Some of the comics in the Future State series have been really dark in tone (and in the way they look too), and for me at least, the event has felt somewhat depressing. That being said, Future State: Swamp Thing is probably one of the most dark and depressing books yet, but is also one of my favourite.
This first issue transports readers to a future that's more distant than any of the other Future State titles, one where humanity seems to have died out and now plants have been left to rule the Earth in the ruins of our civilisation. Ruling over this group of humanoid plants as something of an ancient father/god figure is Swamp Thing, who is trying to find any signs of survivors of the human race.
The book follows Sampy and his children as they journey through the wreckage of New York, and then travel further north into the snowy wilderness, trying to see if there's any human life left on the planet. This is something that drives Swamp Thing, but seems to cause some divisions amongst this children, particularly the outspoken Indigo.
These children make for a fascinating group, not only for their complex relationships with each other and Swamp Thing, but because of the small cutaways that take place throughout the narrative where we get these really cool anatomical illustrations of humanoid plants and Swamp Thing telling the reader the journey he went on to create these sentient plant people.
These sections shed some light onto the complex journey that Swamp Thing has been through, and how difficult it has been for him to create these beings that inhabit the pages here here. It might be me projecting a little here, but these sections make me feel a little uneasy as they remind me a lot of Michael Fassbender's character of David in Alien: Covenant, and the strange experiments he was undertaking.
This sense of unease and horror were there for me throughout the book, and as usual, Swamp Thing proves to be one of the best DC characters to tell a horror tale with. Where other Future State books felt weaker because of their darker tone this book felt all the stronger for it, and the incredibly distant future setting really helped with this.
The book ends on a really strong note too, as Swampy discovers an actual surviving human, and learns about some really horrific stuff going on in what could be the last human colony. How this is all going to play out is yet to be revealed, but it makes for an exciting cliffhanger, and it turns Future State: Swamp Thing into the book I'm most excited to see an issue two of.
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