Reply With QuoteNo can do chief, gave up Spawn long ago.
Anyone wanna buy my Spawn The Dark Ages collection? They're all NM and bagged/boarded..
No can do chief, gave up Spawn long ago.
x2Originally Posted by FrankBooth0
The article you posted summed it up:
On the other hand...promoting the destruction of your competitor's product? That's ripped straight off of the syllabus of "Business Ethics 101" at Latveria Community College.
Vertigo recommendations.
No Thanks EBK
Will try to omit any lengthy bits on my part and include just the plotlines and some notes.
I will start with 5 for this post which will contain a good chunk of stuff and will focus on the longer running series for the time.
Info on collected editions can be found on wiki. Some synopsis(s) are a little more detailed than others, I don't feel they ruin anything but read at your discretion.
Any questions just ask
No order, most info provided courtesy of wiki articles.Vertigo is an imprint of the American comic-book publisher DC Comics. Its books are marketed to a late-teen and adult audience, and may contain graphic violence, substance abuse, frank (but not explicit) depictions of ******ity, profanity, and controversial subjects. Although many of its releases are in the horror and fantasy genres, it also publishes works dealing with crime, social satire, speculative fiction, and biography. Each issue's cover carries the advisory label "Suggested for mature readers" (regardless of a specific issue's content).
Vertigo comics series have won the comics industry's Eisner Award, including the Best Continuing Series of various years.
In 2010, it was announced that Vertigo would become a strictly creator-owned imprint, with all titles that originated in the DC Universe, with the exception of flagship title Hellblazer, returning to the DC imprint http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/07/...-leave-vertigo
For those more familiar in the medium, most of these should be pretty well known to you already.
*Note: Besides stories, these series all have equally good art (some better than others) but still very nice across the board.
Northlanders
The viking and barbarian themed books don't have too many standouts for me, outside of the Conan stuff. Wood's series was a breath of fresh air when it hit and has no doubt left its mark. It will be ending in the near future but what is out now is definitely worth checking out.
The series alternates between long and short story arcs.
In the first arc, "Sven the Returned," (issues #1-8) we follow the protagonist Sven, a self-exiled Viking warrior serving in the Byzantine Varangian Guard, as he returns (in A.D. 980) to his birth region in the Orkney Islands in order to reclaim his rightful inheritance.
The second arc, "The Cross + The Hammer," (issues #11-16) is set around Dublin, Ireland circa the Battle of Clontarf (A.D. 1014), and follows the chase of an Irishman who attacks the occupying Viking forces using guerrilla tactics. He also accompanies his daughter Brigid while on the run.
The third arc, "Lindisfarne," (issues #9-10) is about a young boy and the sacking of the Lindisfarne monastery in A.D. 793, the beginning of the Viking Age.
100 Bullets
Among my top favorite Vertigo series, the initial plot is simple and very well written. Azzarello said more or less that he used this setting to get it past approval, he had always planned to write it past the briefcase and so he did. Some people didn't like this but it doesn't affect how good the series is, if anything it was where it needed to go.
The initial plot of 100 Bullets hinges on the question of whether people would take the chance to get away with revenge. The mysterious Agent Graves approaches someone who has been the victim of a terrible wrong. Graves gives them the chance to set things right by providing them a handgun, the eponymous 100 bullets, and documentation of the person primarily and personally responsible for the recipient's woes. He informs the candidate that the bullets are completely untraceable, and any law enforcement investigation that uncovers one of these bullets will immediately stop.
Though all of the murders enabled by Agent Graves are presented as justifiable, the candidates are neither rewarded nor punished for taking up the offer, and appear to receive nothing other than personal satisfaction for their actions. Several people have declined the offer, while others accept. Those that accept see their actions unfold with varying levels of success or failure. The attaché and Graves' "game" is later revealed to be only a minor part of a much broader story .
Preacher
Ennis' signature series for many, it's hard to cross lines and push things a little and still remain readable. Ennis is one of the best with doing this. The 'spirit' of John Wayne is a nice touch throughout the series.
Preacher tells the story of Jesse Custer, a down-and-out preacher in the small Texas town of Annville. Custer was accidentally possessed by the supernatural creature named Genesis in an incident which killed his entire congregation and flattened his church.
Genesis, the product of the unauthorized, unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon, is an infant with no sense of individual will. However, as it is composed of both pure goodness and pure evil, it might have enough power to rival that of God Himself. In other words, Jesse Custer, bonded to Genesis, may have become the most powerful being in the whole of living existence.
Custer, driven by a strong sense of right and wrong, goes on a journey across the United States attempting to (literally) find God, who abandoned Heaven the moment Genesis was born. He also begins to discover the truth about his new powers. They allow him, when he wills it, to command the obedience of those who hear and comprehend his words. He is joined by his old girlfriend Tulip O'Hare, as well as a hard-drinking Irish vampire named Cassidy.
Hellblazer
The movie adpation was **** (Constantine) its source on the other hand is not. Ennis' work on this is generally considered among its best.
*Note: This was originally published under DC, but Vertigo took over with issue #63 (1993 as part of Vertigo's launch)
Hellblazer is set in a contemporary world, albeit a world of magic and supernatural conflict behind the scenes. Although issue 14 made a passing reference to superheroes, the series has since developed its own pocket universe in which the supernatural or paranormal does not play a large role in the lives of most ordinary people, and in Earth-threatening circumstances no superhero interventions are shown or hinted at, suggesting that superheroes no longer exist there. However, some DC Comics characters—most notably the fringe supernatural characters such as Zatanna, The Phantom Stranger, Shade, The Changing Man, Dream, and Swamp Thing have made appearances.
John Constantine, the main character of Hellblazer, is portrayed as a kind of confidence man who does morally questionable things, arguably for the greater good. He usually triumphs through guile, deceit, and misdirection, but often makes more enemies in the process than he defeats. Indeed, it is a common theme in the book that Constantine is unable to effect any lasting change or enjoy unequivocal victories. While sometimes striving for the good of mankind, Constantine is often manipulative and a dangerous person to have as a friend, as the lives and souls of those around him become perilously involved in his misadventures. He takes pains to protect himself from direct attacks, but his friends and relatives are often endangered in order to strike at him. The spirits of deceased friends haunt him, individually or as an entourage of ghosts.
Y: The Last Man
Probably one of the most popular and well known titles from Vertigo. Writing of such a plot can go so many ways, but this was handled pretty carefully and makes for a fun read. It also contains one of the best ending panel/shots at the end, that is real culmination of themes for the series.
On July 17, 2002, something (referred to as a plague) simultaneously kills every living mammal possessing a Y chromosome — including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm. The only exceptions appear to be New York residents Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his male Capuchin monkey, Ampersand. Many females are killed from disasters caused by the men's deaths.
Society is plunged into chaos as infrastructures collapse, and the surviving women everywhere try to cope with the loss of the men, their survivor guilt, and the knowledge that - barring a rapid, major scientific breakthrough or other extraordinary happening - humanity is doomed to extinction.
The mysterious Agent 355 is sent to help and protect Yorick, determined to find his girlfriend Beth who was in Australia when the plague struck. Agent 355 has other plans for Yorick however as she was instructed by Yorick's mother, President Jennifer Brown (Congresswoman prior to the deaths of the majority of government figures and Secretary of the Interior thereafter), to bring Yorick to Washington.
Cross-country travel is incredibly hard going, fuel and food are becoming rarer by the day, railways and roads are often blocked and broken and patrolled by armed gangs. Air travel is all but impossible. Yorick spends much of his time disguised as a woman, wearing a gas mask to avoid detection.
Last edited by FrankBooth; 07-26-2011 at 11:58 PM.
Don't forget Fables and DMZ.
I won't
Swamp Thing
Under Vertigo starting with Volume 2
Alan Moore took over this charcter as it was headed for cancellation in the 80's, he was not the figure he is today and DC taking a chance with him paid off big time. He brought this character to another level. The description will have one of the original origins and then jump to what Moore did.
Alec Holland, a scientist working in the Louisiana swamps on a secret bio-restorative formula "that can make forests out of deserts". Holland is killed by a bomb planted by agents of the mysterious Mr. E, who wants the formula. Splashed with burning chemicals in the massive fire, Holland runs from the lab and falls into the muck-filled swamp, after which a creature resembling a humanoid plant appears some time later.
The creature, called Swamp Thing, was originally conceived as Alec Holland mutating into a vegetable-like creature, a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man". However, under writer Alan Moore, Swamp Thing was reinvented as an elemental entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, having somehow absorbed Holland's memory and personality into itself. He is described as "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland."
Transmetropolitan
Spider Jerusalem, that is all you need to know. Weird future setting with an unstable journalist as a protagonist. Has some real heartfelt moments but is often like paint being thrown against the wall. Ellis does good work.
Some time in the future (how long precisely is never specified, but said to be in the 23rd century) Spider Jerusalem, retired writer and bearded hermit, lives an isolated existence in a fortified mountain hideaway, retired from City life for the last five years. Following a call from his irate publisher demanding the last two books per his publishing deal, Jerusalem packs his belongings and descends the mountains before traveling back into The City, a twisted amalgam of pervasive consumerism, ***, violence, and drugs. However, this futuristic culture is highly liberal, self-centered, and focused almost exclusively on present-day matters. "Revivals" from cryogenic stasis are largely ignored and left to fend for themselves on the streets. Cultural "Reservations" are established for the sole purpose of preserving past civilizations. Some people convert to "foglets," clouds of nanomachines that make anything from particles in the air and can spread thin enough to be invisible. No one even knows the current calendar year (this fact revealed by Spider in Issue #42), so everyone always refers to events in time relative to the present day.
Jerusalem returns to working for his old partner and editor Mitchell Royce, who now edits The Word, the City's largest newspaper. The first assignment he attaches himself to is an attempted separatist secession by followers of the Transient movement (a group of people who use genetic body modification based on alien DNA to become a completely different species, forced to live in the Angels 8 slum district) led by Fred Christ, a former rock group manager and impresario similar to Malcolm McLaren. Jerusalem manages to stop the (secretly staged) riots and police brutality that follows, only to be beaten brutally by police on the way home for his troubles.
The first year of the series focuses upon a series of one-off stories exploring The City, Spider's background, and his often tense relationship with his assistants/sidekicks, Yelena Rossini and Channon Yarrow (known collectively as the 'filthy assistants'), who become his full-time partners in his journalistic battles as the series progresses.
Fables
This is the most lighthearted of what is listed and for the publisher. Like Gaiman works (which I'll list later) it is both more accessible and not. All of these and comics in general fall into individual taste, something like this more specific tastes than others. I enjoy this series very much and am still fairly early into it.
The series deals with various characters from fairy tales and folklore – referring to themselves as "Fables" – who have been forced out of their Homelands by "The Adversary" who has conquered the realm. The Fables have traveled to our world and formed a clandestine community in New York City known as Fabletown. Fables who are unable to blend in with human society (such as monsters and anthropomorphic animals) live at "the Farm" in upstate New York.
DMZ
Matthew Roth begins in DMZ as a photography intern for the fictional Liberty News Network, a part of Viktor Ferguson's crew entering the DMZ for the first time to report on the conditions of the war-torn United States. While landing in Manhattan, Matty is left stranded in the DMZ when the crew are attacked by local militia. In the chaos and confusion, Matty meets Zee who treats his wounds and acts as his reluctant guardian and guide in the DMZ.
The series is set in New York City, sometime in the near future and in the midst of a civil war that has turned the island of Manhattan into a demilitarized zone.
The conflict concerns two primary forces: the federal government of the United States of America and the "Free States" armies. In issue #8, it is explained that the Free States are less a geographical entity than "an idea", and that the movement began with an uprising of secessionist groups that formed a separate government in Montana before spreading across the country. The Free Armies and the U.S. military first met in combat at Allentown, Pennsylvania where the Free Armies won, after which the Free Armies descended on New York. The planned evacuation of Manhattan went disastrously wrong, but despite that the US Army was finally able to halt the advance of the Free States forces. There was even a sense among troops that the US forces were ready to start reclaiming territory from and pushing back the Free States army, until the calamity of Day 204, when a squad of US soldiers mistakenly gunned down nearly 200 peace protesters.
With the US robbed of all momentum and public support for an advance, the two sides settled into an uneasy stalemate, where Manhattan is the location of the DMZ between the two warring parties, with the FSA occupying territory including New Jersey and inland, and the United States holding Brooklyn, Long Island, and other parts unknown. The US Government still holds at least part of New York State, and presumably other territories further northeast.
Scalped
Mentioned this one more than a few times here. Vertigo does some really good crime stuff and this is one of them, the setting is unfamiliar and that helps the series a lot.
The series is set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation in modern-day South Dakota; the story is concerned with organized crime as well as the culture and living conditions of the Oglala Lakota living on the reservation.
Dashiell Bad Horse returns to the "rez" after fifteen years of absence, picking fights with whoever crosses his path. His belligerence quickly leads him to a run-in with Chief Lincoln Red Crow, chief of the Oglala tribe, chief of the local police, and a wealthy mob boss. Red Crow assesses Bad Horse's fighting ability and enthusiasm for getting his hands dirty, and coerces him into joining the tribal police force. Bad Horse's primary duty is breaking up fights and shutting down meth labs—Red Crow is about to open a $97 million dollar casino, and is anxious to clean up the tribe's public image, not to mention taking out competition for his illegal interests.
Bad Horse, an undercover FBI agent, is tasked with infiltrating Red Crow's organization.Dashiell's immediate superior wants to bring Red Crow to justice for the murder of two FBI agents thirty years ago, when Red Crow was a militant Native American rights activist alongside Dashiell's mother, Gina Bad Horse.
Dashiell develops an obsession with Red Crow's estranged daughter, Carol, who resents Dashiell for leaving the reservation. Dashiell speaks to her occasionally, but mostly follows and observes her as she tries to escape the crushing boredom and poverty of the reservation through alcohol, drugs, and ****** promiscuity.
Great list sofar...but you forgot Sandman!
That's a lot of info Frank. I guess Vertigo has not changed so much since the early 90s after all. Read some of most of those.
Here are some explanations of the great DC re-whatever and price discussions too.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20489.html Part 1
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20490.html Part 2
Am currently reading the marvel civil war line, a friend of is a bit of a comic not and he is lending (thxme the comics a few at a time. Did any1 want to punch iron man in the face?
Last edited by Victis Honor; 07-31-2011 at 02:48 PM.
Yeah....I totally side with Cap. Almost always and certainly in this screw up. Registration was a nightmare. Finally over (thanks again to Cap). Civil War was great though. And post "war." M-Day. Skrull Invasion was good. The Dark Reign just sort of dragged on. Heroic Age could not come too soon for me.
Still hate I.M.
WTF zombie thor.
Marvel Zombies?
That was an excellent series when it first came out.
True that.
I want to punch Joe Quesada in the face, f*** him and that whole retcon shiet afterward, now they even infected DC.Am currently reading the marvel civil war line, a friend of is a bit of a comic not and he is lending (thx
Posting Permissions
