As vast as the pile is, there are still nooks and crannies that have yet to be fully minedt. Namely a small corner with all of the “prestige-sized” books from DC’s Black Label. While I do enjoy the stories, they do get a bit cumbersome in the pile. And if I reviewed this series’ first issue back in 2022 despite the collected edition coming out only a year later, don’t worry about that part. It doesn’t stop Jeff Lemire, Doug Mahnke, David Baron, and Steve Wands’ Swamp Thing: Green Hell from still being an excellent conclusion to the character.

As mentioned in the previous article, we find a post-climate-apocalypse world where the water is rising, the Parliament of Earth—the Red, the Green, and the Rot—have conspired to start the world anew, and John Constantine has dragged Alec Holland—the original Swamp Thing—from an idyllic retirement to save the world one last time. Alec is, of course, upset. It’s only when confronted with a child, Veronica, that reminds him of his own that he agrees to help fight back. And it is very much a fight as the Green has used the same kind of magic that created Swamp Thing to launch its first attack against the remnants of humanity before the entire Parliament comes together for their final assault. But with Constantine making one last deal with the actual Devil, they’re able to turn back the attack and keep the last remaining humans safe.

One of the most interesting things that DC has done with many of these larger Black Label books is given us an ending for many of these characters. And not the “end” in which they die in one event book only to be revived a few years later, but a logical stopping point as, in these stories, the world and the characters are allowed to age. This is both the final Swamp Thing and John Constantine story as the latter gives up his soul to save the world. Because these characters are able to age and have that definitive end state, there’s more we can do with the interim. A character can be built up to the point they’re at in the end, seeding more bits of foreshadowing or lore that makes that final story all the more impactful. Or the story can exist like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? as an inevitable end point for the character more than their story.

It can be sad to see a character’s story end, but that doesn’t mean that something else can’t come after that. This is one of the strengths of the decades-long collaborative storytelling that constitutes comics: the only end for monthlies and superheroes is poor sales. The characters themselves somehow find ways to keep going in spite of those setbacks and we keep seeing more of their mythologies being built up before their final end. 

Get excited. Get ending.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.