So anyway, this trade paperback is apparently coming out early next year:
If you’re having trouble reading the text, here’s what it says:
“The Roots of Horror Twist Through Time
“A journey through DC’s dark corners–past, present, and future–with Swamp Thing as your haunted guide.
“As Rick Veitch deepens his visionary take on the character, Swamp Thing becomes untethered from the present and spirals across time. From Revolutionary battlefields to Arthurian legends, each stop is a meditation on violence, identity, and the monstrous. Meanwhile, Abby and John Constantine face disturbing revelations of their own in the here and now.
“A thematically rich chapter in DC’s horror canon. Collects The New Titans #0, Swamp Thing #80-87, Swamp Thing Annual #5, Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days Deluxe Edition #1, and Swamp Thing/Vertigo Special #1-4.”
And here’s the important bit…well, “bits,” as I have questions about New Titans #0, but there’s that “Swamp Thing/Vertigo Special #1-4” listed at the end there. Far as I know, that’s not a thing that exists…at least, not yet.
I was first clued into this by reader Tom, who linked me to this Reddit post. That post makes the good point that Rick Veitch left the book with only four issues to go…and there’s that Vertigo Special listed in the book’s contents, running four issues….
And there’s the fact that Veitch himself has been plugging the book on his Facebook page, so I expect big news a’comin’.
For those of you late to the party, the reason Veitch left Swamp Thing in the first place was that he had a time travel story he was working on, and a particular chapter had been approved and nearly completed before being canned, which torqued off Mr. Veitch somethin’ fierce.
And here’s the cover to that story, which, if those Vertigo Specials are released separately and not just part of the trade paperback, had better be the cover to that #1:
DO IT, YOU COWARDS.
I’ve written a bit about this in the past, most recently in this post here.
And because I’m That Guy, I’m wondering how “in continuity” the original ending to Veitch’s run will be. With all the reboots and such going on, DC could just straight out say “yeah, this is Swamp Thing’s history now” which would wreak a little havoc on the Swamp Thing timeline. For instance, if I remember the plot summaries of these final four Veitch issues that ran in Comics Buyers’ Guide after he left the book, Big Changes would happen to his arch-nemesis, and Swamp and Abby’s daughter (her birth being part of those last four comics) would have been entirely different as well.
“What, DC mess with continuity?” Yeah, I know, it’s hard to believe.
Plus, one final question…what did New Titans #0 have to do with Swamp Thing? I don’t have a copy around to check myself.
Unless DC plans to release the issues concurrently with this book, DC would need to announce this “Vertigo Special” soon as the DC November solicitations are available. I would assume that DC would plan to release these comics as individual issues considering the collection has them listed as “Vertigo Special #1-4”. Hopefully, DC plans to release them as individual issues at some point, and not keep it a TPB exclusive.
Although, considering that the listing for New Titans #0 would seem to be a mistake, I’m not getting my hopes up for “Vertigo Special” being something other than a misprint. I don’t know what DC would have mistakenly listed as this “Vertigo Special” though, as I can only come up with Secret Files and Origins, which only had one issue. It’s also early in the run to feature that book.
I can’t figure out any reason for including New Titans #0 other than that it featured Sarge Steel, who was also in the ST Annual. That’s a strange reason for including such an odd choice. Is DC testing the water for a potential Sarge Steel Omnibus?
For the “Titans” thing I’d guess it’s in some other collection coming out early next year and just got copied/pasted by accident. Like a “Zero Month” omnibus or something.
Maybe there is an alternate timeline where Gnarrk fell into a bog during the Stone Age and became the Neanderthal Avatar of the Green known as…”Gnar(rk)ly Thing”…
“Vertigo Special” sounds like it would be a killer drink.
The reprint from Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days is presumably the ten-page Jack In The Green story, included for completeness, but the New Titans one has no real explanation and calls the whole art of prognosticating what’s in upcoming reprints on the basis of solicitation text into question. But still, fingers crossed that this could bring me the closure that Miracleman: The Silver Age didn’t!
I greatly hope that Titans issue is in the collection, just for “WTF” reasons.
“If you’re having trouble reading the text”
WAS I EVER.
“Is DC testing the water for a potential Sarge Steel Omnibus?”
We’re more likely to get a SCALPHUNTER Omnibus!
I finally pulled out the NEW TITANS #0 issue. First off, do not recommend, I’m a big fan of Marv Wolfman, but this is him at his worst.
As mentioned, Sarge Steel is in here, and he was in the Swamp Thing annual, but that’s a tenuous connection, and there are a lot of other Sarge Steel appearances. The only other thing I that stuck out the ending with an unidentified energy being out in space seeing Kyle Raynor, recognizing him as a Green Lantern and following him back home to Earth, which is drawn vaguely like how they sometimes draw disembodied Swamp Thing (a helix of rainbow energy). But looking around it seems that turns out to be long-time Titans villain Psimon.
“I’m a big fan of Marv Wolfman, but this is him at his worst.”
Yeah, Titans went to crap in the 90’s, like the X-Men under Claremont