on the themes Moore already covered. So I felt this was just a little less effective than the other ones in this vein. Like it was still good I just think it is outshined. Esp coming right after the plantation one (similar narrative of like horrors of the past literally coming back to haunt the present except there it was zombies and here it is ghosts).
Ok now we get into my rly big problem w this volume. The Brujeria being the shadowy group behind all of this felt sooo fucking dumb to me, like it was such a let down. Here we are bringing together this story about hatred, violence, alienation etc in the U.S and the ppl behind it are a group of Indigenous South Americans living deep in the Amazon rainforest???? bro......
I'm going to quote another review here bc they said it rly well: "I'm not sure how conscious Alan Moore was at the time of the ironies of his writing this plot, in which galactic doom is to be brought about by a black-magic cult in South America (and what's more indigenous South America), during a decade when US interference in Latin America was particularly visible. It does, at this distance, seem odd for an anti-establishment rebel like Moore to have been its writer (albeit at a stage when he was still trying to make a career in big brand comics, which he would soon abandon) and using a wily former punk, lefty anti-hero - a character quite capable of spotting insidious political symbolism in-universe - to resolve it."
Yeah this shit took me out.
Anyway this is followed by the big cross over event, the crisis of a million earths or whatever. This is Swamp Thing at its most superhero comic book and ofc I was annoyed with that but then there ended up being some v epic moments here. All the mystics and psychics joining together and then some of them just bursting into flames from the psychic pressure was fascinating. The factionalization of hell was also fascinating to see. But the big moment was the ending, the big darkness easily destroying some of the most powerful beings in universe because they have faulty ideologies, only for Swamp Thing to bring his wisdom and solve the problem. The joining of the dark and light and the sheer physical scale of it was stunning.
Ultimately for me, this had some of the lowest lows in the run but also some of the most epic / most satisfying moments to balance it out.
Lets start with the gun violence arc. This was good but after the whole last volume felt a little tacked on / like a rehash on the themes Moore already covered. So I felt this was just a little less effective than the other ones in this vein. Like it was still good I just think it is outshined. Esp coming right after the plantation one (similar narrative of like horrors of the past literally coming back to haunt the present except there it was zombies and here it is ghosts).
Ok now we get into my rly big problem w this volume. The Brujeria being the shadowy group behind all of this felt sooo fucking dumb to me, like it was such a let down. Here we are bringing together this story about hatred, violence, alienation etc in the U.S and the ppl behind it are a group of Indigenous South Americans living deep in the Amazon rainforest???? bro......
I'm going to quote another review here bc they said it rly well: "I'm not sure how conscious Alan Moore was at the time of the ironies of his writing this plot, in which galactic doom is to be brought about by a black-magic cult in South America (and what's more indigenous South America), during a decade when US interference in Latin America was particularly visible. It does, at this distance, seem odd for an anti-establishment rebel like Moore to have been its writer (albeit at a stage when he was still trying to make a career in big brand comics, which he would soon abandon) and using a wily former punk, lefty anti-hero - a character quite capable of spotting insidious political symbolism in-universe - to resolve it."
Yeah this shit took me out.
Anyway this is followed by the big cross over event, the crisis of a million earths or whatever. This is Swamp Thing at its most superhero comic book and ofc I was annoyed with that but then there ended up being some v epic moments here. All the mystics and psychics joining together and then some of them just bursting into flames from the psychic pressure was fascinating. The factionalization of hell was also fascinating to see. But the big moment was the ending, the big darkness easily destroying some of the most powerful beings in universe because they have faulty ideologies, only for Swamp Thing to bring his wisdom and solve the problem. The joining of the dark and light and the sheer physical scale of it was stunning.
Ultimately for me, this had some of the lowest lows in the run but also some of the most epic / most satisfying moments to balance it out.