Swamp Thing: New Roots

This digital collection, released to fill a publication gap during the pandemic, consists of two main stories. The first, and longer, is clearly set in an alternate reality, something that becomes more obvious as it continues. It concerns a battle between Swamp Thing and an agri-food company that's inexplicably set on destroying all plant life on Earth. The motivations of the villains (and there's more than just the company) are poorly explained at best, likely because the short length of the individual episodes didn't allow space to do so, but the escalation of the conflict does at least work well - notably in one episode in which we see the US military getting involved.

The second story is more episodic, and evokes the supernatural and horror elements of the regular series rather than the ecological ones. The individual episodes may be short (half an issue each), but they're quite effective for their length, arguably making better use of the format than those in the first story, which feels like it needs more space. The series concludes with two further, very short stories, one of which adds little, and one of which doesn't make much sense. On the bright side, the art is more consistent - and generally good - than in some of the other similar pandemic-era digital series.