Favorite Vertigo Titles?

shaneb · October 2014

Hey folks, I wanted to start an interesting new thread on people's favorite Vertigo titles.

Top Five Vertigo miniseries?
Maxiseries?
Original graphic novels?
Overal titles?

RickM · October 2014

For now, Fables is my favorite-ever Vertigo book. Sandman was quite good but sometimes it was a little too precious. And beyond that, I am woefully unversed in all things Vertigo, mostly due to my having been out of comics during Vertigo's glory days.

Evening639 · October 2014

While I really haven't read enough Vertigo material to properly critique the vast majority of it, one OGN does come to mind that I would recommend. Matt Kindt's Revolver.
Matt Kindt is pretty much a one man show on it, even handling the coloring. I don't personally care for his art work but I do think it serves the story and assists in setting the tone and creating the atmosphere of the book. Very thought-provoking and open-ended story worth reading and analyzing.

luke52 · October 2014

Saga of the Swamp Thing and American Vampire for me.

dubbat138 · October 2014

Animal Man-Is good from start to finish.
Doom Patrol-Another that is good from start to finish.
Preacher-My fave Vertigo series so far.
Fables-I am only up to around issue 75,but so far it is really good.
Hellblazer-Read about a 3rd of the total series and so far haven't read a bad issue.

As far as minis

Nevada-Fun Steve Gerber wacky cosmic nonsense

playdohsrepublic · October 2014

dubbat138 said:
Animal Man-Is good from start to finish.
Doom Patrol-Another that is good from start to finish.
Preacher-My fave Vertigo series so far.
Fables-I am only up to around issue 75,but so far it is really good.
Hellblazer-Read about a 3rd of the total series and so far haven't read a bad issue.

As far as minis

Nevada-Fun Steve Gerber wacky cosmic nonsense

Here's a pretty great story on the origin of Nevada

phansford · October 2014

Sandman Mystery Theater
American Century

Probably because of the stories were placed in the past. It was great that the Sandman was not some svelte, suave guy, but a very unassuming character.

mwhitt80 · October 2014

My favorite ongoing Verigo titles

Sandman
Transmetropolitian
Hellblazer
Preacher
Loveless
Scalped

I've not read a lot of mini/maxi series from Verigo but here are my favorites.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol 1&2 (I've always considered these maxiseries rather than ongoings)
Books of Magic
Jonah Hex - I really like these Weird West stories a lot.

mwhitt80 · October 2014

I would like some help categorizing three titles
How many people consider things like SwampThing, Grant Morrison's Animal Man/Doom Patrol Verigo titles?

I really don't. I feel like they are set firmly in weird corner of the DCU. I know a lot of the early Veritgo titles started as DCU books then moved, but those 3 seem like they are particularly DC (Alan Moore's Swamp Thing was 100% DC, with red skies and everything).

I love the Doom Patrol and Saga of the Swamp Thing, but I've never thought about them as Vertigo Titles.

shaneb · October 2014

My favorite ongoing series from Vertigo:
DMZ
Northalnders (though its mainly just a bunch of miniseries under the same name and theme)
Y: The Last Man
Swamp Thing (Kind of multiple incarnations, but I like Alan Moore and Brian K. Vaughn's versions best)
Fables
Sandman
Sweet Tooth
Scalped

I was really happy to see someone put down Sandman Mystery Theatre, it is kind of an overlooked classic.

Mini Series

Books of Magic (original mini series by Neil Gaiman)
Cinderalla: From Fablestown With Love
Trillium
Pride & Joy
Enigma

Maxi Series
2020 Visions
The Wake

shaneb · October 2014

Also curious to hear people’s thoughts on any of their current series.

I really like the current miniseries Bodies, and Names seems like it should be interesting.

I had really high hopes for Vertigo Quarterly, which has been somewhat successful.

I have stayed pretty tied to Coffin Hill and Federal Bureau of Physics, and am sticking with Astro City. Kind of mourning the coming end of Fables and Fairest.

What are people reading right now? Any series that are coming up that folks are looking forward to?

Brack · October 2014

mwhitt80 said:
I would like some help categorizing three titles
How many people consider things like SwampThing, Grant Morrison's Animal Man/Doom Patrol Verigo titles?

I really don't. I feel like they are set firmly in weird corner of the DCU. I know a lot of the early Veritgo titles started as DCU books then moved, but those 3 seem like they are particularly DC (Alan Moore's Swamp Thing was 100% DC, with red skies and everything).

I love the Doom Patrol and Saga of the Swamp Thing, but I've never thought about them as Vertigo Titles.

The starting point for Vertigo was:

Animal Man #57
Doom Patrol #64
Hellblazer #63
Sandman #47
Swamp Thing #129
Shade, the Changing Man #33
Death The High Cost of Living #1

Everything before that was part of the standard DC line. And it was arguably much healthier for it.

Similarly if the Helix/Matrix line hadn't flopped, Transmetropolitan wouldn't have been Vertigo either.

And League of Extraordinary Gentleman was published under America's Best Comics, as part of Wildstorm. You were never going to get new Alan Moore material under a Vertigo banner.

So, ignoring titles that got their starts elsewhere (remember, Astro City was briefly a Vertigo title!) my favourite Vertigo titles would be The Invisibles, We3, The Filth, Seaguy, Preacher and Nevada.

RickM · October 2014

Is Astro City a Vertigo title? If so, I'll include that. I've read most of the Astro minis and love it. But I also thought that it bounced around imprints.

CageNarleigh · October 2014

That is all.

mwhitt80 · October 2014

My question is really how do you think of some of those early wertigo books?
I've got complete runs of Shade, Sandman, GM's Doom Patrol; I know there are now Vertigo titles that were pre-Vertigo. However some of them, like Shade the Changing Man or Sandman, are less connected to the DCU (yes I know the Changing Man concept is an old DCU idea, but that book was not very DC at all, same for elements of Sandman).

And how did I forget there was a Helix line at DC? I was thinking that Transmetropolitian was originally a Wildstorm title (which I almost forgot about).

David_D · October 2014

mwhitt80 said:
My question is really how do you think of some of those early wertigo books?
I've got complete runs of Shade, Sandman, GM's Doom Patrol; I know there are now Vertigo titles that were pre-Vertigo. However some of them, like Shade the Changing Man or Sandman, are less connected to the DCU (yes I know the Changing Man concept is an old DCU idea, but that book was not very DC at all, same for elements of Sandman).

And how did I forget there was a Helix line at DC? I was thinking that Transmetropolitian was originally a Wildstorm title (which I almost forgot about).

I love the pre-Vertigo era of direct market, mature readers books that sometimes gets called "The Bergerverse" (though, of course, Karen Berger did not edit all the books, so that credit should be shared).

I think there is a lot of great stuff to be found there- in many cases, better than would be found later in these same books once it was actually Vertigo. And I'm glad that Vertigo has been making an effort even recently to get some of the comics that had been skipped for collected editions into trade (like we are finally getting all of Hellblazer and all of Animal Man as trades, not just some of it).

And I actually think a part of the strength of those "Bergerverse" titles are that they were allowed to do their own thing. They had characters in them from the DCU, and some occasional DCU characters dropping by. . .but they didn't have to BE books in the DCU. For example, Hellblazer is absolutely set in a world with no superheroes in it. It is not in the DCU. And even though Swamp Thing and Zatanna drop in, they are simply mystical people in the world of Hellblazer. That book benefitted from being set in a real world, that also had magic and demons in it. It made John, and what he represented, seem like a more striking and unusual thing, and therefore a dangerous and unusual person for you or your family to be around. That becomes less true when the world is full of aliens, wizards, and superheroes.

Okay. That was totally a Hellblazer digression.

Short answer: Yes. There is some really excellent stuff to be found in those Vertigo titles before they went Vertigo. In some cases (like Doom Patrol) there was a big talent change around the time the Vertigo branding dropped. In others, like Shade The Changing Man, the books to my memory pretty much continued as usual. I feel like Hellblazer didn't change, because the unwritten Vertigo rules of 'No Superheroes. Focus on character and character drama' were already at play in that title.

Animal Man pretty much continued as it was, they just played a little cagey about who Buddy USED to be. Under Delano, the book was already about Buddy as a retired superhero, and focused on his life with his family. Post-Vertigo, my memory is that we just never saw flashbacks to the costume anymore, and it was a little more like a story about a guy who once was kidnapped by aliens and given powers, and now what his life was like with his family. I think Sandman just kept doing what it was doing.

Brack · October 2014

David_D said:
For example, Hellblazer is absolutely set in a world with no superheroes in it. It is not in the DCU.

It is still a world with superheroes at the start - from issue 14, John complaining about superheroes:

Presumably by the time Grant Morrison wanted to use him in Doom Patrol and was denied, they'd decided that John was too good to hang around with superheroes any more. (I think they relaxed it again a bit later given that he shows up in the Millennium Giants crossover of all places).

David_D · October 2014

Brack said:

David_D said:
For example, Hellblazer is absolutely set in a world with no superheroes in it. It is not in the DCU.
It is still a world with superheroes at the start - from issue 14, John complaining about superheroes:

Presumably by the time Grant Morrison wanted to use him in Doom Patrol and was denied, they'd decided that John was too good to hang around with superheroes any more. (I think they relaxed it again a bit later given that he shows up in the Millennium Giants crossover of all places).

I will grant you that there is that one throwaway line, and I think I remember one other similar tiny mention in one of the first ten issues. But I am pretty certain that's it. No one named by name. No superheroes ever show up in the book. It may even be that whatever a "superhero" in this world is a different, more grounded and rare thing. My guess is that Delano actually made this little nods so that, if a reader had to pretend this book was in the DCU, to make this the same Constantine that was on a JLA Satellite in Crisis, they could. Though that never comes up in Hellblazer. And no one in these stories otherwise feels like they are living in a world packed with superheroes. Where it is definite that there are aliens, etc.

So I feel like there are like two winks in all those pre-Vertigo issues. But when Hellblazer became a Vertigo book, it didn't have to change, because it was already a book not in the DCU.

EDIT- I also think Berger told me when I interviewed her for Comics Now! that she and Delano set up Hellblazer to be its own thing from the beginning, but that was enough years ago now that I would have to check if I am remembering that right.

David_D · October 2014

Mentioning that crossover reminds me- there is a great moment in Animal Man, I think this is post-Morrison, during Rick Veitch, where there was an issue with War of the Gods tie-in cover branding. And Buddy is on his way somewhere in the ongoing story, and stops to gas up. Phantom Stranger appears and says something like, "Animal Man! You must come with us. There is a War of the Gods!" Or something like that. And Buddy is basically like, "Sorry. I'm busy." And that's it.

I love imagining what some non-Animal Man reader collecting all the tie-ins thought of that one.

David_D · October 2014

And regarding the OP's questions, when it comes to Vertigo, there are so many great ones to choose from. I loved Vertigo when it launched, though in retrospect it took them a few years to find their footing. I think Vertigo hit its golden era when it became the prestige place to go do creator-owned series. Often ones that what have a healthy run of, say 60 to 100 (or, in the case of Fables, more) issues, and then come to an end. And then become perennial collected edition hits. That book you could recommend to friends, including people who didn't know they would like comics, and you could do so knowing that they would get to read a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

I also love that, because some great Vertigo titles started when I was mostly out of reading comics, there are still some hits for me to still read all of, like 100 Bullets and Sandman Mystery Theater, that I have collected on the cheap and stacked up for, I don't know, my dotage, probably.

As for five favorite maxi-series, I would go with:

1. Y: The Last Man
2. Preacher
3. The Invisibles
4. DMZ (Sorry, Jamie)
5. Fables

DennisCuzinski · October 2014

Y is my favorite series of any stripe of the last 20 years

Chuck_Melville · October 2014

Of the original Vertigo titles, I only kept with Sandman, which I loved and thoroughly enjoyed. I had already walked away from Swamp Thing after the Rick Veitch embroglio, from which I felt the series never really recovered from; I’d had more than enough of Morrison’s Doom Patrol – this was one of the few series he did that I never really connected with; Animal Man was never really the same when Morrison left – I followed it for quite awhile afterwards, but never really liked the stories or direction it took; I never liked the Vertigo version of Shade – I was a fan of the original Ditko version, so the new take really didn’t work for me. Hellblazer I read off and on.

The later Vertigo titles that I did follow and enjoy were things like The Dreaming, Books Of Magic and, of course, Fables. I understand that there was a Lucifer series as well, spun off from Sandman, but I never read it and have no opinion to offer on it, though I seem to recall it had some good word of mouth.

Hellsfire · October 2014

Chuck_Melville said:
I understand that there was a Lucifer series as well, spun off from Sandman, but I never read it and have no opinion to offer on it, though I seem to recall it had some good word of mouth.

Lucifer was awesome. While I never much cared for The Sandman, or to be more accurately, only enjoyed every other trade, I loved Lucifer. I thought it was far superior to Sandman but I have a thing for religion and characters like Lucifer and Thanos.

While I love Lucifer, my number one title (and not just Vertigo) will always be Preacher for a multitude of reasons I'm entirely too lazy to list.

Sadly, I cannot think of a current Vertigo title and this is coming from a guy who used to do a Vertigo Comics podcast and even interviewed Karen Berger and Mike Carey. I just don't think I'm reading any. I like to think Image is the new Vertigo.

shaneb · October 2014

I feel like a lot of the pre-Vertigo series are always going to define Vertigo, and that may be a good thing. That kind of "revisionist" superhero book was what helped transition Vertigo into being, and I still think they are relevant. In this way I think Marvelman, Watchmen, etc. also play into the wave that makes Vertigo. Those early issues really help define what is so beloved about Vertigo since they did not just forgo the superhero history for more "high literary" options, but instead took superhero books and made them more cerebral. In this way, it is pretty nice to see Astro City over at Vertigo again. What I would like to see is more how Vertigo could continue to deconstruct the superhero archetypes in the way they did with Doom Patrol, Shade, Black Orchid, Animal Man, and others.

shaneb · October 2014

There has also been word recently that Vertigo is going to have a major revamp in 2015. Does anyone know more(or have heard more rumors) about what will be going on here? It seems necessary since we see a lot of books that would have traditionally have gone to Vertigo going over to Image and Oni.

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