The first issue of Future State: Swamp Thing was one of my favourites of the entire Future State event, being one of the darkest books that really seemed to embrace the horror at the core of its character, and being really bold in the future story it was trying to tell, bolder than most of the others in the event. The first issue set up an exciting new world order where humanity has long since died out, and plant beings living in the ruins, with Swamp Thing as their leader. However, when a lone human arrives in their camp they learn that more people have survived, and a threat is waiting for them all in the frozen north.
Whilst the previous issue focused primarily on Swamp Thing and his people, especially on how Swamp Thing went about constructing their plant bodies, this issue delves more into the story, and spends more time with the human characters hold-up inside S.T.A.R. Fortress than it does Swamp Thing and his children.
We learn that Jason Woodrue is living withing the fortress, and has used the remains of the hero Obsidian to create a device that he intends to use to block out the sun; one last ditch attack against The Green, taking away the sunlight that the plants need to survive.
Despite this issue seeing the return of Swamp Thing's most iconic villain, and seeing the two characters doing battle one last time, it's not really a story about that. It's not a super powered showdown. Instead, this is a story about Alec Holland, about the pain that he carries inside of him, and his willingness to sacrifice everything to do the right thing.
We learn that he was the one responsible for the the state the world is in, for the destruction of humanity. It's a weight he carries on his soul, something that haunts him; and it's the motivation for his years of searching for survivors of humanity. Not because he wants to finish whatever it was that caused him to turn on people all those years before, but because he wanted to atone for his sins. We also discover that despite the interludes where he's explaining how he went about creating his plant children the one thing that he couldn't recreate was the spark of life, the essence that makes them living beings.
It's at this point that we discover we've been lied to, and that these people aren't his children, but fractured parts of himself. They represent his innocence, doubt, and ambition. They're part of himself, never really alive, because it takes the soul of humanity to really live, even for a creature such as him. This shows us that this is a Swamp Thing that has come to see humanity and The Green very differently over the years, and has learned that humans are important, and chooses to ultimately give his life to save them.
Future State: Swamp Thing turns into a story about redemption, about one man trying to erase the stain on his soul. The fact that Ram V was able to write a compelling, emotional, and rich story that is easily one of the better Swamp Thing stories in decades in just two issues is simply astounding. The story never felt rushed, it never felt light on content. It wasn't stripped down of content to fit into just two issues, it simply told the story it wanted to tell with heart and emotion and became one of the best stories DC has produced in years.
Part of the goal of Future State was to tease things to come, to give glimpses of possible futures, new characters, and to tease what some writers will be bringing to the new titles in March. If this is any indication of what readers will have waiting for them when Ram V takes over Swamp Thing it's a series that people definitely need to keep an eye on.
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