Tear Jerker / Swamp Thing

• "Pog". Notable in that the characters aren't even regular cast members, and in 23 pages...well, damn. To go into further details, the short story "Pog" revolves around a bunch of strange-talking Funny Animal aliens (essentially a sci-fi Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of the characters from Pogo) landing in the Louisiana swamp. The Captain Ersatz version of Pogo explains to Swamp Thing that he and his friends are the only survivors from his world, forced to flee after the monkeys went insane and took over, first socially restricting the other races, then using them as medical experiment test subjects and food, and they hope to find a new world to settle on. Swamp Thing, unable to communicate verbally with the alien, instead leads him mutely to the nearby human town of Houma, where the captain breaks down weeping that the same thing that drove him and his people from his world is happening here. And then there's what happens when the Albert Alligator expy finds some Louisiana alligators and rushes to them, calling them kinsmen. Being Earth gators they are, naturally, not sapient, and so he is promptly killed by them, forcing his friends to bury him on an alien world and fly away to continue their lonely search.
• Abby has a daydream at Swamp Thing's funeral. In it, Swamp Thing comes back to life, and he and Abby agree to marry. Everyone who discriminated against their love apologizes to her. Matt Cable comes back from the dead to give the couple his blessing. Elated, Abby runs up the courthouse steps to take her vows...only to see Swamp Thing get killed once again. It also feels sad to notice the signs that Abby's fantasy isn't real, namely the gaudy colors and the replacement of plywood facades for buildings.
• The story "Widowseed", a tie-in to Invasion! (DC Comics) where Abby bonds with an alien woman who, like herself, has lost her husband and is with child. Green Lantern Guy Gardner shows up and indiscriminately shoots down the alien woman's spacecraft as she leaves due to not being willing to let go of his "every unfamiliar alien is a threat" mentality, flying away as Abby is left mourning such a senseless and easily preventable death.
• The backstory of Lady Jane in Nancy A. Collins' run. The deceased woman this particular plant elemental is patterned from was a mother named Alicia Collins who became destitute and widowed, subsequently being coerced into letting her boss have sex with her to keep her job and getting burned to death while pregnant after her children perished in a fire.
• The brief and tragic history of the King of Petals. He started out as Dr Oleander Sorrel, a scientist and botanist who lost his children. Sorrel turned to work as a means of coping with the loss, and it got so serious that his wife left him and he lost all his friends. Then one day he died in a fire, which he welcomed. He is resurrected by the Green to serve them as the King of Petals, and with his powers and the assistance of a mentor he recreates his family from plants. However, Swamp Thing meets him and informs him that as a he’s got to look beyond his own desires, something he doesn’t want and ultimately cannot manage.
  • And in the midst of all this, his mentor turns out to be the Floronic Man, who at the end of the story invites him to have a rest... and then eats him.