RUST vol.3 #1-2, Adventure Comics, April to May 1992
Technically not born in a swamp, Steve Miller's second try at his Rust creation owes more than a little to Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. You've got Scott Baker (a policeman instead of a scientist though) who falls into some chemicals (liquid rust) and then into a junkyard (instead of a swamp). He is then turned into a monster with the properties of that environment. To make things a little swampier, there's this old man right out of a bayou movie spouting mysterious gibberish like a cross between a witch doctor and Yoda.
With some early art by Phil Hester who would eventually do draw one of my favorite runs on Swamp Thing (if you work on a swamp monster comic once, you're doomed to do it again, as we'll confirm this week), Rust has some good visual moments, but not enough for me to get the complete 4-issue set.
I think the main reason is that it's too slow. A third of each comic is eaten up by dream sequences or flashbacks to Scott's youth. Another third to Rust stealing clothes or smoking fags or getting drunk. And the rest is the mystery surrounding liquid rust and Scott's "death". If this were an ongoing series, then by all means. But as a mini-series? It's less than efficient. I mean, EACH issue has a shot of Rust waking up from a nightmare.
The guy sure is a screamer.
Rust can somehow manipulate metal around him, which he uses for a variety of things, from kicking corporate ass by laying waste to a parking lot...
...to creating scrap strippers for himself (not much worse than the strip joint fare in town, I must say).
Trouble is, when the stripper quality is down, you need to step it up on the ass-kicking.
Technically not born in a swamp, Steve Miller's second try at his Rust creation owes more than a little to Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. You've got Scott Baker (a policeman instead of a scientist though) who falls into some chemicals (liquid rust) and then into a junkyard (instead of a swamp). He is then turned into a monster with the properties of that environment. To make things a little swampier, there's this old man right out of a bayou movie spouting mysterious gibberish like a cross between a witch doctor and Yoda.With some early art by Phil Hester who would eventually do draw one of my favorite runs on Swamp Thing (if you work on a swamp monster comic once, you're doomed to do it again, as we'll confirm this week), Rust has some good visual moments, but not enough for me to get the complete 4-issue set.
I think the main reason is that it's too slow. A third of each comic is eaten up by dream sequences or flashbacks to Scott's youth. Another third to Rust stealing clothes or smoking fags or getting drunk. And the rest is the mystery surrounding liquid rust and Scott's "death". If this were an ongoing series, then by all means. But as a mini-series? It's less than efficient. I mean, EACH issue has a shot of Rust waking up from a nightmare.
The guy sure is a screamer.Rust can somehow manipulate metal around him, which he uses for a variety of things, from kicking corporate ass by laying waste to a parking lot...
...to creating scrap strippers for himself (not much worse than the strip joint fare in town, I must say). 
Trouble is, when the stripper quality is down, you need to step it up on the ass-kicking.
Comments
Yes, absolutely. :)