SWAMP THING HALLOWEEN HORROR 100-PAGE GIANT – Ben’s Horror-Comic-Athon October 2018 #26

In the spirit of Halloween, Ben is reading one horror comic every day. Will they keep him up? Or will they put him to sleep? We’ll find out…

It’s October 26th. Today and tomorrow, some comics that came out just this month! (Both of these are comics that will share their own

ENTRY TWENTY-SIX:

SWAMP THING HALLOWEEN HORROR 100-PAGE GIANT: DC Comics; a TON of creators, but the NEW Swamp Thing story is by Brian Azzarello, writer, and Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion, artists; published 2018

DC Comics put out TWO anthology horror books this year. Cursed Comics Cavalcade was in comic shops and followed the trend of their other holiday titles. But this one — Swamp Thing Halloween Horror — was in the style and pricing of the Wal-Mart exclusive collections. $4.99 and 100 pages. All of the other Wal-Mart exclusive books reprint old issues alongside a single new 10-page story.

This book is no exception, the different being the old stories go deeper into DC’s catalogue.

• Swamp Thing in “Hollow”: This story feels like it could be setting up a longer term series for Swamp Thing. It’s the new story, created for the collection. When some monsters pretend to be children for Halloween, Swamp Thing gets involved, but it’s a sign that something bigger is coming. Something that humans won’t fear, but they should. This story LOOKS great, but the shortness and the amount of material it tries to cram in makes it a difficult read.
• The Enchantress and Blue Devil in “The Pumpkin Sinister”: A mean-spirited take on the Great Pumpkin legend from the classic Peanuts cartoon.
• Zatanna in “Kcirt ro Taret”: Like the brand new story in the Cursed Comics Cavalcade, in this story Zatanna uses her magic to bring to life Halloween horrors to exact vengeance on bad people. It’s not the greatest story.
• Superman in “Strange Cargo”: This one is rather cool. Superman vs. zombies. His solution for them is uniquely something Superman can do, and the sort of thing Superman WOULD do.
• Batman and the Scarecrow in “The Ballad of Jonathan Crane”: Scarecrow misuses his own equipment and hallucinates his own version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. An ok story, hurt once more by the length.
• Aquaman and The Demon in “Night Gods”: I read this when it came out in The Brave and the Bold series. This is a great showcase of Aquaman’s power as he and The Deamon take on a Cthulu like menace.
• Batman and Robin in “Night of the Reaper”: This is a Rutland Parade “crossover” story, in that the Rutland Halloween parade featured in this story is visited by characters in both Marvel and DC over time. This is a story about the specter of death and the cycle of hate.
• Swamp Thing in “The Origin of Swamp Thing!”: The original origin. One of the greatest short comic stories I’ve ever read.

Over all, this has been my favorite 100-Page Giant Was-Mart exclusive issue.

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You can read the rest of this series here: Ben’s Horror-Comic-Athon October 2018

While Ben’s not podcasting daily for the entire month, The Comic Book Time Machine will be going daily for a week at the end of October. Don’t miss our WEEK OF WEIRD, as we explore some weird comics from October 25-31!