The FINAL Weird Cover of the Week - #24

I'll be switching this Friday post over to a weekly REVIEW instead, but on a note of "rebirth"...

"You look different"    "I changed my hair, thanks for noticing..."

..here's this week's cover to the New 52 Swamp Thing
#10: The Inevitable Return of ANTON ARCANE!!!

Arcane is like a bad penny, and I do love this specific trapping of the comic book medium - "the unkillable villain - the opposite number" - groovy, every hero needs one.
I have favorites:
Supes has Lex Luthor.
Cap has the Red Skull - I love the Red Skull.
Bats has ...who's that again? ..oh right, THE JOKER.
The Joker has always struck me as the ultimate YIN to a YANG ...madness vs mission = perfect, with that weird overtone to the relationship that so works.

But Swamp Thing does have one of the coolest of all in the demonically evil old man from the Balkans, Arcane - a character who technically debuted in Swampy #1, but makes his awesome true first appearance in the original Swamp Thing #2, along with Abby and a few other perennial favorites.

Alan Moore does a really nice bit of writing in his first issue on Saga in 1983 when Arcane seems to be truly gone. It made me oddly sad reading that the first time - my first encounter with the thought of a hero mourning his nemesis, but it would become an attractive theme to my little creative brain motivating some of my own storytelling.

This piece of art by Yanick Paquette is a homage not only to Arcane's original return way back in the '70s by Bernie Wrightson, but also to the fact that it was #10 then too. Very nice touch, and the last of the "weird covers" for my Blog from the Bog.

I'll start reviewing issues one-by-one after this and making this spot a go-to what's happening in the comic book currently, as well as ALL the older issues all the way up to now.

It'll be fun.
A.


June 20
Turns out it's a great issue with some really nice character writing. Review coming soon..