Two days ago, Bleeding Cool reported that political activist and fantasy author China Miéville’s Swamp Thing run had been canned even before it was announced, to make way for a new DC Universe Swamp Thing title.
Well, Miéville has seemingly confirmed at least part of the Bleeding Cool story. While not revealing much about his plan, he has provided the following information.
My feelings at the moment can doubtless be intuited, though I have nothing but gratitude and respect for the people I worked directly with at DC, who were consummately professional and helpful. Some vague stuff:
1) It was an ‘epic’ arc, in terms of scale and stakes.
2) It comprised 15 issues, plus perhaps between 1 and 3 ‘standalone’
issues within the arc.
3) At least one issue would have been longer than the standard 22 pages.
4) Five issues have been entirely written (though they’d need some editing).
5) It involved a couple of relatively neglected canon characters.
6) It introduced one totally new character, and reimagined and dramatically expanded the importance of another, hitherto throwaway one.
7) It was (unsurprisingly, I suppose) pretty political.
8) It wasn’t, however, entirely straightforwardly traditional ‘green’ politics, IMO.
9) It was conceived of, at least in part, as a respectful argument with some of Alan Moore’s formulations.
10) I did some pictures of ST, including a sketch of what would have been the series’ keystone image.”
So there are five scripts for the series never to be seen… of course, never is a very long time in comics.