Today, I’m happy to have my son, Connor, return to the blog for yet another of his graphic novel reviews. Thankfully, he was able to tear himself away from his busy schedule (Middle school is a horrible time drain.) to give his thoughts on an older graphic novel that he read after spending far too much time this weekend replaying Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes with his younger brother. 
Swamp Thing, Vol. 1: Raise Them Bones by Scott Snyder
Genre: Superhero Comics
Series: Swamp Thing #1 (New 52)
Publisher: DC Comics (August 28, 2012)
Author Information: Twitter
Length: 168 pages
Connor’s Rating: 3 stars
When I play Lego Batman 2 with my little brother sometimes (Yeah, I have to play video games with him at times. Thanks, for that, dad.), I try to play different heroes. Weird ones. Cool ones. Ones I’ve never heard of. We have collected a lot of different guys in the game, so it is pretty easy to always get someone new to try out. The weirdest of them all is Swamp Thing. I got to thinking I’d like to read one of his books, so I found this older ones at the library and gave it a try.
My brothers always tell me I explain things too much and make too much of things, so let me try to get the point about this story. There is a guy named Alec Holland who died in a swamp, but the plants named “The Green” refused to let this man die. They saved him, but with a price. The Green making him Swamp Thing. Now, years later, the Green takes the curse away from him, but he still hears the plants screaming at him to come back and save them.
Weird, I know.
Not knowing anything about Swamp Thing, I was glad the book started out by telling me about Alec and the Green. Can’t say I got it all, because I didn’t, but it did help a little.
I would say Swamp Thing was an okay book. The story was alright, and that is what every person who reads a book tries to find. Like I said earlier, I didn’t really get everything going on, but I got enough of it to want to finish.
As for the art by Yanick Paquette it was also pretty good. Different but good. A lot of green. But green goes with the whole “The Green” thing.
The only part of the book I didn’t like was the violence. There was a lot of it. My dad said this was a book written for older teens and adults who loved the old Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore, so that was why the drawing were so graphically violent. For once, dad is right, I guess, because I wish the artist had not made things so violent like that.
Well, I hope you liked the review, and I hope you give Swamp Thing a try. You might like it even more than I did.
About Connor (In his dad’s words):
Connor is a preteen who enjoys graphic novels (DC Comics are preferred), superhero movies (Captain America is his favorite), watching episodes of The Flash, Arrow, Smallville and American Pickers as well as the NFL, NCAA football, and the NBA on t.v., will happily accept any and all caps (because you just can’t have too many caps), and whose favorite music revolves around pop favorites of the moment such as Cake by the Ocean (Clean version because dad is still alive) as well as anything by Fall Out Boy — except for the new Ghostbusters (I’m Not Afraid) song which Connor denies they were ever involved with. And, no, Connor did not have any input into my paragraph about him. Being a dad does have it’s privileges. 🙂
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