Sandman, Preacher, Fables and More of DC's Best Vertigo Comics
As DC prepares to revive the fan-favorite Vertigo line, we reflect on the comics that helped shape this mature-readers imprint over the decades.
The comic book industry was dealt a blow with the news that DC was shuttering the long-running Vertigo imprint at the end of 2019. Vertigo has played home to some of the most beloved and critically acclaimed comics on the stands. It serves as a crucial piece of DC comics history and has been a constant, necessary reminder that comics don't always have to revolve around capes and tights.
The good news is that Vertigo's death was only temporary. Not only has DC's Black Label line continued the spirit of the classic Vertigo line, but at NYCC 2024 we learned that DC is reviving Vertigo as a home for creator-owned comics like The Nice House by the Sea.
As we celebrate the return of this beloved imprint, we wanted to look back and reflect on the comics that helped define Vertigo as a brand. These books helped push the entire medium forward and served as an early proving ground for some of the biggest and best creators in the industry.
Hellblazer
Hellblazer is one of those books whose existence actually predates the creation of the Vertigo imprint by several years, but has also come to embody the tone and spirit of Vertigo as much as any other. And with its jaw-dropping 300-issue run, it's a series that remained a fixture at Vertigo while countless other titles came and went. In hindsight, its conclusion in 2013 was one of the clearest signs that Vertigo was on its way out.
Building on John Constantine's early appearances in Saga of the Swamp Thing, Hellblazer followed the continuing adventures of this crafty, self-destructive magician. The series allowed numerous superstar creators to dabble in Constantine's seedy world, from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon to Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben to Mike Carey and Leonardo Manco. And half the fun of the series is that it, like Marvel's Punisher MAX, allowed its protagonist to age in real-time over the course many years. Frankly, the character has never been quite the same since being folded back into the DCU as part of the New 52 reboot, though Si Spurrier and Aaron Campbell's John Constantine, Hellblazer has managed to recapture that old glory.
Start reading Hellblazer here!
The Sandman
The Sandman may well be the comic most synonymous with the Vertigo brand, even though it too existed several years before the imprint officially launched. Creators Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith and Mike Dringenberg pulled together various pieces of DC lore (the character Destiny, the House of Secrets and House of Mystery, Golden Age vigilante Sandman, etc.) and established a complex new mythology involving the most powerful gods, demons and abstract entities of the DC Universe. What began as a mostly horror-influenced story quickly blossomed into a sweeping fantasy epic. The series follows the journey of Morpheus, an ancient being who controls the dreams of all living creatures and who faces the greatest challenge of his long existence.
The core Sandman series lasted for 75 issues and is easily among the most critically acclaimed DC books of all time. That series has also inspired numerous spinoffs, including Death: The High Cost of Living, Lucifer, The Dreaming and Sandman Mystery Theatre. Even in recent years, the saga has continued on with The Sandman Universe, an entire imprint curated by Gaiman that continues the stories of characters like Lucifer Morningstar, Tim Hunter and Daniel Hall.
Animal Man
Like Hellblazer and Sandman, Animal Man existed as a mature readers-focused title years before Vertigo itself became a thing. But at the same time, it served as a clear template for what could accomplished with the Vertigo formula, introducing a darker, more psychological take on a preexisting DC hero. Under the original creative team of writer Grant Morrison and artists Chas Truog and Doug Hazlewood, Buddy Baker became one of the DCU's most complex and fascinating heroes. Morrison's run culminated in the fourth wall-defying Animal Man #26, in which Buddy met Morrison himself and demanded to know why his "creator" saw fit to make him suffer. That issue is widely regarded as one of the best DC has ever published. That dark formula continued under other writers like Jamie Delano, forever transforming Animal Man into a character who exists on the twisted, supernatural fringes of the DCU.
Start reading Animal Man here!
The Invisibles
While Vertigo began life as an imprint linking together various supernatural DC characters like Swamp Thing, Animal Man and John Constantine, the imprint also began to serve as a home for brand new properties and creator-owned projects. The most significant of these early creator-owned projects was Grant Morrison's Invisibles. This genre-bending, psychedelic sci-fi series revolves around a group of anarchists rebelling against humanity's alien overlords. More quirky and experimental than even Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol, the series showed that even a major publisher like DC could be a home for groundbreaking, experimental comics.
Start reading The Invisibles here!
Preacher
Having established a strong working relationship on books like Hellblazer, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon made Vertigo the home for their greatest collaboration, Preacher. This sprawling fantasy Western tells the story of Jesse Custer, a disillusioned preacher who becomes intent on tracking down God after bonding with an all-powerful entity named Genesis. Along for the ride are his ex-girlfriend Tulip and his best friend/vampire Cassidy.
Preacher was the source of no small amount of controversy during its run, which shouldn't be surprising given the book's subject matter and irreverent sense of humor. The fact that DC continued to publish the book even in the face of that backlash, shows how important Vertigo was in promoting and supporting unconventional stories. And that risk paid off, as Preacher remains an evergreen bestseller and has inspired a TV series.
Transmetropolitan
Given Vertigo's success in reaching audiences hungry for mature horror and fantasy fare, DC naturally assumed there would be a similar demand for a science fiction-themed imprint. The result was Helix, and while that imprint didn't last long, it did serve as a launching pad for Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's Transmetropolitan. This quirky sci-fi series is set in a dystopian near-future where a sardonic gonzo journalist named Spider Jerusalem seeks to expose a corrupt government's crimes and jolt the population out of its complacency. Needless to say, Transmetropolitan is a series that has only seemed to grow more relevant with time, and it's a good thing it found a second home at Vertigo.
Start reading Transmetropolitan here!
100 Bullets
Warren Ellis and Eduardo Risso's 100 Bullets is perhaps the single greatest crime comic ever to come out of Vertigo. It begins with a simple but captivating premise, as a mysterious man named Agent Graves approaches people with a briefcase containing a gun and bullets that can allow them to take vengeance on their enemies with zero chance of being caught. But what begins as a simple meditation of violence and revenge quickly grows into a complex saga involving many recurring characters and a mythology dating back to the earliest days of America. It's rare to see one creative team remain on board a series for so long, especially a series with such a clear, fully realized road map.
Start reading 100 Bullets here!
Y: The Last Man
Y: The Last Man marked the start of what may well be the height of the Vertigo era in 2002. Created by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, this dystopian sci-fi series features one of the all-time great story hooks in comics. A slacker named Yorick Brown finds himself the last surviving biological male on the planet after a mysterious plague instantly sweeps across the globe. He sets out with no goal in mind other than tracking down his girlfriend Beth. Instead, he quickly finds himself embroiled in a conflict that will determine the fate of an all-female human race.
It's hard to understate just how important Y was for growing the Vertigo brand. The comic was and still is one of the most highly regarded DC books ever published. It's a clear example of how instrumental Vertigo was in providing a platform for up-and-coming creators and allowing creator-owned books to flourish on their own terms. The fact that Vaughan's next great sci-fi epic, Saga, instead found its home at Image Comics speaks to the decline of the Vertigo imprint in its later years.
Start reading Y: The Last Man here!
Fables
Fables is undoubtedly one of the most successful and and beloved comics to be published under the Vertigo banner. It eventually blossomed into a franchise all its own, with the main series spanning 150 issues and inspiring numerous spinoff projects like Jack of Fables, Fairest and even the Telltale Games series The Wolf Among Us.
Fables managed all of this by remixing and combining some of the Western world's most popular fairy tales and pieces of folklore. The series is largely set on Earth, with refugees from countless fantasy worlds forming a settlement called Fabletown after fleeing the destructive rampage of a tyrant known as the Adversary. Iconic characters like Snow White, Prince Charming, the Big Bad Wold and Pinocchio take on new life when filtered through Fables' dark, subversive lens.
DMZ
DMZ is another example of Vertigo serving as a home for an up-and-coming writer. Brian Wood delivered his magnum opus working alongside artists like Riccardo Burchielli. DMZ is set in a near-future world where the US has been torn apart by a second Civil War and a rookie journalist named Matty Roth finds himself trapped in the political no man's land that is Manhattan. As the product of a tense post-9/11 climate, DMZ proved to be another example of Vertigo's willingness to push the envelope and tackle politically driven stories.
Scalped
Writer Jason Aaron has been exclusive to Marvel Comics for much of his career, only dabbling in the DC Universe early on (though that's started to change recently). However, Aaron was another critical voice at Vertigo in the 2000's. The miniseries The Other Side was one of Aaron's first comic book projects. He followed that up with Scalped, a series all about organized crime, political intrigue, poverty and drug addiction on a South Dakota Indian reservation. The series mainly revolves around undercover FBI agent Dashiell Bad Horse, though Aaron and co-creator R.M. Guera establish a large and endearing cast of anti-heroes, gangsters and crooked cops over the course of 60 issues.
Unknown Soldier
While the early Vertigo lineup was mostly geared toward dark, subversive revamps of familiar DC properties, Vertigo shifted more and more toward original, creator-owned work as time passed. And once characters like Swamp Thing and John Constantine were folded back into the regular DCU, Vertigo became almost entirely focused on original stories. 2008's Unknown Soldier served as a welcome reminder that the classic Vertigo formula was still alive and well.
Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli spearheaded this complete reboot of the classic DC war hero. Set in 2002 during the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency in Uganda, the series casts a doctor named Moses Lwanga as the titular hero. The result was anything but a traditional war comic. Unknown Soldier has plenty to say about the endless cycle of violence and the problems facing a modern-day Africa.
Start reading Unknown Soldier here!
Sweet Tooth
Arriving at the tail-end of Vertigo's golden age, Sweet Tooth served as an early showcase for another creator who's since become an industry superstar, Jeff Lemire. Lemire wrote and largely drew this 40-issue epic that's often billed as a combination of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Disney movies like Bambi. A strange combination, to be sure, but one that plays well on the page. The series exposed Lemire to a wider audience and paved the way for influential runs on New 52 comics like Animal Man and Green Arrow.
Start reading Sweet Tooth here!
American Vampire
American Vampire is one of the last truly great books to come out of Vertigo before the imprint began its slow decline in the 2010's. Early on, the series' biggest selling point was the involvement of Stephen King (who wrote a series of flashback stories in the opening story arc). But it quickly became apparent what a great team DC had in writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque. Even in a genre as perpetually over-saturated as vampire horror, the two managed to put a fresh spin on the material thanks to a combination of clever tweaks, memorable characters and a narrative that moves back and forth across decades of American history.
Start reading American Vampire here!
For more on the Vertigo line, find out what graphic novels you should read after watching Netflix's The Sandman: Season 1.
Note: This article was originally published on 06/27/2019 and updated on 10/21/2024 with the news that DC is bringing back the Vertigo imprint.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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