Mitch Brown
Feb 25, 2005, 02:13 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/DCVertigo2.jpg" border=1 align=left>By Mitch Brown, ComiX-Fan DC Correspondent
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past twelve years, the name "Vertigo" should be a familiar one. From its very inception, DC's pioneering "mature readers" imprint has been associated with some of the medium's master craftsmen, including Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore. While many of DC's imprints have fallen by the wayside (such as Milestone and Piranha Press), the line has become a mainstay of the industry. In this, the final edition of Diverse Currents, we probe into what is regarded by many to be the most important publisher in American comic books Vertigo.
SCRATCHING THE SURFACE
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mooregaimanmorrison.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mooregaimanmorrison.jpg" alt="The three fathers of Vertigo" border=1 align=right></a>The Vertigo Comics label was devised as a catch-all banner for DC's successful line of titles that spun out of the "British Invasion" of the late 1980s. Much like the earlier British Invasion of the American music industry, the arrival of several key British comic book creators on the U.S. scene created a revolution in American comic book content and reset the boundaries on the creative possibilities of the traditional comic book format. Alan Moore's Watchmen may very well be the last word on superheroes; Neil Gaiman's The Sandman brought an unheard of artistic and literary sensibility to the American comic book market that pushed the series out of the realm of the comic book long-boxes and onto the bookstore shelf; while Grant Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol further Moore's deconstructionist approach, fusing the superhero concept with the experimental free-for-all of William S. Burroughs and Salvador Dali. The pioneering work of these writers, along with Jamie Delano and Peter Milligan, would carve out a new subset of the mainstream comic book audience the dubiously named "Mature Readers" market. DC latched onto the industry's need for such an imprint and established the Vertigo label in 1993.
The creation of the label itself was spearheaded by group editor Karen Berger. Berger had been a DC editor for much of the 1980s, working on titles such as Amethyst, House of Mystery, Black Orchid and Wonder Woman and by the early 90s had found herself as the editor on the Pre-Vertigo Swamp Thing, Shade The Changing Man, Hellblazer, Animal Man and of course, The Sandman. Those five books, joined by the Mark Waid and Robert Greenberger-edited Doom Patrol, would form the initial core of the Vertigo stable with The Sandman #47 being the first Vertigo-branded DC publication. While DC was certainly not the first publisher to carry the torch of post-Comics Code, adult-oriented content a combination of "right place, right time, right books, right people" would ensure the Vertigo line's success and longevity.
As noted in previous editions of this column, the first half of the 1990s was a phenomenal growth period for the comic industry. Sales were at an all-time high, new publishers were popping up left, right and center with Image Comics at the forefront. Comic books were becoming increasingly driven by larger-than-life artwork, variant covers and editorially dictate mega-events often aimed at the speculator market. Publishers, readers and speculators were frantically searching for the "next big thing", whether that took the form of scarce Stephen Platt-drawn books, the latest first issue variant foil-hologramatic-scratch and sniff chase cover from Image, or the next death/rape/crippling/defection of a time-honored superhero character. Eschewing variant covers and carefully constructed publicity stunts, Vertigo became a success story based on its well-crafted, story-driven content that appealed to many members of the comic book consumer base that were fed up with the hollow and contrived storylines of mainstream comcis. With many readres hungering for a "meatier" alternative, Vertigo was there to pick up the slack.
While the titles of the initial Vertigo line-up were originally a part of the DC Universe , the shift to Vertigo allowed those titles to drift away from the core DC continuity. As the Vertigo line expanded past its initial offerings, the line would become home to many creator-owned series, devoid of any connection to the DCU. The first two longform creator-owned titles launched by the imprint were Grant Morrison's mind-bending masterpiece The Invisibles and the Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon backed Preacher. In the years that followed, Vertigo would also become home to such beloved series as Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Transmetropolitan (originally published under the Helix label) and Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man.
One of the most important factors in the Vertigo line's continuing success has been in DC's commitment to the Vertigo back catalogue. Collections of all the key Vertigo titles are now available in trade paperback editions, ensuring that these seminal works will stay in print for many years to come. Trade paperbacks of The Sandman are a perennial best-seller both in bookstores and direct market outlets, accompanied by complete collections of Preacher, The Invisibles, The Books of Magic, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, Transmetropolitan and many, many more.
THE STUFF OF DREAMS...AND NIGHTMARES
Perhaps the best way for us to continue our journey into Vertigo is to take a deeper look at the most prominent offerings from the history of Vertigo, starting with the book where it all began Swamp Thing - before peeling back the veil further and examining the rest of the original Vertigo titles.
SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/housesecrets92.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/housesecrets92T.jpg" alt="House of Secrets #92" border=1 align=left></a>The current incarnation of DC's "muck encrusted mockery of a man", the Swamp Thing, was created in 1972 by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson a revamped version of an earlier character first appearing in 1971's House of Secrets #92. In the 1972 version, the Swamp Thing was a botanical scientist named Alec Holland who, after an explosion in his lab was covered in the chemical coponents of a transformational "bio-restorative" formula he was working on that would be able to restore even deserts to thriving forestland. Burning to death and covered in his formula, Holland dove into the waters of a nearby swamp. Holland was never heard from again, though a while later a humanoid plant entity emerged from the Louisiana bayou, possessed of the scientist's psyche. This slimy green grotesquery would become DC's premier horror character throught the 1970s, appearing in many of DC's other titles as the being that believed itself to be Alec Holland would search the DCU for a way to restore its lost humanity.
In the 1980s, the Swamp Thing was brought back in a second series Saga of the Swamp Thing, following the release of a mildly successful Swamp Thing feature film. After twenty issues of the series, the book fell into the hands of a young, relatively unknown writer who would transform the series into the most compelling and influential horror comic since the glory days of E.C. That writer's name was Alan Moore.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing21.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing21T.jpg" alt="Saga of the Swamp Thing #21" border=1 align=right></a>While a newcomer to the business of American comics, Moore had garnered a strong following with comic readers in the United Kingdom, based on his work for British anthologies 2000A.D. and Warrior where he produced such serials D.R. and Quinch, Skizz, The Ballad of Halo Jones, The Boejeffries Saga, Marvelman and the now-classic V For Vendetta (re-printed years later under the Vertigo banner). Brought to the U.S. by editor and Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein, Moore was initially paired with artist Stephen R. Bissette and assigned to the series with issue #21. The rest, as they say, is history.
In his first story "The Anatomy Lesson", Moore turned the Swamp Thing concept completely on its head, re-inventing the Swamp Thing not as man-turned-monster but instead as a monster that believed itself to be man the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland at all. As the series progressed, Moore revealed (through John Constantine) that the Swamp Thing was in fact a plant elemental, a sentient conglomeration of various vegetable species that had absorbed the memories and knowledge of Holland when he had fallen into the bog years before.
Guided by Moore's poetic prose and the moody, visceral artwork of Bisette and his successors, Saga of the Swamp Thing (renamed as Swamp Thing Vol. 2 with #39) set a new standard for literate horror in the comic medium. The seething horror of the character's existence and macabre circumstances, coupled with Moore's own exploration of environmentalism, built up a devoted following, firmly cementing Moore's place on the international stage.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/constantineswampthing.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/constantineswampthingT.jpg" alt="Constantine meets the Swamp Thing" border=1 align=left></a>Moore enjoyed a five year run on the series, handing the book over to series artist Rick Veitch in 1987. The same year would see Moore's earlier creation, John Constantine launched in his own series Hellblazer written by Jamie Delano. Constantine had become a recurring character in Moore's Swamp Thing, leading to a crossover storyline of sorts during Veitch's run, whereby Constantine was to serve as a surrogate father of sorts for the Swamp Thing's adopted son a plant elemental sprout. Swamp Thing enlisted Constantine to impregnate his human girlfriend Abby Arcane. The baby born of their union would serve as the host for the "sprout", creating an elemental bridge between the worlds of human and plant life. The series has enjoyed a close kinship with the Hellblazer title throughout its run.
Veitch would enjoy a highly successful run on the title until his second major storyline. After a series of time-travel adventures, the elemental was to meet Jesus Christ, who would be revealed to be a white magician in #88. Unfortunately, the story was never reached the printed page. Concerned over the recent controversy of Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, DC had grave concerns over publishing such a story and refused to publish Veitch's script, citing pressure from religious groups. Veitch, disgusted, resigned from the series.
Swamp Thing's writers-in-wait, Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano both refused to take over from Veitch in a show of solidarity that would force the title into hiatus until Doug Wheeler came aboard as writer. The incident would cause many problems for DC as readers spurned Wheeler's run and the wounds created by DC's decision to censore Veitch's storyline would soon contribute to Alan Moore's total departure from DC. The series would later fall into the hands of novelist Nancy A. Collins, who enjoyed a three year run on the title. Mark Millar would take over the series with 1994's Swamp Thing #140 (with co-writing credits going to Grant Morrison for the first four issues), continuing on the title until its demise with #171.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/swampthing129.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/swampthing129T.jpg" alt="Swamp Thing #129" border=1 align=right></a>Strangely, the man often being credited as being the soul of the Vertigo line has never written directly for it. Swamp Thing did not gain the Vertigo tag until #129 (part of the Nancy A. Collins era). Even so, there can be no argument that it was Moore and Veitch's contributions to the book that paved the way for the formation of Vertigo and the available trade paperbacks of the Moore and Veitch runs now hold a firm place in Vertigo's back catalog.
Following Swamp Thing Vol. 2's demise in October 1996, a third series was launched in 2000, focusing on Swamp Thing's daughter, Tefe Holland the product of the earlier union of Constantine and Abby Arcane, lasting for twenty issues. The fourth volume of Swamp Thing adventures was launched last year under the pen of Andy Diggle (of Losers and Adam Strange fame) who returned the focus to the Alec Holland Swamp Thing. Diggle's six-issue stint has been followed by writer Joshua Dysart and artist Enrique Breccia. The series is currently solicited up to issue #15.
JOHN CONSTANTINE, HELLBLAZER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing37.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing37T.jpg" alt="Saga of the Swamp Thing #37" border=1 align=left></a>One thing that has always been at the heart of Vertigo's success has been its characters. Populating the surreal landscapes of Vertigo are such unforgettable creations as the Endless, Buddy Baker, Timothy Hunter, the Swamp Thing, the freakish Doom Patrol and of course, the walking, talking, chain-smoking personification of the soul of Vertigo itself the "bad luck magician" John Constantine.
Introduced in Saga of the Swamp Thing #37, Constantine would seek the elemental's aid against a cult of Patagonian witches known as the Brujeria. Constantine became the Thing's traveling companion for several issues, teaching the creature once believed to be Alec Holland, about its true nature and the extent of its abilities.
Constantine himself is something of a mystery. He's a sharp witted, foul-mouthed, fork-tongued adrenalin junkie who just happens to be something of an occult adept. The man has stared down demons, angels and the raging fires of the Apocalypse. But Constantine is far from being labeled a hero. His current actions and cynical outlook are the result of a dark past a bloody minefield of death, mayhem and loneliness. Constantine is haunted by his past misdeeds, but rather than propelling him towards any form of redemption they have often led him to further damnation.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer1T.jpg" alt="Hellblazer #1" border=1 align=right></a>Constantine, a recurring character throughout Moore's Swamp Thing, would receive his own title in 1988 Hellblazer - written by Jamie Delano with art by John Ridgeway. The serialized misadventures of this complex anti-hero would go onto to become Vertigo's long-running series and has since spawned the American-ized feature film Constantine.
The Hellblazer series would take Constantine out of the Louisiana bayou and return him to his birth country of England. Delano's run would crossover into Swamp Thing during the storyline involving Swamp Thing and Abigail Arcane's baby. Delano's run was dripping with a post-punk despair, offering up a clever commentary on Thatcherite Britain, via the metaphysical horror of demonic possessions and bodily invasions.
Delano and Ridgeway would steer the title for its first 24 continuous issues before briefly handing the title over to fill-in writers Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison. Delano then returned to the series with #28, continuing on until the arrival of Garth Ennis with Hellblazer #41. While Alan Moore may have created the character and Delano had evolved the character into a lead role position, it was Garth Ennis' run of the title that is considered by many to be the definitive era for Hellblazer.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer41.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer41T.jpg" alt="Hellblazer #41" border=1 align=left></a>Ennis and artist Will Simpson brought readers the seminal, fan favorite "Dangerous Habits" storyline. This six-part arc would see Constantine diagnosed with lung cancer. In a desperate bid to save his own skin, Constantine pulls off perhaps the greatest swindle in history when he manages to trick not one, but three demons into restoring his health. Constantine sells his soul to each of the demons in quick succession, before finally cutting open his wrist in an attempted suicide. At the moment before his death, each of the demon brothers shows up to claim Constantine's soul, unaware of each other's claim. Should Constantine die, the three brothers would be forced into a long and un-winnable war over the man's soul. In order to avoid such a pointless conflict, the unholy trinity opts to restore Constantine's life (and lungs). Of course, as always with Constantine, these actions would go on to complicate his already twisted life even further in stories to come.
Ennis would continue on the series until 1994's Hellblazer #83, following the "Rake At The Gates of Hell" storyline. Ennis would work with artist Steve Dillon from #57, forming the storied partnership that would go on to create the classic series, Preacher. With Hellblazer #63, Dillon and Ennis book would, at last join the newly-minted Vertigo label. Ennis would hand the book over to Paul Jenkins, who continued Constantine's adventures through until Ennis' brief return for 1998's "Son of Man" (#129-133).
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shootpage5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shootpage5T.jpg" alt="Page 5 of the unpublished Shoot story" border=1 align=right></a>Following Jenkin's run the up-and-coming Warren Ellis would take over the title for a brief run, that, like Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing was aborted prematurely, due to censorship. Ellis' Hellblazer #141, entitled "Shoot", centered around high school shootings a story that would be pre-empted by the Columbine shootings. Though completed, DC pulled the issue prior to shipping (despite previously deciding to stand behind Ellis' script). The experience would sour Ellis on the title, leaving after a further three issues. This was the first instance of censorship of a Vertigo comic since the imprint's creation. Following Ellis' run and a two-parter by Darko Marcan, 100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello was assigned to the book, working with artists such as Marcelo Frusin, Steve Dillon and industry legend Richard Corben. Azzarrello enjoyed mixed success on the book before handing it over to current writer Mike Carey.
Constantine has also appeared in numerous specials and mini-series and has also made many appearances throughout other Vertigo titles such as Books of Magic and The Sandman. With the recent release of the Constantine feature film, DC has stepped up their trade paperback schedule and re-released a number of out of print collections and one-shots, including the excellent primer on John Constantine and his world Vertigo Secret Files: Hellblazer. With a new movie under its belt, Vertigo's longest running title shows no signs of losing its' position as the line's flagship.
THE SANDMAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandman47.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandman47T.jpg" alt="The Sandman #47" border=1 align=left></a>While certainly not the first comic book to be worthy of the title of "literature", there can be no doubt that The Sandman is the book that put comic books on the map as a source of intelligent storytelling. The Sandman has become a publishing phenomenon, spinning out of the Diamond Distribution sales charts and onto the New York Times Bestsellers List and has been writer Neil Gaiman's springboard to stardom as a mainstream novelist. The Sandman was also the first-ever official Vertigo title, launching the imprint with #47.
The series was originally conceived as an update to DC's old gas-mask wearing crimefighter, the Sandman. While the sleep gun toting vigilante detective would later find his own place in the Vertigo line in Sandman Mystery Theater, Neil Gaiman's Sandman was an entirely different beast, focusing instead on a mythical pantheon known as The Endless - chiefly the Lord of Dreams, Morpheus the Sandman. The Endless themselves are a family of seven siblings, as old as time itself. Each is the personification of a separate sphere of human experience Destiny, Death, Dream (Morpheus), Delirium (formerly Delight), Despair and the absent brother, Destruction.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1t.jpg" alt="The Sandman #1" border=1 align=right></a>The Sandman first hit shelves in December of 1988, written by Gaiman with art by Mike Dringenberg and would quickly establish a solid reader base. The world crafted by Gaiman, though ostensibly a part of the DC Universe, was a perfect fit for the Lord of Dreams. Mythically elegant, beautiful and quite often terrifying.
Neil Gaiman's opus has been supported by the artwork of some of the best and brightest of the industry including Jill Thompson, Sam Kieth, Bryan Talbot, Marc Hempel and an array of magnificent covers and occasional interiors from superstar painter Dave McKean. The Sandman has won numerous industry awards for its creator including the Eisner awards for Best Writer and Best Continuing Series, and was the first comic book to ever receive a literary award the 1991 Award for World Fantasy.
The series begins with Dream escaping his decades-long imprisonment by a coven of mages (who had originally sought to contain his sister, Death). The Dream King then finds himself in a bid to reclaim his kingdom the Dreaming, and must deal with the repercussions of his imprisonment. Over the course of its 75-issue run, the series takes many twists and turns before its conclusion, introducing us to strange new characters including some very familiar beings plucked from the realms of mythlogy and fable such as Cain and Abel.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNights.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNightst.jpg" alt="The Sandman: Endless Nights" border=1 align=left></a>The monumental series has been collected by DC into ten collections Preludes & Nocturnes; The Doll's House, Dream Country, Season of Mists, A Game of You, Fables and Reflections, Brief Lives, World's End, The Kindly Ones and The Wake. These volumes comprising the core of The Sandman Library have been reprinted in several editions and translated into several different languages and are a perennially strong seller in bookstores and direct market outlets alike.
The series has also spawned the popular spin-offs Death: The High Cost of Living, Death: The Time Of Your Life (based on the most popular of the Endless siblings, Death); two original graphic novels in Endless Nights and The Dream Hunters, as well as series such as The Dreaming (including tales from the other characters in Dream's Kingdom) and the still-running Lucifer. An anthology of short stories by well-known authors such as Clive Barker, Caitlin Kiernan and Tad Williams was published in 1996 by Voyager/Harper-Collins titled The Book of Dreams.
Despite all of these spin-offs and the contributions of post-Sandman writers to the Dreaming canon, it is testament to the masterpiece status of Gaiman's original work that DC, despite the immense sales potential, refrained from continuing the series after Gaiman's departure with #75, choosing instead to allow the series to stand alone as a finite and complete work.
SHADE THE CHANGING MAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shadeditko1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shadeditko1T.jpg" alt="Ditkos Shade the Changing Man #1" border=1 align=right></a>Shade the Changing Man originally appeared in 1977 as the post-Marvel creation of legendary artist Steve Ditko. The series was the fast-paced, high action sci-fi story of an other-dimensional alien from the planet Meta, called Rac Shade. Shade was a Flash Gordon-style science hero on the run from his own government following his escape from prison and possessed an illegal Metran weapon known as the M-Vest. The series, while short-lived, holds a special place in the hearts of many fans to this day.
Shade would remain in creative Limbo for many years until writer Peter Milligan was called up as part of the "British Invasion", and chose the character for a psychedelic update for his contribution to DC's Mature Readers line in 1990. Milligan would collaborate with artist Chris Bachalo on the series, which would update the Shade character to being an insane, reality-bending protagonist who has inhabited the dead body of a serial killer.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shade33.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shade33T.jpg" alt="Shade the Changing Man #33" border=1 align=left></a>Much of Shade's story is told through the eyes of his human companions Lenny and Kathy (whose parents were killed by the serial killer who's body the alien Shade now inhabits). Shade's mission is to combat the forces of madness unwittingly released upon the earth by Metran scientist, using the M-Vest (now the Madness Vest). The series is a time-bending, mind-blowing romp through psychoactively charged worlds of madness and mayhem, that while often seen as impenetrably obtuse became a cult hit for DC. The series joined the Vertigo line with issue #33, concluding in 1996 with #70.
Shade would act as a launchpad for Milligan's American industry success, going on to produce Enigma, Face and Human Target (amongst others) for Vertigo and in more recent years he has worked for several titles on for Marvel Comics, including X-Statix and X-Men. Milligan's career began, much like his British contemporaries with work on anthology series such as Revolver, Crisis and 2000A.D., with his contributions including his classic team-up with Brendan McCarthy on the Shade-esque Hindu acid trip, Rogan Gosh (later reprinted by Vertigo).
ANIMAL MAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman1T.jpg" alt="Animal Man #1" border=1 align=right></a>Of all the original Vertigo titles, Animal Man and Doom Patrol were the only two to focus on superheroes. Make no mistake however, Morrison's contributions to Vertigo's genesis bear little resemblance to traditional superhero books. Morrison would dirve the superhero concept into uncharted regions of novelty and oddity - and what could stranger than a comic book superhero who actually discovers that he is a comic book superhero?
Grant Morrison was drafted by Karen Berger based on his work for 2000A.D. and Marvel UK. Morrison's first break came on Marvel UK's Zoids and contributed several Future Shock features for 2000A.D., along with his long running, four-phase superhero cycle Zenith. No stranger to superheroes and high weirdness, DC let Morrison's unique talents run wild over the adventures of the C-list superhero Animal Man, beginning the pre-Vertigo series with Animal Man #1 in 1988.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/strangeadventures80.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/strangeadventures80T.jpg" alt="Strange Adventures #80" border=1 align=left></a>Animal Man (Buddy Baker) was a sometime superhero, able to temporarily draw upon the energy of earth's animal kingdom. Baker's powers gained from contact with an alien spaceship enabled him to pick and choose abilities from any animal within a designated radius, such as absorbing the ability to breathe underwater from nearby marine life. The character had originally appeared in 1965's Strange Adventures #80 and maintained his presence as a minor character in DC's canon for many years, guest-starring across several titles during his on-and-off career.
Initially Animal Man seemed like a run-of-the-mill, traditional superhero comic. Buddy comes out of semi-retirement, taking up the mantle of Animal Man full-time. Soon however, the series began to incorporate Morrison's impassioned view point on the subject of animal rights. After an incident involving S.T.A.R. Labs and the B'wana Beast (which also temporarily costs him his own arm until Baker's inventive use of the regenerative powers of earthworms), Baker becomes a crusader for animal rights and the environment, giving up eating meat and clashing with hunters and rights-violating scientists. During Morrison's run, Animal Man was steeped in DC Universe continuity, forming part of the "Invasion" crossover; Buddy would also join the Justice League and clash with DC villains such as Psycho-Pirate and the Mirror Master. Morrison would also weave a Crisis on Infinite Earths coda in later issues, addressing some of the narrative paradoxes brought on by his own work on the title as well as exploring meta-textually, the nature of fiction and the notion of "continuity".
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman5T.jpg" alt="Animal Man #5" border=1 align=right></a>Despite this seeming link with the mainstream DCU, as early as #5's story "The Coyote Gospel", readers could tell there was something much larger going on in Animal Man than simple superheroics. "The Coyote Gospel" was the first real taste of what was to come at the climax of Morrison run on the book. In this story, a cartoon coyote (analogous to Wile E. Coyote), enters into Animal Man's world, only to be killed by a gunman. Despite its seeming absurdity, "The Coyote Gospel" is a thought-provoking, haunting tale about violence and a postmodernist look at the concept of conscious fiction a theme that recurs in Morrison's work to this day. The notion of a fictional being given "life" would prove to be the defining element of Morrison's run, as evidenced by Animal Man's contact with his own "creator" in Morrison's final issue (#26) where Buddy learns that he is, in fact a comic book character when Morisson writes himself into his own book.
Morrison's twenty-six issue run on Animal Man never actually bore the Vertigo banner, though the three trade paperbacks collecting his run have been retro-actively stamped with the Vertigo label. Following Morrison's departure, the book fell into the hands of Shade the Changing Man writer Peter Milligan. Milligan would begin his run, ignoring Morrison's climatic deconstruction of the title and having Baker awake from a coma into a very different world from the one he had left a seemingly alternate earth where America had fallen under control of a corrupt, ultra-right wing government.
Milligan's run was perhaps even stranger than Morrison's, lasting six issue culminated in Baker's suicide in #32, after which he was returned to the regular DC Universe under the supervision of Tom Veitch and Steve Dillon. The title retained its bizarre often absurd tone under the helm of Veitch. Buddy would learn that there was a link between all of the animal-related superheroes of the DCU. Simliar to Swamp Thing's "plant elemental" status, these "Animal Masters" shared a existential link with the planet's animal kingdom. The Animal Masters would go on to battle the villainous contagion, culminated in Animal Man #50, Veitch's final issue.
Jamie Delano would take over the title with #51, beginning his run with a bang by killing Buddy Baker off (again) in a car crash. Baker would journey into the Red (the meat-world equivalent of Alan Moore's concept of the Green over in Swamp Thing), a primal field that permeates all flesh-based life forms. While Morrison and Veitch's earlier runs on the title would portray the benign and beautiful side of the animal kingdom, Delano would take the series in the opposite direction, focusing on the inherent chaos and violence of animal life in particular, humanity's place within it.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman51.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman51T.jpg" alt="Animal Man #51" border=1 align=left></a>Baker would return from the Red, and back to human form by issue #57, which would see the book join the Vertigo line. Baker created something of an activist commune - dedicated to the preservation of nature - on his family farm. However this was a very different Animal Man, possessed of greater and more frightening powers than before. Buddy became something of an extremist to say the least, leading an animal attack on America's capital, Washington D.C. The commune would go on to become a cult the Life Power Church of Maxine with Buddy as High Priest and his animal-powered daughter Maxine as its guiding light. Through the cult storyline (that would become something of a road tripping sideshow of weirdness), Delano explored not only environmental issues but offered an often scathing perspective on religion.
Delano's run would end with #79, handing the title over to writer Jerry Prosser for its remaining six issues. Unfortunately, Prosser's run would be shunned by fans, with the writer in the unfortunate position of writing in the shadow of both Morrison and Delano's runs. Though Animal Man has since left Vertigo's stable and rejoined the DC Universe - appearing in Hawkman and Grant Morrison's own run on JLA there is no denying the part the title played in the foundation of the Vertigo line, and will not soon be forgotten.
DOOM PATROL
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mygreatestadventure80.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mygreatestadventure80T.jpg" alt="My Greatest Adventure #80" border=1 align=right></a>The Doom Patrol are perhaps the strangest superheroes the DCU Universe (and possibly the comic world) has ever seen. Even before Grant Morrison's landmark run on the title that would lead to its induction into the Vertigo stable, the various series of Doom Patrol have had a reputation for strangeness and the bizarre. While the team's premise as a collection of metahuman misfits that cannot fit into either the mundane world or the bright and hopeful world of Superman and the Justice League, is very similar to that of Marvel's X-Men (indeed the titles both appeared within three years of each other in 1963), "The World's Strangest Super-Heroes" never reached the lofty success of Marvel's band of mutants. While the Doom Patrol had its own following, the title had never quite been able to sustain itself as an ongoing concern, despite the valiant efforts of its various creative teams.
The Doom Patrol originally appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80, later taking over the title (becoming Doom Patrol) before its conclusion in October 1968. In Doom Patrol #121, the entire team including the characters of Robotman, Elasti-Girl and Negative Man, were killed in a storyline that effectively closed the saga of the Doom Patrol. Though, some of the supporting characters would later be resurrected - such as Beast Boy who would join the cast of Teen Titans shortly after - the Doom Patrol concept would not return until 1977's Showcase #94, when it was revealed that Cliff Steele (Robotman) had survived. The story introduced a new Doom Patrol, along with Robotman, who would star in Showcase for several issues before falling into comic book limbo once again.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/doompatrol19" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/doompatrol19T.jpg" alt="Doom Patrol #19" border=1 align=left></a>A decade later, the Doom Patrol were revived once again in their own, second series to very little fan interest. However, interest British writer Grant Morrison would be handed the low-risk series with 1989's Doom Patrol #19. The set-up for the new Doom Patrol would see Morrison reassemble the freakish team, consisting of Robotman, Rebis (a radioactive hermaphroditic gestalt of original Doom Patroller Larry Trainer and Dr. Eleanor Poole), Doom Patrol founder Niles Caulder, an ape-headed girl named Dorothy Spinner who can manifest her thoughts as solid forms and Kay Challis Crazy Jane a super-powered, but chronically insane woman suffering from multiple personality disorder. Morrison's team took the concept of the super-powered misfit further than ever, taking the team on a carnival ride of high concept insanity.
Morrison's Doom Patrol quickly found themselves mixed up in all kinds of reality-threatening calamities, from sentient paintings and Dada-devoted super-villains, a macabre journey through the head of Crazy Jane and the near-inexplicable threat of The Scissormen. Between the cover art of Simon Bisley, the interiors of Richard Case and the fevered pace of Morrison's twisted narrative, Doom Patrol was able to continue on for a further forty-four issues, ending with January 1993's Doom Patrol #63 before joining the Vertigo line with March 1993's #64, introducing the new writer Rachel Pollack who would steer the title through a troubled run up until its cancellation at #87. DC has since re-joined the Patrol to the DC Universe in a new series by John Byrne that ignores the Vertigo continuity.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo1T.jpg" alt="Flex Mentallo #1" border=1 align=right></a>Morrison would make his semi-return to the Doom Patrol world years later with his infamous Vertigo mini-series Flex Mentallo. Collaborating with artist Frank Quitely, Morrison would return to a character he had introduced in the pages of his Doom Patrol run the eponymous Flex Mentallo. While this collaboration is regarded by many to be the pair's best work, this mini-series would cause major problems for its creators, DC and the Doom Patrol.
Flex Mentallo was originally conceived as the ultimate superhero, based on Charles Atlas. Atlas's bodybuilding ads appeared in numerous comics throughout the years as selling fitness and weight training programs on the back of advertisting targeted at adolescents. Atlas promised the strength to fight back against bullies and the physique to win over girls, and enjoyed great success thanks to the perceived frailty and social outcast status of teenage comic book readers. Mentallo himself was a weedy youth who gained superhuman strength via a similar program to Atlas' own.
The Flex Mentallo series, used Flex to explore the role of superhero comic books and pop culture in general by placing Flex as the creation of the superhero-obsessed and suicidal writer Wallace Sage. Flex is a widely optimistic and surreal throwback to the Golden and Silver Ages of superheroes a bright and heroic icon existing in the drab and dark world of 90s superhero books and seems to be Morrison's own attempt at protesting this perceived denigration of the medium, playing up the transformative yet disposable nature of heroic fiction.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo3T.jpg" alt="Flex Mentallo #3" border=1 align=left></a>Flex Mentallo won critical acclaim upon its release and was quickly slated to be collected in paperback. Flex's success had also sparked an increased interest in Morrison's Doom Patrol, with DC looking to collect Case and Morrison's landmark run. However, this was not to be.
After having their attention turned to Flex Mentallo, Charles Atlas' Estate took DC to court over the character, which they saw not as a homage, but as misrepresentative of Atlas and infringing on the Estate's intellectual property. Without going into the legal why's and wherefores of the case, DC effectively won the suit but to avoid future legal battles, the Flex Mentallo trade paperback was cancelled and DC also agreed to never reprint the issues of Doom Patrol featuring the character.
Up until recently, only one Doom Patrol trade paperback would be released titled Crawling From The Wreckage, after Morrison's first story arc, which fell out of print following the Flex Mentallo debacle. However, last year DC re-released the first trade paperback (with a new cover), along with the second volume The Painting That Ate Paris (chronicling the Patrol's battle with the Brotherhood of Dada). At this time it is unknown what the status of future Doom Patrol trades will be or whether Flex Mentallo will see the light of day again. At the time of writing, both the four issue mini-series and the character's first appearance in Doom Patrol fetch a steep price in the comic book after-market.
THE SECOND WAVE
Following on from the first wave of Vertigo titles, DC would soon expand the line to include key properties such as The Books of Magic and Sandman Mystery Theater. The imprint would also become home to many smaller projects from its founders and others, including mini-series and one-shots such as Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's Sebastian O, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Mr. Punch and other titles too numerous to mention in the confines of this column. With no disrespect intended towards these shorter (but no less important) works, we will now focus on the second wave of Vertigo titles, such as the previously mentioned Sandman Mystery Theater and The Books of Magic, as well as the creator-owned Transmetropolitan (Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson), Preacher (Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon) and The Invisibles (Grant Morrison & Various).
THE BOOKS OF MAGIC
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagicmini1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagicmini1T.jpg" alt="The Books of Magic Mini-Series #1" border=1 align=right></a>Well before anyone had ever heard of Harry Potter and his sorcerous adventures, DC/Vertigo published a four-issue mini series centered around an unlikely young boy named Timothy Hunter, who discovers that he is destined to become the greatest wizard the world has ever seen. The character, star of the Neil Gaiman created Books of Magic, has become one of Vertigo's brightest stars, having appeared in numerous series devoted to his story.
The Books of Magic first appeared, pre-Vertigo in 1990. The four part series, gorgeously illustrated by Michael Bolton stands as one of Gaiman's strongest works to date. In the mini-series, we are introduced to Tim Hunter who is taken on a guided tour of the magical underbelly of the DC Universe. His companions on this journey are the fallen mystics of the Trenchcoat Brigade Dr. Occult, the Phantom Stranger, Mister E and Hellblazer and Swamp Thing's own John Constantine. By the end of the series, Hunter must choose whether to embrace his destiny, or attempt to return to his normal boyhood existence.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagic1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagic1T.jpg" alt="The Books of Magic #1" border=1 align=left></a>Hunter is taken through the lands of Faerie (and is revealed to the son of the elf Queen Titania) and to the very ends of time where he witness the demise of the universe and also meets an evil future version of himself, whom he determines he must never become. Gaiman's story of the innocent boy thrust into such an intimidating and awe-inspiring world and forced to grapple with the knowledge of his own dark destiny was quite a success for DC, leading to the launch of an ongoing series of The Books of Magic in 1994, under the Vertigo masthead.
The ongoing series, written by newcomer John Ney Reiber and featuring art by Peter Gross, Michael Kaluta and Gary Amaro, would continue where the mini-series left off, finding the young Tim Hunter struggling to maintain a relationship with his drunken father, managing his first girlfriend Molly, and exploring the nature of his powers and his place in the universe. The series would feature guest appearances by many Vertigo mainstays, including Death and other members of The Sandman cast, as well as the members of the Trenchcoat Brigade. Tim's early adventures would finally come to an end in the 75th issue of the series (written by former artist Peter Gross) with Tim, age fourteen finally beginning to accept his destiny as the greatest mage who has ever lived.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagickldw1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagickldw1T.jpg" alt="The Books of Magic: Life During Wartime #1" border=1 align=right></a>In 2001, DC/Vertigo would return to the story of Timothy Hunter with a five issue mini series by Dylan Horrocks and Doom Patrol penciller Richard Case (covers would be provided by original series artist John Bolton) titled The Names of Magic. The same year would see the launch of the twenty-five issue Hunter: The Age of Magic, based around an older Timothy Hunter and the White School of Magic.
Last year, Timothy Hunter was once again given his own series in The Books of Magick: Life During Wartime (note the new spelling using the spelling "magick"), under the pen of writer Si Spencer and artist Dean Ornson, with consultation from creator Neil Gaiman. The series is set somewhere outside of DC continuity and focuses on an earth torn apart by the warring factions of the "Born" and the "Bred". The people of this world are desperate for their Messiah, the Hunter to return, only he has been hidden away in another reality by Lord Constantine. This dimension has no magic or spirituality of any kind and here the college-age Hunter lives in bliss with his friends Dog, Cat and Molly, until a being from the other earth comes calling, igniting Tim's lost memory and forgotten powers of magic.
SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandmanmt1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandmanmt1T.jpg" alt="Sandman Mystery Theater #1" border=1 align=left></a>While Neil Gaiman had completely revamped the Sandman character into something unrecognizable from its roots, the Golden Age Sandman was given the Vertigo treatment in April 1993, written by Grendel creator Matt Wagner (with scripting assistance from Steven T. Seagle). Set in the 1930s, Sandman Mystery Theater had a dark, pulp noir style following the casebook of the gas-masked vigilante detective Wesley Dodds. Dodds, armed with a sleep gas gun, operated under the appropriate moniker of the Sandman.
While the rest of the early Vertigo titles focused on hip and outlandish characters in unusual, often surreal settings, Sandman Mystery Theater was firmly grounded in the realm of the pulp crime novel and was often neglected amidst the excitement over titles such as Swamp Thing and Hellblazer. Sandman Mystery Theater was an often-disturbing exploration of criminal pathology, delving primarily into crimes of hate and passion. Racism and sexual abuse often found their way into Dodd's unsettling case files.
Irregular sales (often due to confusion over its links with Gaiman's Sandman) and lack of marketing would eventually doom the series with issue #70. The character would later meet his counterpart Deam in the 1996 one-shot, Sandman Midnight Theatre but unfortunately even that crossover wasn't enough to re-ignite interest in the character. Sandman Mystery Theatre is fondly remembered by its dedicated fans and remains one of Vertigo's overlooked treasures.
THE INVISIBLES
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol1-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol1-1T.jpg" alt="The Invisibles Volume One #1" border=1 align=right></a>At once mystifying, inspiring, compelling and infuriating, The Invisibles stands as perhaps the most ambitious and multi-faceted comic book produced by Vertigo (if not in comic book history). Mad Yak Press' companion to the series, Anarchy for the Masses calls it "the first scrawled draft of a self-aware manifesto from the future in the form of a madcap spy-fi hypersigil comic book" and after contact with the series itself, it is difficult to disagree.
The Invisibles began in September 1994 at the onset of pre-millennium paranoia. Originally the series focused on a seemingly simplistic struggle between the Invisibles, a magically active, mega-hip world-wide organization of revolutionaries devoted to the precepts of Freedom and Individuality; and the shadowy, insectoid forces of Oppression and Conformity known as the Archons. The series, originally born from a desire to recreate Jack Kirby's Boy Commandoes for the internet generation would go on to evolve into a different beast entirely a six year long experiment in Morrison's own magickal beliefs and philosophy that threatened to explain "the very truth of the Universe".
Whether all the hyperbole surrounding the series is true or not, Morrison's saga of hidden conspiracies, tantric sex, time travel and contemporary shamanism stands as one of the high water marks of 1990s comic books that has inspired and influenced many of the industry's top writers, and also paved the way for the success of the Wachowsky Brothers' Matrix Trilogy.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol2-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol2-1T.jpg" alt="The Invisibles Volume Two #1" border=1 align=left></a>The Invisibles focuses primarily on a five member "cell", originally operating out of London. The team was made-up of Morrison's own alter-ego, the writer turned occult assassin King Mob; a time-travelling psychic redhead from the future named Ragged Robin (who bore a distinct resemblance to Morrison's Crazy Jane character from Doom Patrol); a New York cop-turned Invisible operative codenamed Boy; a glamorous South American transvestite witch named Lord Fanny; and the team's newest recruit a teenage Liverpudian thug named Dane McGowan, who may or may not be the age's reborn Buddha.
While the Invisibles are originally established as "the good guys", and indeed remain the series' protagonists, Morrison would later bust open the black and white/good and evil dynamic, evolving the series into a more mature position when the team, particularly King Mob, are forced to confront the repercussions of their often-violent actions. The series would play with conspiracy theories such as the Roswell crash, the origin of AIDS and the death of Princess Diana, as well as exploring the esoteric and religious themes of Tantra, Buddhism, Voodoo and Ceremonial Magick.
Despite the book's later success, The Invisibles nearly didn't make it through its first year, following the sales flop of its second storyline, the highly ambitious "Arcadia". While the opening arc of the series had been a magical mystery tour through the initiation of Dane McGowan, the explosive impact of the Invisibles' introduction ground to a halt with "Arcadia". Illustrated by Jill Thompson, "Arcadia" was a story of psychic time travel involving several scenes of Lord Byron, P.B. Shelley and his wife Mary, while the Invisibles hopped around through Revolutionary France, meeting up with the father of S&M, the Marquis de Sade. Many of the readers not already confused or downright bored by the Byron and Shelley interludes were turned off by the highly explicit (but ultimately necessary) scenes re-enacting de Sade's notoriously pornographic novels. Sales began to plummet.
Morrison, intent on continuing the series, begged and pleaded with DC, going so far to even enliste the aide of his own readers to participate in a magical ritual to stop the book from being cancelled. Somehow, someway sales began to pick up again, in no small part due to arrival of new series artist Phil Jimenez (Wonder Woman), allowing The Invisibles to complete its first volume with issue #24.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol3-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol3-1T.jpg" alt="The Invisibles Volume Three #1" border=1 align=right></a>Shortly after, the series would return in an all-new Volume Two, illustrated by Jimenez, that would add a distinctly Hollywood flavor to the series. While the high concept, literary references were still existent in the series, they had been pushed underground in favor of a more dynamic, action-oriented approach. Although the launch of The Invisibles Volume Two opened the doors to a flood of new readers, the series would become plagued by delays shortly after its launch, due in part to Morrison's own illness. Chris Weston would take over from Phil Jimenez as the story slowly, but surely continued through to its twenty-second issue the finale of the book's second season. The final volume in The Invisibles trinity began at issue #12, with the numbering intending to count backwards to #1 which was scheduled to ship in December 1999 to coincide with the turn of the new millennium. Unfortunately, delays once again plagued the series through 1999, with the series' final issue not shipping until June of the New Year.
While never reaching the dizzying heights of popularity of The Sandman, The Invisibles added a whole new dimension to the Vertigo imprint and guaranteed Grant Morrison's place as one of the industry's greatest innovators. The series also served as showcase for some of the industry's finest artistic talents including Steve Yeowell, Cameron Stewart, Philip Bond and Frank Quitely. The series has since been collected into seven trade volumes Say You Want A Revolution, Apocalypstick and Entropy In The UK (comprising The Invisibles Volume One); Bloody Hell In America, Counting to None and Kissing Mr. Quimper (The Invisibles Volume Two); and The Invisible Kingdom (the complete Volume Three).
PREACHER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preacher1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preacher1T.jpg" alt="Preacher #1" border=1 align=left></a>Hot off of their definitive run on Hellblazer, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon turned their energies to a creator-owned series of near Biblical proportions. Preacher, an odd fusion of John Wayne Westerns, Tarantino-style action sequences and one man's quest to find God was Vertigo's most successful series to follow the legendary Sandman. Beginning in April 1995 and spanning seventy-six issues (including the sixty-six issue series and a handful of one-shots and mini-series), Ennis' irreverent, violent and darkly funny series served as Vertigo's flagship for the second half of 90s.
A foul-mouthed small town preacher with a best-forgotten past is set on the trail of the missing Father of Creation after he becomes the host to Heaven's "dirty little secret" an unholy force born of the union of devil and angel known simply as "Genesis". After his church is burnt to the ground by his fusion with the entity, Reverend Jesse Custer gains "the Word of God" the ability to command any living creature to do his bidding. Blamed for the deaths of his parishioners, Custer is hunted by the town's police force.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preachercassidy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preachercassidyT.jpg" alt="Preacher: Cassidy Special #1" border=1 align=right></a>After fleeing to New York, he meets up with his old girlfriend Tulip (now a hitwoman) and a hard-drinking Irish vampire by the name of Cassidy. Cassidy and Tulip join him on his quest to find God, who has turned his back on his own creation and vacated Heaven. Custer intends to demand answers out the Almighty and convince him to return to his position.
What follows is an eventful and violent road-trip through the underbelly of the United States from Texas to the Louisiana bayou. Chasing the motley trio are a deformed teenager known as Arseface (who blames Custer for his father's death), Jesse's evil redneck family, an organization known as the Grail (dedicated to preserving the bloodline of the Nazarene), and Heaven's own unstoppable assassin the force of nature known as The Saint of Killers.
At once a celebration and condemnation of the Church and the American Dream, Preacher is a wild ride from start until its fitting finish in the cataclysmic "Alamo", detailing Custer's final showdown with the God who deserted Creation. The series has been collected as a nine volume trade collection, containing all the issues of the regular series along with the related one-shots and mini-series that round out the tale.
TRANSMETROPOLITAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan1T.jpg" alt="Transmetropolitan #1" border=1 align=left></a>In 1997 launched a new creator-owned, science fiction-oriented imprint known as Helix. Helix launched with a handful of mini-series, but its flagship title was Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Transmetropolitan a politically charged story of Gonzo Journalism, set in a near future. While the Helix imprint would be discontinued after its first year, Transmetropolitan's somewhat surprisingly strong sales allowed it to stay afloat, being folded into the Vertigo line with #13.
Transmetropolitan spotlights a somewhat deranged, drug-addled journalistic renegade named Spider Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a strange amalgam of the recently deceased "Father of New Journalism" Hunter S. Thompson, Patrick Stewart and his own creator, Ellis. At the outset of the series, Jerusalem is enticed down from his mountain hideaway and out of retirement to once again embroil himself in the seedy and dangerous battlefield of political journalism.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan13T.jpg" alt="Transmetropolitan #13" border=1 align=right></a>Jerusalem takes up a position on the City's (presumably the future New York) most popular newspaper, The Word and begins writing the Gonzo-inspired column titled "I Hate It Here". Spider quickly takes up his old rivalry with the president, known most widely by his Spider-given nickname "The Beast", aiding in his eventually unseating by new candidate Gary Callahan (known as "The Smiler").
Though Spider and his column have a hand in displacing The Beast, he soon discovers that Callahan is an even greater monster than his predecessor. Following Callahan's assassination of his own campaign manager, Spider's friend Vita Severn, the journalist declares a personal war on "The Smiler", aided by his "filthy assistants" Channon Yarrow and Yelena Rossini.
Most of the series deals with Spider's crusade against the new President, a long and twist-filled journey that is coloured with Ellis' own unqiue insights. The future world of Transmetropolitan served as a sixty-issue carthasis of sorts for its writer, who often used the book to express his own views on consumerism, the media, American society and global politics. Robertson is the perfect fit for the series, presenting an almost cartoon-like view of a consumerist dystopian gone wild.
While single issues of Transmetropolitan continued to sell well enough to keep the series afloat, like many Vertigo titles the title was best served through its increasingly popular trade collections. During his run on Transmetropolitan, Ellis would become a breakout talent thanks to his enormously popular work on Wildstorm's Authority and Planetary, which created all-new interest in Transmetropolitan's trade program that continues to this day.
VERTIGO: THE NEW BREED
Now in its twelfth year, Vertigo continues to be a dominant force within the comic book industry, lining the shelf with hard hitting hits. While the Vertigo label was originally known for its unique blend of literary horror, the line has since grown to encompass superhero fiction, sci-fi, fantasy and hardboiled crime stories, digging its claws firmly into its position on the bleeding edge of comic book storytelling. While the legacy of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano's pioneering work carries on, the stable has been joined by new "it" creators such as Brian K. Vaughan and Bill Winningham as well as providing a home for the leftfield works of elder statesman like Peter Milligan's Human Target and Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's recently concluded mini-series We3.
LUCIFER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LuciferCv62.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LuciferCv62T.jpg" alt="Lucifer #61 Preview" align=left></a>Lucifer continues the tale of Lucifer Morningstar (yes, THAT Lucifer) first begun in The Sandman. Written by current Hellblazer scribe Mike Carey, Lucifer is a touching and suprising study of the devil as he seeks to find his place in the world. Eternally damned by his father and cast into a destiny not fully of his choosing, Lucifer seeks desperately to take control of his own life in light of the crushing weight of his own responsibility. Sure he's "evil", but what exactly does evil mean in the greater scheme of things? Featuring guest appearances by several key figures from the Dreaming, Lucifer is a wonderful and thought-provoking exploration of one of The Sandman's most popular characters.
FABLES
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/Fables-Cv37.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/Fables-Cv37T.jpg" alt="Fables #37 Preview" align=right></a>Filling the gap where the mythology-steeped Sandman left off, Robin writer Bill Winnigham has delighted fans with his story of exiled fairy tale characters living in New York City in the Eisner Award-winning series Fables. While a seemingly lightweight premise at first glance, Winningham has crafted an engaging and believable world filled with seemingly familiar childhood characters such as Pinocchio, Snow White and Bigby (The Big, Bad) Wolf thrust into the crushing weight of mundane reality. Fables was an instant hit with readers based on Winnigham's clever scripting and the artist talents of Lan Medina and cover artist James Jean. While the premise is firmly rooted in fantasy, Fables is equal parts murder mystery, romance, politcal thriller and action-adventure, effortlessly changing lanes between genres. The series is solicited up to its thirty-seventh issue so far and is supported by a timely program of trade paperbacks.
Y: THE LAST MAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/YtheLastManCv33.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/YtheLastManCv33T.jpg" alt="Y: The Last Man #33 Preview" align=left></a>What would if you were the last man left alive, surrounded only by women? Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways) and Pia Guerra have taken an age-old question to its fullest conclusion in Y: The Last Man. After a freak occurence wipes out of all the males of every species on earth, the planet is plunged into chaos. Political and social upheaval of near-apocalyptic proportions, as women scramble to make their way in a world with men. As women are finally allowed to break past through the glass ceiling in the wake of tragedy, they must also contend with the very real knowledge that, without the males of the species, the human race is doomed to extinction. Enter a naive Arts student named Yorick Brown, the last remaining male and star of Y: The Last Man. With his travelling companions - a secret agent known only as 355, the geneticist Dr. Mann and his pet monkey Ampersand - Y embarks on a quest to track down his girlfriend amidst the chaos, while coming to terms with the ramifications of his status as the last man left alive. While many books based around such as premise could easily slip into endless sexual comedy, Vaughan's hit series takes a unique and intelligent approach to its simple premise, infusing the series with high drama, suspense and deep sense of mystery that has captivated comics readers across the world.
100 BULLETS
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/100bulletsCv61.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/100bulletsCv61T.jpg" alt="100 Bullets #61 Preview" align=right></a>Another of DC's recent Eisner Award recipients, 100 Bullets is a gripping revenge thriller from the Batman: Broken City team of Brian Azzarrello and Eduardo Risso. In each 100 Bullets story arc, Agent Graves, an elderly man formerly employed by a shadowy organization known simply as "The Trust", approaches someone who bears a grudge or seeks has been harme din some way. Handing them an attache case containing a pistol and exactly one hundred bullets, Graves offers these souls the opportunity for repercussion-less vengeance. The bullets are untraceable in any way - seemingly of occult origin. Graves presents his beneficiaries with a deadly choice, one that is sorely tempting for all of the wronged parties he approaches. While each arc begins in such a way however, there is an ongoing narrative running through the series, relating to Graves, The Trust and an organization known as the Minutemen. 100 Bullets is dripping in pulp/noir style and morally ambiguity. The series has been collected into seven trade paperbacks so far, with more to come as the ongoing series continues. The book has proved quite successful and was recently licensed as a video game.
THE LOSERS
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LosersCv24.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LosersCv24T.jpg" alt="The Losers #24 Preview" align=left></a>The Losers is a crime/espionage thriller from the mind of Adam Strange's Andy Diggle. A stylish blend of Oceans Eleven and Heat, The Losers is the story of a former CIA special ops unit who are betrayed by their country and left for dead after a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Believed dead, they head underground before returning to wage war on their former employers, the CIA themselves.The Losers does away with the decompressed, slow-paced storytelling of many of its comic book peers and instead delivers a pulse-pounding, Hollywood-worthy action movie right there on the page. The Losers is quite a departure for Vertigo - who for years relied primarily the dark fantasy/cerebral horror roots of the imprint - and displays DC's willingness to expand and further the line into new territory. The Losers is one of Vertigo's most accessible series and posesses a high level of "mainstream" appeal - a surprising book that is well worth checking out.
As DC turns the corner on its auspicious seventieth anniversary, Vertigo retains its place in the company's publishing plan and has its eyes set towards the future. With over a decade of classic comic books under its belt, and a line-up of sure-to-be classic material hitting the shelves, the long and storied history of Vertigo promises to continue its commitment to challenging storytelling into this new millennium and beyond.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
For more information on DC's Vertigo line and extensive trade paperback catalog you can visit DC Comics' Vertigo sub-site at http://www.dccomics.com/vertigo.
Vertigo titles such as Y: The Last Man, Fables and the Vertigo TPB archive are available from X-World (http://www.x-worldcomics.com).
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past twelve years, the name "Vertigo" should be a familiar one. From its very inception, DC's pioneering "mature readers" imprint has been associated with some of the medium's master craftsmen, including Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore. While many of DC's imprints have fallen by the wayside (such as Milestone and Piranha Press), the line has become a mainstay of the industry. In this, the final edition of Diverse Currents, we probe into what is regarded by many to be the most important publisher in American comic books Vertigo.
SCRATCHING THE SURFACE
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mooregaimanmorrison.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mooregaimanmorrison.jpg" alt="The three fathers of Vertigo" border=1 align=right></a>The Vertigo Comics label was devised as a catch-all banner for DC's successful line of titles that spun out of the "British Invasion" of the late 1980s. Much like the earlier British Invasion of the American music industry, the arrival of several key British comic book creators on the U.S. scene created a revolution in American comic book content and reset the boundaries on the creative possibilities of the traditional comic book format. Alan Moore's Watchmen may very well be the last word on superheroes; Neil Gaiman's The Sandman brought an unheard of artistic and literary sensibility to the American comic book market that pushed the series out of the realm of the comic book long-boxes and onto the bookstore shelf; while Grant Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol further Moore's deconstructionist approach, fusing the superhero concept with the experimental free-for-all of William S. Burroughs and Salvador Dali. The pioneering work of these writers, along with Jamie Delano and Peter Milligan, would carve out a new subset of the mainstream comic book audience the dubiously named "Mature Readers" market. DC latched onto the industry's need for such an imprint and established the Vertigo label in 1993.
The creation of the label itself was spearheaded by group editor Karen Berger. Berger had been a DC editor for much of the 1980s, working on titles such as Amethyst, House of Mystery, Black Orchid and Wonder Woman and by the early 90s had found herself as the editor on the Pre-Vertigo Swamp Thing, Shade The Changing Man, Hellblazer, Animal Man and of course, The Sandman. Those five books, joined by the Mark Waid and Robert Greenberger-edited Doom Patrol, would form the initial core of the Vertigo stable with The Sandman #47 being the first Vertigo-branded DC publication. While DC was certainly not the first publisher to carry the torch of post-Comics Code, adult-oriented content a combination of "right place, right time, right books, right people" would ensure the Vertigo line's success and longevity.
As noted in previous editions of this column, the first half of the 1990s was a phenomenal growth period for the comic industry. Sales were at an all-time high, new publishers were popping up left, right and center with Image Comics at the forefront. Comic books were becoming increasingly driven by larger-than-life artwork, variant covers and editorially dictate mega-events often aimed at the speculator market. Publishers, readers and speculators were frantically searching for the "next big thing", whether that took the form of scarce Stephen Platt-drawn books, the latest first issue variant foil-hologramatic-scratch and sniff chase cover from Image, or the next death/rape/crippling/defection of a time-honored superhero character. Eschewing variant covers and carefully constructed publicity stunts, Vertigo became a success story based on its well-crafted, story-driven content that appealed to many members of the comic book consumer base that were fed up with the hollow and contrived storylines of mainstream comcis. With many readres hungering for a "meatier" alternative, Vertigo was there to pick up the slack.
While the titles of the initial Vertigo line-up were originally a part of the DC Universe , the shift to Vertigo allowed those titles to drift away from the core DC continuity. As the Vertigo line expanded past its initial offerings, the line would become home to many creator-owned series, devoid of any connection to the DCU. The first two longform creator-owned titles launched by the imprint were Grant Morrison's mind-bending masterpiece The Invisibles and the Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon backed Preacher. In the years that followed, Vertigo would also become home to such beloved series as Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Transmetropolitan (originally published under the Helix label) and Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man.
One of the most important factors in the Vertigo line's continuing success has been in DC's commitment to the Vertigo back catalogue. Collections of all the key Vertigo titles are now available in trade paperback editions, ensuring that these seminal works will stay in print for many years to come. Trade paperbacks of The Sandman are a perennial best-seller both in bookstores and direct market outlets, accompanied by complete collections of Preacher, The Invisibles, The Books of Magic, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, Transmetropolitan and many, many more.
THE STUFF OF DREAMS...AND NIGHTMARES
Perhaps the best way for us to continue our journey into Vertigo is to take a deeper look at the most prominent offerings from the history of Vertigo, starting with the book where it all began Swamp Thing - before peeling back the veil further and examining the rest of the original Vertigo titles.
SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/housesecrets92.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/housesecrets92T.jpg" alt="House of Secrets #92" border=1 align=left></a>The current incarnation of DC's "muck encrusted mockery of a man", the Swamp Thing, was created in 1972 by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson a revamped version of an earlier character first appearing in 1971's House of Secrets #92. In the 1972 version, the Swamp Thing was a botanical scientist named Alec Holland who, after an explosion in his lab was covered in the chemical coponents of a transformational "bio-restorative" formula he was working on that would be able to restore even deserts to thriving forestland. Burning to death and covered in his formula, Holland dove into the waters of a nearby swamp. Holland was never heard from again, though a while later a humanoid plant entity emerged from the Louisiana bayou, possessed of the scientist's psyche. This slimy green grotesquery would become DC's premier horror character throught the 1970s, appearing in many of DC's other titles as the being that believed itself to be Alec Holland would search the DCU for a way to restore its lost humanity.
In the 1980s, the Swamp Thing was brought back in a second series Saga of the Swamp Thing, following the release of a mildly successful Swamp Thing feature film. After twenty issues of the series, the book fell into the hands of a young, relatively unknown writer who would transform the series into the most compelling and influential horror comic since the glory days of E.C. That writer's name was Alan Moore.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing21.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing21T.jpg" alt="Saga of the Swamp Thing #21" border=1 align=right></a>While a newcomer to the business of American comics, Moore had garnered a strong following with comic readers in the United Kingdom, based on his work for British anthologies 2000A.D. and Warrior where he produced such serials D.R. and Quinch, Skizz, The Ballad of Halo Jones, The Boejeffries Saga, Marvelman and the now-classic V For Vendetta (re-printed years later under the Vertigo banner). Brought to the U.S. by editor and Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein, Moore was initially paired with artist Stephen R. Bissette and assigned to the series with issue #21. The rest, as they say, is history.
In his first story "The Anatomy Lesson", Moore turned the Swamp Thing concept completely on its head, re-inventing the Swamp Thing not as man-turned-monster but instead as a monster that believed itself to be man the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland at all. As the series progressed, Moore revealed (through John Constantine) that the Swamp Thing was in fact a plant elemental, a sentient conglomeration of various vegetable species that had absorbed the memories and knowledge of Holland when he had fallen into the bog years before.
Guided by Moore's poetic prose and the moody, visceral artwork of Bisette and his successors, Saga of the Swamp Thing (renamed as Swamp Thing Vol. 2 with #39) set a new standard for literate horror in the comic medium. The seething horror of the character's existence and macabre circumstances, coupled with Moore's own exploration of environmentalism, built up a devoted following, firmly cementing Moore's place on the international stage.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/constantineswampthing.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/constantineswampthingT.jpg" alt="Constantine meets the Swamp Thing" border=1 align=left></a>Moore enjoyed a five year run on the series, handing the book over to series artist Rick Veitch in 1987. The same year would see Moore's earlier creation, John Constantine launched in his own series Hellblazer written by Jamie Delano. Constantine had become a recurring character in Moore's Swamp Thing, leading to a crossover storyline of sorts during Veitch's run, whereby Constantine was to serve as a surrogate father of sorts for the Swamp Thing's adopted son a plant elemental sprout. Swamp Thing enlisted Constantine to impregnate his human girlfriend Abby Arcane. The baby born of their union would serve as the host for the "sprout", creating an elemental bridge between the worlds of human and plant life. The series has enjoyed a close kinship with the Hellblazer title throughout its run.
Veitch would enjoy a highly successful run on the title until his second major storyline. After a series of time-travel adventures, the elemental was to meet Jesus Christ, who would be revealed to be a white magician in #88. Unfortunately, the story was never reached the printed page. Concerned over the recent controversy of Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, DC had grave concerns over publishing such a story and refused to publish Veitch's script, citing pressure from religious groups. Veitch, disgusted, resigned from the series.
Swamp Thing's writers-in-wait, Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano both refused to take over from Veitch in a show of solidarity that would force the title into hiatus until Doug Wheeler came aboard as writer. The incident would cause many problems for DC as readers spurned Wheeler's run and the wounds created by DC's decision to censore Veitch's storyline would soon contribute to Alan Moore's total departure from DC. The series would later fall into the hands of novelist Nancy A. Collins, who enjoyed a three year run on the title. Mark Millar would take over the series with 1994's Swamp Thing #140 (with co-writing credits going to Grant Morrison for the first four issues), continuing on the title until its demise with #171.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/swampthing129.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/swampthing129T.jpg" alt="Swamp Thing #129" border=1 align=right></a>Strangely, the man often being credited as being the soul of the Vertigo line has never written directly for it. Swamp Thing did not gain the Vertigo tag until #129 (part of the Nancy A. Collins era). Even so, there can be no argument that it was Moore and Veitch's contributions to the book that paved the way for the formation of Vertigo and the available trade paperbacks of the Moore and Veitch runs now hold a firm place in Vertigo's back catalog.
Following Swamp Thing Vol. 2's demise in October 1996, a third series was launched in 2000, focusing on Swamp Thing's daughter, Tefe Holland the product of the earlier union of Constantine and Abby Arcane, lasting for twenty issues. The fourth volume of Swamp Thing adventures was launched last year under the pen of Andy Diggle (of Losers and Adam Strange fame) who returned the focus to the Alec Holland Swamp Thing. Diggle's six-issue stint has been followed by writer Joshua Dysart and artist Enrique Breccia. The series is currently solicited up to issue #15.
JOHN CONSTANTINE, HELLBLAZER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing37.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sagaoftheswampthing37T.jpg" alt="Saga of the Swamp Thing #37" border=1 align=left></a>One thing that has always been at the heart of Vertigo's success has been its characters. Populating the surreal landscapes of Vertigo are such unforgettable creations as the Endless, Buddy Baker, Timothy Hunter, the Swamp Thing, the freakish Doom Patrol and of course, the walking, talking, chain-smoking personification of the soul of Vertigo itself the "bad luck magician" John Constantine.
Introduced in Saga of the Swamp Thing #37, Constantine would seek the elemental's aid against a cult of Patagonian witches known as the Brujeria. Constantine became the Thing's traveling companion for several issues, teaching the creature once believed to be Alec Holland, about its true nature and the extent of its abilities.
Constantine himself is something of a mystery. He's a sharp witted, foul-mouthed, fork-tongued adrenalin junkie who just happens to be something of an occult adept. The man has stared down demons, angels and the raging fires of the Apocalypse. But Constantine is far from being labeled a hero. His current actions and cynical outlook are the result of a dark past a bloody minefield of death, mayhem and loneliness. Constantine is haunted by his past misdeeds, but rather than propelling him towards any form of redemption they have often led him to further damnation.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer1T.jpg" alt="Hellblazer #1" border=1 align=right></a>Constantine, a recurring character throughout Moore's Swamp Thing, would receive his own title in 1988 Hellblazer - written by Jamie Delano with art by John Ridgeway. The serialized misadventures of this complex anti-hero would go onto to become Vertigo's long-running series and has since spawned the American-ized feature film Constantine.
The Hellblazer series would take Constantine out of the Louisiana bayou and return him to his birth country of England. Delano's run would crossover into Swamp Thing during the storyline involving Swamp Thing and Abigail Arcane's baby. Delano's run was dripping with a post-punk despair, offering up a clever commentary on Thatcherite Britain, via the metaphysical horror of demonic possessions and bodily invasions.
Delano and Ridgeway would steer the title for its first 24 continuous issues before briefly handing the title over to fill-in writers Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison. Delano then returned to the series with #28, continuing on until the arrival of Garth Ennis with Hellblazer #41. While Alan Moore may have created the character and Delano had evolved the character into a lead role position, it was Garth Ennis' run of the title that is considered by many to be the definitive era for Hellblazer.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer41.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/hellblazer41T.jpg" alt="Hellblazer #41" border=1 align=left></a>Ennis and artist Will Simpson brought readers the seminal, fan favorite "Dangerous Habits" storyline. This six-part arc would see Constantine diagnosed with lung cancer. In a desperate bid to save his own skin, Constantine pulls off perhaps the greatest swindle in history when he manages to trick not one, but three demons into restoring his health. Constantine sells his soul to each of the demons in quick succession, before finally cutting open his wrist in an attempted suicide. At the moment before his death, each of the demon brothers shows up to claim Constantine's soul, unaware of each other's claim. Should Constantine die, the three brothers would be forced into a long and un-winnable war over the man's soul. In order to avoid such a pointless conflict, the unholy trinity opts to restore Constantine's life (and lungs). Of course, as always with Constantine, these actions would go on to complicate his already twisted life even further in stories to come.
Ennis would continue on the series until 1994's Hellblazer #83, following the "Rake At The Gates of Hell" storyline. Ennis would work with artist Steve Dillon from #57, forming the storied partnership that would go on to create the classic series, Preacher. With Hellblazer #63, Dillon and Ennis book would, at last join the newly-minted Vertigo label. Ennis would hand the book over to Paul Jenkins, who continued Constantine's adventures through until Ennis' brief return for 1998's "Son of Man" (#129-133).
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shootpage5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shootpage5T.jpg" alt="Page 5 of the unpublished Shoot story" border=1 align=right></a>Following Jenkin's run the up-and-coming Warren Ellis would take over the title for a brief run, that, like Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing was aborted prematurely, due to censorship. Ellis' Hellblazer #141, entitled "Shoot", centered around high school shootings a story that would be pre-empted by the Columbine shootings. Though completed, DC pulled the issue prior to shipping (despite previously deciding to stand behind Ellis' script). The experience would sour Ellis on the title, leaving after a further three issues. This was the first instance of censorship of a Vertigo comic since the imprint's creation. Following Ellis' run and a two-parter by Darko Marcan, 100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello was assigned to the book, working with artists such as Marcelo Frusin, Steve Dillon and industry legend Richard Corben. Azzarrello enjoyed mixed success on the book before handing it over to current writer Mike Carey.
Constantine has also appeared in numerous specials and mini-series and has also made many appearances throughout other Vertigo titles such as Books of Magic and The Sandman. With the recent release of the Constantine feature film, DC has stepped up their trade paperback schedule and re-released a number of out of print collections and one-shots, including the excellent primer on John Constantine and his world Vertigo Secret Files: Hellblazer. With a new movie under its belt, Vertigo's longest running title shows no signs of losing its' position as the line's flagship.
THE SANDMAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandman47.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandman47T.jpg" alt="The Sandman #47" border=1 align=left></a>While certainly not the first comic book to be worthy of the title of "literature", there can be no doubt that The Sandman is the book that put comic books on the map as a source of intelligent storytelling. The Sandman has become a publishing phenomenon, spinning out of the Diamond Distribution sales charts and onto the New York Times Bestsellers List and has been writer Neil Gaiman's springboard to stardom as a mainstream novelist. The Sandman was also the first-ever official Vertigo title, launching the imprint with #47.
The series was originally conceived as an update to DC's old gas-mask wearing crimefighter, the Sandman. While the sleep gun toting vigilante detective would later find his own place in the Vertigo line in Sandman Mystery Theater, Neil Gaiman's Sandman was an entirely different beast, focusing instead on a mythical pantheon known as The Endless - chiefly the Lord of Dreams, Morpheus the Sandman. The Endless themselves are a family of seven siblings, as old as time itself. Each is the personification of a separate sphere of human experience Destiny, Death, Dream (Morpheus), Delirium (formerly Delight), Despair and the absent brother, Destruction.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/Sandman1t.jpg" alt="The Sandman #1" border=1 align=right></a>The Sandman first hit shelves in December of 1988, written by Gaiman with art by Mike Dringenberg and would quickly establish a solid reader base. The world crafted by Gaiman, though ostensibly a part of the DC Universe, was a perfect fit for the Lord of Dreams. Mythically elegant, beautiful and quite often terrifying.
Neil Gaiman's opus has been supported by the artwork of some of the best and brightest of the industry including Jill Thompson, Sam Kieth, Bryan Talbot, Marc Hempel and an array of magnificent covers and occasional interiors from superstar painter Dave McKean. The Sandman has won numerous industry awards for its creator including the Eisner awards for Best Writer and Best Continuing Series, and was the first comic book to ever receive a literary award the 1991 Award for World Fantasy.
The series begins with Dream escaping his decades-long imprisonment by a coven of mages (who had originally sought to contain his sister, Death). The Dream King then finds himself in a bid to reclaim his kingdom the Dreaming, and must deal with the repercussions of his imprisonment. Over the course of its 75-issue run, the series takes many twists and turns before its conclusion, introducing us to strange new characters including some very familiar beings plucked from the realms of mythlogy and fable such as Cain and Abel.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNights.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/top10dccovers/SandmanEndlessNightst.jpg" alt="The Sandman: Endless Nights" border=1 align=left></a>The monumental series has been collected by DC into ten collections Preludes & Nocturnes; The Doll's House, Dream Country, Season of Mists, A Game of You, Fables and Reflections, Brief Lives, World's End, The Kindly Ones and The Wake. These volumes comprising the core of The Sandman Library have been reprinted in several editions and translated into several different languages and are a perennially strong seller in bookstores and direct market outlets alike.
The series has also spawned the popular spin-offs Death: The High Cost of Living, Death: The Time Of Your Life (based on the most popular of the Endless siblings, Death); two original graphic novels in Endless Nights and The Dream Hunters, as well as series such as The Dreaming (including tales from the other characters in Dream's Kingdom) and the still-running Lucifer. An anthology of short stories by well-known authors such as Clive Barker, Caitlin Kiernan and Tad Williams was published in 1996 by Voyager/Harper-Collins titled The Book of Dreams.
Despite all of these spin-offs and the contributions of post-Sandman writers to the Dreaming canon, it is testament to the masterpiece status of Gaiman's original work that DC, despite the immense sales potential, refrained from continuing the series after Gaiman's departure with #75, choosing instead to allow the series to stand alone as a finite and complete work.
SHADE THE CHANGING MAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shadeditko1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shadeditko1T.jpg" alt="Ditkos Shade the Changing Man #1" border=1 align=right></a>Shade the Changing Man originally appeared in 1977 as the post-Marvel creation of legendary artist Steve Ditko. The series was the fast-paced, high action sci-fi story of an other-dimensional alien from the planet Meta, called Rac Shade. Shade was a Flash Gordon-style science hero on the run from his own government following his escape from prison and possessed an illegal Metran weapon known as the M-Vest. The series, while short-lived, holds a special place in the hearts of many fans to this day.
Shade would remain in creative Limbo for many years until writer Peter Milligan was called up as part of the "British Invasion", and chose the character for a psychedelic update for his contribution to DC's Mature Readers line in 1990. Milligan would collaborate with artist Chris Bachalo on the series, which would update the Shade character to being an insane, reality-bending protagonist who has inhabited the dead body of a serial killer.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shade33.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/shade33T.jpg" alt="Shade the Changing Man #33" border=1 align=left></a>Much of Shade's story is told through the eyes of his human companions Lenny and Kathy (whose parents were killed by the serial killer who's body the alien Shade now inhabits). Shade's mission is to combat the forces of madness unwittingly released upon the earth by Metran scientist, using the M-Vest (now the Madness Vest). The series is a time-bending, mind-blowing romp through psychoactively charged worlds of madness and mayhem, that while often seen as impenetrably obtuse became a cult hit for DC. The series joined the Vertigo line with issue #33, concluding in 1996 with #70.
Shade would act as a launchpad for Milligan's American industry success, going on to produce Enigma, Face and Human Target (amongst others) for Vertigo and in more recent years he has worked for several titles on for Marvel Comics, including X-Statix and X-Men. Milligan's career began, much like his British contemporaries with work on anthology series such as Revolver, Crisis and 2000A.D., with his contributions including his classic team-up with Brendan McCarthy on the Shade-esque Hindu acid trip, Rogan Gosh (later reprinted by Vertigo).
ANIMAL MAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman1T.jpg" alt="Animal Man #1" border=1 align=right></a>Of all the original Vertigo titles, Animal Man and Doom Patrol were the only two to focus on superheroes. Make no mistake however, Morrison's contributions to Vertigo's genesis bear little resemblance to traditional superhero books. Morrison would dirve the superhero concept into uncharted regions of novelty and oddity - and what could stranger than a comic book superhero who actually discovers that he is a comic book superhero?
Grant Morrison was drafted by Karen Berger based on his work for 2000A.D. and Marvel UK. Morrison's first break came on Marvel UK's Zoids and contributed several Future Shock features for 2000A.D., along with his long running, four-phase superhero cycle Zenith. No stranger to superheroes and high weirdness, DC let Morrison's unique talents run wild over the adventures of the C-list superhero Animal Man, beginning the pre-Vertigo series with Animal Man #1 in 1988.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/strangeadventures80.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/strangeadventures80T.jpg" alt="Strange Adventures #80" border=1 align=left></a>Animal Man (Buddy Baker) was a sometime superhero, able to temporarily draw upon the energy of earth's animal kingdom. Baker's powers gained from contact with an alien spaceship enabled him to pick and choose abilities from any animal within a designated radius, such as absorbing the ability to breathe underwater from nearby marine life. The character had originally appeared in 1965's Strange Adventures #80 and maintained his presence as a minor character in DC's canon for many years, guest-starring across several titles during his on-and-off career.
Initially Animal Man seemed like a run-of-the-mill, traditional superhero comic. Buddy comes out of semi-retirement, taking up the mantle of Animal Man full-time. Soon however, the series began to incorporate Morrison's impassioned view point on the subject of animal rights. After an incident involving S.T.A.R. Labs and the B'wana Beast (which also temporarily costs him his own arm until Baker's inventive use of the regenerative powers of earthworms), Baker becomes a crusader for animal rights and the environment, giving up eating meat and clashing with hunters and rights-violating scientists. During Morrison's run, Animal Man was steeped in DC Universe continuity, forming part of the "Invasion" crossover; Buddy would also join the Justice League and clash with DC villains such as Psycho-Pirate and the Mirror Master. Morrison would also weave a Crisis on Infinite Earths coda in later issues, addressing some of the narrative paradoxes brought on by his own work on the title as well as exploring meta-textually, the nature of fiction and the notion of "continuity".
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman5T.jpg" alt="Animal Man #5" border=1 align=right></a>Despite this seeming link with the mainstream DCU, as early as #5's story "The Coyote Gospel", readers could tell there was something much larger going on in Animal Man than simple superheroics. "The Coyote Gospel" was the first real taste of what was to come at the climax of Morrison run on the book. In this story, a cartoon coyote (analogous to Wile E. Coyote), enters into Animal Man's world, only to be killed by a gunman. Despite its seeming absurdity, "The Coyote Gospel" is a thought-provoking, haunting tale about violence and a postmodernist look at the concept of conscious fiction a theme that recurs in Morrison's work to this day. The notion of a fictional being given "life" would prove to be the defining element of Morrison's run, as evidenced by Animal Man's contact with his own "creator" in Morrison's final issue (#26) where Buddy learns that he is, in fact a comic book character when Morisson writes himself into his own book.
Morrison's twenty-six issue run on Animal Man never actually bore the Vertigo banner, though the three trade paperbacks collecting his run have been retro-actively stamped with the Vertigo label. Following Morrison's departure, the book fell into the hands of Shade the Changing Man writer Peter Milligan. Milligan would begin his run, ignoring Morrison's climatic deconstruction of the title and having Baker awake from a coma into a very different world from the one he had left a seemingly alternate earth where America had fallen under control of a corrupt, ultra-right wing government.
Milligan's run was perhaps even stranger than Morrison's, lasting six issue culminated in Baker's suicide in #32, after which he was returned to the regular DC Universe under the supervision of Tom Veitch and Steve Dillon. The title retained its bizarre often absurd tone under the helm of Veitch. Buddy would learn that there was a link between all of the animal-related superheroes of the DCU. Simliar to Swamp Thing's "plant elemental" status, these "Animal Masters" shared a existential link with the planet's animal kingdom. The Animal Masters would go on to battle the villainous contagion, culminated in Animal Man #50, Veitch's final issue.
Jamie Delano would take over the title with #51, beginning his run with a bang by killing Buddy Baker off (again) in a car crash. Baker would journey into the Red (the meat-world equivalent of Alan Moore's concept of the Green over in Swamp Thing), a primal field that permeates all flesh-based life forms. While Morrison and Veitch's earlier runs on the title would portray the benign and beautiful side of the animal kingdom, Delano would take the series in the opposite direction, focusing on the inherent chaos and violence of animal life in particular, humanity's place within it.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman51.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/animalman51T.jpg" alt="Animal Man #51" border=1 align=left></a>Baker would return from the Red, and back to human form by issue #57, which would see the book join the Vertigo line. Baker created something of an activist commune - dedicated to the preservation of nature - on his family farm. However this was a very different Animal Man, possessed of greater and more frightening powers than before. Buddy became something of an extremist to say the least, leading an animal attack on America's capital, Washington D.C. The commune would go on to become a cult the Life Power Church of Maxine with Buddy as High Priest and his animal-powered daughter Maxine as its guiding light. Through the cult storyline (that would become something of a road tripping sideshow of weirdness), Delano explored not only environmental issues but offered an often scathing perspective on religion.
Delano's run would end with #79, handing the title over to writer Jerry Prosser for its remaining six issues. Unfortunately, Prosser's run would be shunned by fans, with the writer in the unfortunate position of writing in the shadow of both Morrison and Delano's runs. Though Animal Man has since left Vertigo's stable and rejoined the DC Universe - appearing in Hawkman and Grant Morrison's own run on JLA there is no denying the part the title played in the foundation of the Vertigo line, and will not soon be forgotten.
DOOM PATROL
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mygreatestadventure80.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/mygreatestadventure80T.jpg" alt="My Greatest Adventure #80" border=1 align=right></a>The Doom Patrol are perhaps the strangest superheroes the DCU Universe (and possibly the comic world) has ever seen. Even before Grant Morrison's landmark run on the title that would lead to its induction into the Vertigo stable, the various series of Doom Patrol have had a reputation for strangeness and the bizarre. While the team's premise as a collection of metahuman misfits that cannot fit into either the mundane world or the bright and hopeful world of Superman and the Justice League, is very similar to that of Marvel's X-Men (indeed the titles both appeared within three years of each other in 1963), "The World's Strangest Super-Heroes" never reached the lofty success of Marvel's band of mutants. While the Doom Patrol had its own following, the title had never quite been able to sustain itself as an ongoing concern, despite the valiant efforts of its various creative teams.
The Doom Patrol originally appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80, later taking over the title (becoming Doom Patrol) before its conclusion in October 1968. In Doom Patrol #121, the entire team including the characters of Robotman, Elasti-Girl and Negative Man, were killed in a storyline that effectively closed the saga of the Doom Patrol. Though, some of the supporting characters would later be resurrected - such as Beast Boy who would join the cast of Teen Titans shortly after - the Doom Patrol concept would not return until 1977's Showcase #94, when it was revealed that Cliff Steele (Robotman) had survived. The story introduced a new Doom Patrol, along with Robotman, who would star in Showcase for several issues before falling into comic book limbo once again.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/doompatrol19" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/doompatrol19T.jpg" alt="Doom Patrol #19" border=1 align=left></a>A decade later, the Doom Patrol were revived once again in their own, second series to very little fan interest. However, interest British writer Grant Morrison would be handed the low-risk series with 1989's Doom Patrol #19. The set-up for the new Doom Patrol would see Morrison reassemble the freakish team, consisting of Robotman, Rebis (a radioactive hermaphroditic gestalt of original Doom Patroller Larry Trainer and Dr. Eleanor Poole), Doom Patrol founder Niles Caulder, an ape-headed girl named Dorothy Spinner who can manifest her thoughts as solid forms and Kay Challis Crazy Jane a super-powered, but chronically insane woman suffering from multiple personality disorder. Morrison's team took the concept of the super-powered misfit further than ever, taking the team on a carnival ride of high concept insanity.
Morrison's Doom Patrol quickly found themselves mixed up in all kinds of reality-threatening calamities, from sentient paintings and Dada-devoted super-villains, a macabre journey through the head of Crazy Jane and the near-inexplicable threat of The Scissormen. Between the cover art of Simon Bisley, the interiors of Richard Case and the fevered pace of Morrison's twisted narrative, Doom Patrol was able to continue on for a further forty-four issues, ending with January 1993's Doom Patrol #63 before joining the Vertigo line with March 1993's #64, introducing the new writer Rachel Pollack who would steer the title through a troubled run up until its cancellation at #87. DC has since re-joined the Patrol to the DC Universe in a new series by John Byrne that ignores the Vertigo continuity.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo1T.jpg" alt="Flex Mentallo #1" border=1 align=right></a>Morrison would make his semi-return to the Doom Patrol world years later with his infamous Vertigo mini-series Flex Mentallo. Collaborating with artist Frank Quitely, Morrison would return to a character he had introduced in the pages of his Doom Patrol run the eponymous Flex Mentallo. While this collaboration is regarded by many to be the pair's best work, this mini-series would cause major problems for its creators, DC and the Doom Patrol.
Flex Mentallo was originally conceived as the ultimate superhero, based on Charles Atlas. Atlas's bodybuilding ads appeared in numerous comics throughout the years as selling fitness and weight training programs on the back of advertisting targeted at adolescents. Atlas promised the strength to fight back against bullies and the physique to win over girls, and enjoyed great success thanks to the perceived frailty and social outcast status of teenage comic book readers. Mentallo himself was a weedy youth who gained superhuman strength via a similar program to Atlas' own.
The Flex Mentallo series, used Flex to explore the role of superhero comic books and pop culture in general by placing Flex as the creation of the superhero-obsessed and suicidal writer Wallace Sage. Flex is a widely optimistic and surreal throwback to the Golden and Silver Ages of superheroes a bright and heroic icon existing in the drab and dark world of 90s superhero books and seems to be Morrison's own attempt at protesting this perceived denigration of the medium, playing up the transformative yet disposable nature of heroic fiction.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/flexmentallo3T.jpg" alt="Flex Mentallo #3" border=1 align=left></a>Flex Mentallo won critical acclaim upon its release and was quickly slated to be collected in paperback. Flex's success had also sparked an increased interest in Morrison's Doom Patrol, with DC looking to collect Case and Morrison's landmark run. However, this was not to be.
After having their attention turned to Flex Mentallo, Charles Atlas' Estate took DC to court over the character, which they saw not as a homage, but as misrepresentative of Atlas and infringing on the Estate's intellectual property. Without going into the legal why's and wherefores of the case, DC effectively won the suit but to avoid future legal battles, the Flex Mentallo trade paperback was cancelled and DC also agreed to never reprint the issues of Doom Patrol featuring the character.
Up until recently, only one Doom Patrol trade paperback would be released titled Crawling From The Wreckage, after Morrison's first story arc, which fell out of print following the Flex Mentallo debacle. However, last year DC re-released the first trade paperback (with a new cover), along with the second volume The Painting That Ate Paris (chronicling the Patrol's battle with the Brotherhood of Dada). At this time it is unknown what the status of future Doom Patrol trades will be or whether Flex Mentallo will see the light of day again. At the time of writing, both the four issue mini-series and the character's first appearance in Doom Patrol fetch a steep price in the comic book after-market.
THE SECOND WAVE
Following on from the first wave of Vertigo titles, DC would soon expand the line to include key properties such as The Books of Magic and Sandman Mystery Theater. The imprint would also become home to many smaller projects from its founders and others, including mini-series and one-shots such as Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's Sebastian O, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Mr. Punch and other titles too numerous to mention in the confines of this column. With no disrespect intended towards these shorter (but no less important) works, we will now focus on the second wave of Vertigo titles, such as the previously mentioned Sandman Mystery Theater and The Books of Magic, as well as the creator-owned Transmetropolitan (Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson), Preacher (Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon) and The Invisibles (Grant Morrison & Various).
THE BOOKS OF MAGIC
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagicmini1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagicmini1T.jpg" alt="The Books of Magic Mini-Series #1" border=1 align=right></a>Well before anyone had ever heard of Harry Potter and his sorcerous adventures, DC/Vertigo published a four-issue mini series centered around an unlikely young boy named Timothy Hunter, who discovers that he is destined to become the greatest wizard the world has ever seen. The character, star of the Neil Gaiman created Books of Magic, has become one of Vertigo's brightest stars, having appeared in numerous series devoted to his story.
The Books of Magic first appeared, pre-Vertigo in 1990. The four part series, gorgeously illustrated by Michael Bolton stands as one of Gaiman's strongest works to date. In the mini-series, we are introduced to Tim Hunter who is taken on a guided tour of the magical underbelly of the DC Universe. His companions on this journey are the fallen mystics of the Trenchcoat Brigade Dr. Occult, the Phantom Stranger, Mister E and Hellblazer and Swamp Thing's own John Constantine. By the end of the series, Hunter must choose whether to embrace his destiny, or attempt to return to his normal boyhood existence.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagic1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagic1T.jpg" alt="The Books of Magic #1" border=1 align=left></a>Hunter is taken through the lands of Faerie (and is revealed to the son of the elf Queen Titania) and to the very ends of time where he witness the demise of the universe and also meets an evil future version of himself, whom he determines he must never become. Gaiman's story of the innocent boy thrust into such an intimidating and awe-inspiring world and forced to grapple with the knowledge of his own dark destiny was quite a success for DC, leading to the launch of an ongoing series of The Books of Magic in 1994, under the Vertigo masthead.
The ongoing series, written by newcomer John Ney Reiber and featuring art by Peter Gross, Michael Kaluta and Gary Amaro, would continue where the mini-series left off, finding the young Tim Hunter struggling to maintain a relationship with his drunken father, managing his first girlfriend Molly, and exploring the nature of his powers and his place in the universe. The series would feature guest appearances by many Vertigo mainstays, including Death and other members of The Sandman cast, as well as the members of the Trenchcoat Brigade. Tim's early adventures would finally come to an end in the 75th issue of the series (written by former artist Peter Gross) with Tim, age fourteen finally beginning to accept his destiny as the greatest mage who has ever lived.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagickldw1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/booksofmagickldw1T.jpg" alt="The Books of Magic: Life During Wartime #1" border=1 align=right></a>In 2001, DC/Vertigo would return to the story of Timothy Hunter with a five issue mini series by Dylan Horrocks and Doom Patrol penciller Richard Case (covers would be provided by original series artist John Bolton) titled The Names of Magic. The same year would see the launch of the twenty-five issue Hunter: The Age of Magic, based around an older Timothy Hunter and the White School of Magic.
Last year, Timothy Hunter was once again given his own series in The Books of Magick: Life During Wartime (note the new spelling using the spelling "magick"), under the pen of writer Si Spencer and artist Dean Ornson, with consultation from creator Neil Gaiman. The series is set somewhere outside of DC continuity and focuses on an earth torn apart by the warring factions of the "Born" and the "Bred". The people of this world are desperate for their Messiah, the Hunter to return, only he has been hidden away in another reality by Lord Constantine. This dimension has no magic or spirituality of any kind and here the college-age Hunter lives in bliss with his friends Dog, Cat and Molly, until a being from the other earth comes calling, igniting Tim's lost memory and forgotten powers of magic.
SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandmanmt1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/sandmanmt1T.jpg" alt="Sandman Mystery Theater #1" border=1 align=left></a>While Neil Gaiman had completely revamped the Sandman character into something unrecognizable from its roots, the Golden Age Sandman was given the Vertigo treatment in April 1993, written by Grendel creator Matt Wagner (with scripting assistance from Steven T. Seagle). Set in the 1930s, Sandman Mystery Theater had a dark, pulp noir style following the casebook of the gas-masked vigilante detective Wesley Dodds. Dodds, armed with a sleep gas gun, operated under the appropriate moniker of the Sandman.
While the rest of the early Vertigo titles focused on hip and outlandish characters in unusual, often surreal settings, Sandman Mystery Theater was firmly grounded in the realm of the pulp crime novel and was often neglected amidst the excitement over titles such as Swamp Thing and Hellblazer. Sandman Mystery Theater was an often-disturbing exploration of criminal pathology, delving primarily into crimes of hate and passion. Racism and sexual abuse often found their way into Dodd's unsettling case files.
Irregular sales (often due to confusion over its links with Gaiman's Sandman) and lack of marketing would eventually doom the series with issue #70. The character would later meet his counterpart Deam in the 1996 one-shot, Sandman Midnight Theatre but unfortunately even that crossover wasn't enough to re-ignite interest in the character. Sandman Mystery Theatre is fondly remembered by its dedicated fans and remains one of Vertigo's overlooked treasures.
THE INVISIBLES
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol1-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol1-1T.jpg" alt="The Invisibles Volume One #1" border=1 align=right></a>At once mystifying, inspiring, compelling and infuriating, The Invisibles stands as perhaps the most ambitious and multi-faceted comic book produced by Vertigo (if not in comic book history). Mad Yak Press' companion to the series, Anarchy for the Masses calls it "the first scrawled draft of a self-aware manifesto from the future in the form of a madcap spy-fi hypersigil comic book" and after contact with the series itself, it is difficult to disagree.
The Invisibles began in September 1994 at the onset of pre-millennium paranoia. Originally the series focused on a seemingly simplistic struggle between the Invisibles, a magically active, mega-hip world-wide organization of revolutionaries devoted to the precepts of Freedom and Individuality; and the shadowy, insectoid forces of Oppression and Conformity known as the Archons. The series, originally born from a desire to recreate Jack Kirby's Boy Commandoes for the internet generation would go on to evolve into a different beast entirely a six year long experiment in Morrison's own magickal beliefs and philosophy that threatened to explain "the very truth of the Universe".
Whether all the hyperbole surrounding the series is true or not, Morrison's saga of hidden conspiracies, tantric sex, time travel and contemporary shamanism stands as one of the high water marks of 1990s comic books that has inspired and influenced many of the industry's top writers, and also paved the way for the success of the Wachowsky Brothers' Matrix Trilogy.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol2-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol2-1T.jpg" alt="The Invisibles Volume Two #1" border=1 align=left></a>The Invisibles focuses primarily on a five member "cell", originally operating out of London. The team was made-up of Morrison's own alter-ego, the writer turned occult assassin King Mob; a time-travelling psychic redhead from the future named Ragged Robin (who bore a distinct resemblance to Morrison's Crazy Jane character from Doom Patrol); a New York cop-turned Invisible operative codenamed Boy; a glamorous South American transvestite witch named Lord Fanny; and the team's newest recruit a teenage Liverpudian thug named Dane McGowan, who may or may not be the age's reborn Buddha.
While the Invisibles are originally established as "the good guys", and indeed remain the series' protagonists, Morrison would later bust open the black and white/good and evil dynamic, evolving the series into a more mature position when the team, particularly King Mob, are forced to confront the repercussions of their often-violent actions. The series would play with conspiracy theories such as the Roswell crash, the origin of AIDS and the death of Princess Diana, as well as exploring the esoteric and religious themes of Tantra, Buddhism, Voodoo and Ceremonial Magick.
Despite the book's later success, The Invisibles nearly didn't make it through its first year, following the sales flop of its second storyline, the highly ambitious "Arcadia". While the opening arc of the series had been a magical mystery tour through the initiation of Dane McGowan, the explosive impact of the Invisibles' introduction ground to a halt with "Arcadia". Illustrated by Jill Thompson, "Arcadia" was a story of psychic time travel involving several scenes of Lord Byron, P.B. Shelley and his wife Mary, while the Invisibles hopped around through Revolutionary France, meeting up with the father of S&M, the Marquis de Sade. Many of the readers not already confused or downright bored by the Byron and Shelley interludes were turned off by the highly explicit (but ultimately necessary) scenes re-enacting de Sade's notoriously pornographic novels. Sales began to plummet.
Morrison, intent on continuing the series, begged and pleaded with DC, going so far to even enliste the aide of his own readers to participate in a magical ritual to stop the book from being cancelled. Somehow, someway sales began to pick up again, in no small part due to arrival of new series artist Phil Jimenez (Wonder Woman), allowing The Invisibles to complete its first volume with issue #24.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol3-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/invisiblesvol3-1T.jpg" alt="The Invisibles Volume Three #1" border=1 align=right></a>Shortly after, the series would return in an all-new Volume Two, illustrated by Jimenez, that would add a distinctly Hollywood flavor to the series. While the high concept, literary references were still existent in the series, they had been pushed underground in favor of a more dynamic, action-oriented approach. Although the launch of The Invisibles Volume Two opened the doors to a flood of new readers, the series would become plagued by delays shortly after its launch, due in part to Morrison's own illness. Chris Weston would take over from Phil Jimenez as the story slowly, but surely continued through to its twenty-second issue the finale of the book's second season. The final volume in The Invisibles trinity began at issue #12, with the numbering intending to count backwards to #1 which was scheduled to ship in December 1999 to coincide with the turn of the new millennium. Unfortunately, delays once again plagued the series through 1999, with the series' final issue not shipping until June of the New Year.
While never reaching the dizzying heights of popularity of The Sandman, The Invisibles added a whole new dimension to the Vertigo imprint and guaranteed Grant Morrison's place as one of the industry's greatest innovators. The series also served as showcase for some of the industry's finest artistic talents including Steve Yeowell, Cameron Stewart, Philip Bond and Frank Quitely. The series has since been collected into seven trade volumes Say You Want A Revolution, Apocalypstick and Entropy In The UK (comprising The Invisibles Volume One); Bloody Hell In America, Counting to None and Kissing Mr. Quimper (The Invisibles Volume Two); and The Invisible Kingdom (the complete Volume Three).
PREACHER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preacher1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preacher1T.jpg" alt="Preacher #1" border=1 align=left></a>Hot off of their definitive run on Hellblazer, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon turned their energies to a creator-owned series of near Biblical proportions. Preacher, an odd fusion of John Wayne Westerns, Tarantino-style action sequences and one man's quest to find God was Vertigo's most successful series to follow the legendary Sandman. Beginning in April 1995 and spanning seventy-six issues (including the sixty-six issue series and a handful of one-shots and mini-series), Ennis' irreverent, violent and darkly funny series served as Vertigo's flagship for the second half of 90s.
A foul-mouthed small town preacher with a best-forgotten past is set on the trail of the missing Father of Creation after he becomes the host to Heaven's "dirty little secret" an unholy force born of the union of devil and angel known simply as "Genesis". After his church is burnt to the ground by his fusion with the entity, Reverend Jesse Custer gains "the Word of God" the ability to command any living creature to do his bidding. Blamed for the deaths of his parishioners, Custer is hunted by the town's police force.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preachercassidy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/preachercassidyT.jpg" alt="Preacher: Cassidy Special #1" border=1 align=right></a>After fleeing to New York, he meets up with his old girlfriend Tulip (now a hitwoman) and a hard-drinking Irish vampire by the name of Cassidy. Cassidy and Tulip join him on his quest to find God, who has turned his back on his own creation and vacated Heaven. Custer intends to demand answers out the Almighty and convince him to return to his position.
What follows is an eventful and violent road-trip through the underbelly of the United States from Texas to the Louisiana bayou. Chasing the motley trio are a deformed teenager known as Arseface (who blames Custer for his father's death), Jesse's evil redneck family, an organization known as the Grail (dedicated to preserving the bloodline of the Nazarene), and Heaven's own unstoppable assassin the force of nature known as The Saint of Killers.
At once a celebration and condemnation of the Church and the American Dream, Preacher is a wild ride from start until its fitting finish in the cataclysmic "Alamo", detailing Custer's final showdown with the God who deserted Creation. The series has been collected as a nine volume trade collection, containing all the issues of the regular series along with the related one-shots and mini-series that round out the tale.
TRANSMETROPOLITAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan1T.jpg" alt="Transmetropolitan #1" border=1 align=left></a>In 1997 launched a new creator-owned, science fiction-oriented imprint known as Helix. Helix launched with a handful of mini-series, but its flagship title was Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Transmetropolitan a politically charged story of Gonzo Journalism, set in a near future. While the Helix imprint would be discontinued after its first year, Transmetropolitan's somewhat surprisingly strong sales allowed it to stay afloat, being folded into the Vertigo line with #13.
Transmetropolitan spotlights a somewhat deranged, drug-addled journalistic renegade named Spider Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a strange amalgam of the recently deceased "Father of New Journalism" Hunter S. Thompson, Patrick Stewart and his own creator, Ellis. At the outset of the series, Jerusalem is enticed down from his mountain hideaway and out of retirement to once again embroil himself in the seedy and dangerous battlefield of political journalism.
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan13.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/diversecurrents/vertigo/transmetropolitan13T.jpg" alt="Transmetropolitan #13" border=1 align=right></a>Jerusalem takes up a position on the City's (presumably the future New York) most popular newspaper, The Word and begins writing the Gonzo-inspired column titled "I Hate It Here". Spider quickly takes up his old rivalry with the president, known most widely by his Spider-given nickname "The Beast", aiding in his eventually unseating by new candidate Gary Callahan (known as "The Smiler").
Though Spider and his column have a hand in displacing The Beast, he soon discovers that Callahan is an even greater monster than his predecessor. Following Callahan's assassination of his own campaign manager, Spider's friend Vita Severn, the journalist declares a personal war on "The Smiler", aided by his "filthy assistants" Channon Yarrow and Yelena Rossini.
Most of the series deals with Spider's crusade against the new President, a long and twist-filled journey that is coloured with Ellis' own unqiue insights. The future world of Transmetropolitan served as a sixty-issue carthasis of sorts for its writer, who often used the book to express his own views on consumerism, the media, American society and global politics. Robertson is the perfect fit for the series, presenting an almost cartoon-like view of a consumerist dystopian gone wild.
While single issues of Transmetropolitan continued to sell well enough to keep the series afloat, like many Vertigo titles the title was best served through its increasingly popular trade collections. During his run on Transmetropolitan, Ellis would become a breakout talent thanks to his enormously popular work on Wildstorm's Authority and Planetary, which created all-new interest in Transmetropolitan's trade program that continues to this day.
VERTIGO: THE NEW BREED
Now in its twelfth year, Vertigo continues to be a dominant force within the comic book industry, lining the shelf with hard hitting hits. While the Vertigo label was originally known for its unique blend of literary horror, the line has since grown to encompass superhero fiction, sci-fi, fantasy and hardboiled crime stories, digging its claws firmly into its position on the bleeding edge of comic book storytelling. While the legacy of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano's pioneering work carries on, the stable has been joined by new "it" creators such as Brian K. Vaughan and Bill Winningham as well as providing a home for the leftfield works of elder statesman like Peter Milligan's Human Target and Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's recently concluded mini-series We3.
LUCIFER
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LuciferCv62.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LuciferCv62T.jpg" alt="Lucifer #61 Preview" align=left></a>Lucifer continues the tale of Lucifer Morningstar (yes, THAT Lucifer) first begun in The Sandman. Written by current Hellblazer scribe Mike Carey, Lucifer is a touching and suprising study of the devil as he seeks to find his place in the world. Eternally damned by his father and cast into a destiny not fully of his choosing, Lucifer seeks desperately to take control of his own life in light of the crushing weight of his own responsibility. Sure he's "evil", but what exactly does evil mean in the greater scheme of things? Featuring guest appearances by several key figures from the Dreaming, Lucifer is a wonderful and thought-provoking exploration of one of The Sandman's most popular characters.
FABLES
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/Fables-Cv37.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/Fables-Cv37T.jpg" alt="Fables #37 Preview" align=right></a>Filling the gap where the mythology-steeped Sandman left off, Robin writer Bill Winnigham has delighted fans with his story of exiled fairy tale characters living in New York City in the Eisner Award-winning series Fables. While a seemingly lightweight premise at first glance, Winningham has crafted an engaging and believable world filled with seemingly familiar childhood characters such as Pinocchio, Snow White and Bigby (The Big, Bad) Wolf thrust into the crushing weight of mundane reality. Fables was an instant hit with readers based on Winnigham's clever scripting and the artist talents of Lan Medina and cover artist James Jean. While the premise is firmly rooted in fantasy, Fables is equal parts murder mystery, romance, politcal thriller and action-adventure, effortlessly changing lanes between genres. The series is solicited up to its thirty-seventh issue so far and is supported by a timely program of trade paperbacks.
Y: THE LAST MAN
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/YtheLastManCv33.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/YtheLastManCv33T.jpg" alt="Y: The Last Man #33 Preview" align=left></a>What would if you were the last man left alive, surrounded only by women? Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways) and Pia Guerra have taken an age-old question to its fullest conclusion in Y: The Last Man. After a freak occurence wipes out of all the males of every species on earth, the planet is plunged into chaos. Political and social upheaval of near-apocalyptic proportions, as women scramble to make their way in a world with men. As women are finally allowed to break past through the glass ceiling in the wake of tragedy, they must also contend with the very real knowledge that, without the males of the species, the human race is doomed to extinction. Enter a naive Arts student named Yorick Brown, the last remaining male and star of Y: The Last Man. With his travelling companions - a secret agent known only as 355, the geneticist Dr. Mann and his pet monkey Ampersand - Y embarks on a quest to track down his girlfriend amidst the chaos, while coming to terms with the ramifications of his status as the last man left alive. While many books based around such as premise could easily slip into endless sexual comedy, Vaughan's hit series takes a unique and intelligent approach to its simple premise, infusing the series with high drama, suspense and deep sense of mystery that has captivated comics readers across the world.
100 BULLETS
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/100bulletsCv61.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/100bulletsCv61T.jpg" alt="100 Bullets #61 Preview" align=right></a>Another of DC's recent Eisner Award recipients, 100 Bullets is a gripping revenge thriller from the Batman: Broken City team of Brian Azzarrello and Eduardo Risso. In each 100 Bullets story arc, Agent Graves, an elderly man formerly employed by a shadowy organization known simply as "The Trust", approaches someone who bears a grudge or seeks has been harme din some way. Handing them an attache case containing a pistol and exactly one hundred bullets, Graves offers these souls the opportunity for repercussion-less vengeance. The bullets are untraceable in any way - seemingly of occult origin. Graves presents his beneficiaries with a deadly choice, one that is sorely tempting for all of the wronged parties he approaches. While each arc begins in such a way however, there is an ongoing narrative running through the series, relating to Graves, The Trust and an organization known as the Minutemen. 100 Bullets is dripping in pulp/noir style and morally ambiguity. The series has been collected into seven trade paperbacks so far, with more to come as the ongoing series continues. The book has proved quite successful and was recently licensed as a video game.
THE LOSERS
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LosersCv24.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/dc/0505/LosersCv24T.jpg" alt="The Losers #24 Preview" align=left></a>The Losers is a crime/espionage thriller from the mind of Adam Strange's Andy Diggle. A stylish blend of Oceans Eleven and Heat, The Losers is the story of a former CIA special ops unit who are betrayed by their country and left for dead after a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Believed dead, they head underground before returning to wage war on their former employers, the CIA themselves.The Losers does away with the decompressed, slow-paced storytelling of many of its comic book peers and instead delivers a pulse-pounding, Hollywood-worthy action movie right there on the page. The Losers is quite a departure for Vertigo - who for years relied primarily the dark fantasy/cerebral horror roots of the imprint - and displays DC's willingness to expand and further the line into new territory. The Losers is one of Vertigo's most accessible series and posesses a high level of "mainstream" appeal - a surprising book that is well worth checking out.
As DC turns the corner on its auspicious seventieth anniversary, Vertigo retains its place in the company's publishing plan and has its eyes set towards the future. With over a decade of classic comic books under its belt, and a line-up of sure-to-be classic material hitting the shelves, the long and storied history of Vertigo promises to continue its commitment to challenging storytelling into this new millennium and beyond.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
For more information on DC's Vertigo line and extensive trade paperback catalog you can visit DC Comics' Vertigo sub-site at http://www.dccomics.com/vertigo.
Vertigo titles such as Y: The Last Man, Fables and the Vertigo TPB archive are available from X-World (http://www.x-worldcomics.com).