Swamp Thing #40 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Charles Soule
Art By: Jesus Saiz, Javi Pina, June Chung
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 4, 2015

The Story Lives On

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Here, we not only have the ending to "The Machine Queen" story arc but to the whole series of Swamp Thing itself.  It's sad too, while I wasn't always reading this title, once I did it became something that was a joy and now that it's gone.......... Well, I hate not having things that I want.  Let's get past the greedy child within us all and talk about some Swamp Thing.  Last issue we saw our Avatar of the Green in what looked like his most precarious situation he's ever been in.  His resurrected corpse ate him, Arcane poisoned The Green and Machine Queen took full control over the Rithm........... Yeah, shit was bad all around but we had a glimmer of hope when Alec tried to stop Arcane and summoned all of the previous Avatars of the Green to come to his assistance.  Having this issue happen is kind of funny to me because last year in the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 2, they claimed that the final issue of Swamp Thing would happen with issue #37 and I thought they were really on to something after watching the sales numbers each month, but ultimately they were wrong and we had three more issues of the Big Green to love on.  Let's check out how this story arc and series ends and let's hope it's on a high note.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our finale begins with Arcane escaping the Green before having his ass handed to him by a ton of former Avatars............ Maybe this wouldn't have happened with the Green being poisoned but man did Arcane quickly jump the hell out of The Green and go and toady up to Machine Queen; letting her know what's going down.  Well, with their element of surprise gone, Swamp Thing rallies his troops and tells them that this might very well be their final battle and not all of them will make it back.  Now if I was there, I'd option to be one of the Avatars that hung back and helped repair The Green so that our heroes full powers could be restored........ because I'm a coward you see.  When our Avatars of the Green exit the Grove, they find that wrong resurrected Alec Holland, who decides that he doesn't need to be around anymore because it's the final issue and all and tells our heroes that the Machine Queen waits for them and then crushes his own head......... I guess it's true, sometimes dead is better........... Especially when your the product of a terrible three way between decay, fungus and machines.......... gross.

So the battle is on and for some reason it all goes down in the Gobi Desert.  After a ton of...... Avatar on Avatar violence, Swamp Thing for some reason feels that he needs to stall them and takes flight and I don't really understand how it happens but after fighting off a few machines and un-men, our Avatar crash lands through a window in a Philadelphia library........... That's a hell of a trip in what seemed like a short amount of time.  If that's not weird enough for you, it's at this library that Swamp Thing gets pulled into the story of his life and we meet a possible Kingdom that we've never seen before that I'm just going to call The Art.  It's where all things that man creates goes and we get a little meta here about how Swamp Thing's story is going to end and if he'd rather stay in this place that art goes instead of finishing his story he can........... It's very odd but it's also pretty cool........ It would be cooler if I could properly explain it but it's all very "out there".  Not wanting to leave his friends in jeopardy, Swamp Thing leaves his story and goes back to finish it on his own terms.

In the end, The Green wins and Swamp Thing simply walks up to the Machine Queen and grows a tree out of her body...... ending her and even after all of this Swamp Thing allows The Rithm to continue to live but only in the body of a small robotic dog and he tells them that they are young and he's not in the business of killing children so maybe when they learn to play with others things will be different but if they don't, he'll end them.  As the issue closes we simply see Abigail Arcane talking to Gaurav as Swamp Thing reads a book.

That's it for this series and man am I already missing my Swamp Thing.  Now, while I have mixed feelings about this final issue, one thing I know is that it comes off rushed.  Whether we took more time with this new strange Kingdom or if we skipped that whole part and focused more on the battle, I'm not sure what would have made this better and even though I like the issue, I don't know if I really like it as a final issue.  Swamp Thing lives on though beyond his book and maybe that should be enough for me.  The book though will give you a big ass final battle to finish off this story line and told with great art by Jesus Saiz and Javi Pina......... It is what it is.  

Bits and Pieces:

While I can't say that this is a good final issue to a series, I can say that it's a good conclusion to the Machine Queen story arc.  We had great art throughout this issue and the biggest problem seems to come from that rushed feeling it gives off to not only finish the story arc but to introduce a new idea to the Swamp Thing mythos.  I had a really good time with the book though and besides for that rushed feeling my only complaint is that it's over.

8.5/10