I liked the first volume of Moore's Swamp Thing, but wow. This was something else again. The large storyline that takes up most of the volume is fantastic, eerie, and perfectly ties up nearly every loose end that I saw from the previous volume. One issue is a tribute to Pogo, and once I warmed up to it, it ended up being unexpectedly bittersweet and lovely. (I think anybody who's already familiar with Pogo would get way more out of this issue than I did.) Rites of Spring surprised me by the way that Moore handled the romantic elements (better, more heartfelt, and more sincerely than I would have expected) and with the sort of experimental spirit that makes me think of his later work, like Promethea. If this volume reflects the way that the rest of Moore's run on Swamp Thing went, then all of the praise I've heard over the years has been totally justified.