15 Weird & Forgotten Vertigo Comics That Will Mess with Your Head - Vol. 1

There are very few comic book imprints which are as heralded and as famous for flipping the bird to the superhero trend as much as Vertigo Comics. Spearheaded by DC Comics editor Karen Berger in 1993, Vertigo’s purpose was to publish adult comics and not shy away from nudity, drug use, profanity and graphic violence.

This countdown focuses on some of the most bizarre and challenging comics that Vertigo ever put out. Let's get stuck in.

(Oh! And there’s a bonus interview I did with Mel Gillman about The Goblin Throne. Scroll half way for that.)

100 Bullets was written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso. It ran for 100 issues and won the Eisner and Harvey Awards. It’s based on the core question of “would you act on the desire of violent revenge if given the means, opportunity, and a reasonable chance of success?”

Many of the first issues involve the mysterious Agent Graves approaching someone who’s been a victim of a terrible wrong. Graves gives them the opportunity to take revenge by providing a handgun, 100 bullets, and documentation about the primary target responsible for their woes.

He informs the candidate the bullets are completely untraceable by any law enforcement investigation, and as soon as they are found at any crime scene, investigations will immediately cease.

So, would you exact revenge on someone who has wronged you when you knew you’d have a 99% chance of getting away with it?

2020 Visions was written by Jamie Delano and drawn by four artists (Frank Quitely, Warren Pleece, James Romberger and Steve Pugh). 2020 Visions is an incredible anthology which tells four different stories over three issue arcs.

The first arc, “Lust for Life”, is the horror tale. The second arc, “La Tormenta,” is the crime tale. The third arc, “Renegade,” is the western tale. And finally, the fourth arc, “Repro Man,” is the romance arc. With all stories loosely linked to one another by the genetic relationship of the protagonist in each tale and taking place in the year 2020.

2020 Visions is a bizarre series and the linking of the key protagonists in each tale doesn’t pay off for everyone who reads it. However, it’s telling just how much can be achieved in the world of comic books.

Written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by artist Carlos Ezquerra, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade is a British special forces commando unit commanded by Captain Darcy and staffed by these oddball deviant soldiers from different British cities and allied nations. The two stories follow their various covert missions across Europe and Africa and their relevance to the Allies victory.

At first glance, you'll notice the two mini-series look and feel like an aborted attempt at the long running "Commando" comic book. A UK comic book magazine first published in the early 60s - which everyone's uncle seems to own a copy of - for some strange reason.

Look, it would not surprise me if this is where Ennis drew his influences from. Will the Rifle Brigade be able to locate the missing testicle of Adolf Hitler in the small Arabic country of Semmen? Yes, you heard that right. You'll have to collect the series and find out.

Created by Sean Murphy, Punk Rock Jesus was a six-issue mini-series set in 2019. It follows an entertainment company named OPHIS (Greek for serpent) who starts what’s known as the “J2 Project”, a plan to resurrect Jesus Christ. Okay!!? A clone of Jesus Christ is made with DNA from the Shroud of Turin.

Ummmm what!?

The young Jesus is raised on an island with his entire life dictated and televised and viewed by nearly the entire world. Faced with these stresses the young Jesus ultimately becomes a rebellious punk rocker. Hang on – what the fuck!?

What happens next is religious zealots end up either loving or hating the show and politicians begin to fret over potential influences on the nation. And while those shenanigans are going on, the wider scientific community fears the implications of the cloning itself.

Punk Rock Jesus was inspired and fuelled by the fear that Christians have around human cloning. A fear which only hardcore christian types identify with.

Given the playfulness of The CW tv show, it may surprise you that iZombie hails from the ranks of Vertigo. Especially, given the dark and sleazy exploits of title runs like The Extremist and The Horrorist. We'll talk about those two later.

Originally titled "I, Zombie", the comic book was created by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred. It follows Gwen Dylan, a revenant gravedigger in Eugene, Oregon and her friends Ellie, a 1960s ghost, and Scott, a were-terrier. Which is a stark contrast to the cringe-campiness of the tv show.

However, like the show, Gwen Dylan can pass for a regular girl, but she needs to eat a brain once a month to keep from losing her memories and intelligence. When she consumes brains she “inherits” part of the deceased’s thoughts - just like the show.

Seriously though, it's lots of fun. Well worth your hard earned cash and was nominated for the 2011 Eisner Award for Best New Series. So… there's that.

Written by Jamie Delano and with art by David Lloyd, The Horrorist was an occult and horror-themed comic book series. It was a spin-off of Hellblazer series and features the character John Constantine. Strangely, the series consisted of only two 52-page issues without advertisements, which was rare for the 1990s.

The story revolves around Angel, who as a young girl was rescued from war-torn Mozambique, and who witnessed the most unspeakable war crimes and atrocities. As an adult, in the present day, Angel becomes a “Horrorist”, someone who redistributes pain by unveiling to people the suffering of others.

Sometimes this takes the form of altered reality, such as several boys playing in the snow dying from landmines that were not there earlier. It's horrific! Constantine is drawn to Angel, both sexually and psychologically, mostly out of a hope that she can penetrate his emotional numbness.

While they have sex, Angel fills Constantine’s mind with all the suffering in the world, emptying herself, which ultimately restores a bit of Constantine’s lost humanity at the apparent cost of her life.

Dark enough for ya?

Written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Jim Fern and Eric Nguyen, Crossing Midnight is a horror/fantasy comic book series set in contemporary Japan.

The storyline focuses on the Nagasaki twins Kai and Toshi who are born either side of midnight. Which is an unexpected result of their father’s frivolous prayer at their grandmother’s shrine. Toshi is seemingly invulnerable to harm; a fall onto spiked railings as a child reveals this while Kai is impossible to injure with a knife.

The story appears to be deeply rooted in Japanese myth and culture. Not to mention the ongoing theme of two halves completing the whole when past versus future is constantly brought up.

Unfortunately, due to poor sales, Crossing Midnight concluded after just 19 issues. It's still worth picking up if you're an absolute fiend for the Horror Fantasy sub-genre.

Co-written by Howard Chaykin and David Tischman, American Century focuses on a former American pilot who fakes his death and goes on the run in the 1950s. In an interview, Chaykin said he intended it as a “left-wing version of Steve Canyon.” A comic strip which was published from 1947 until 1988.

That's one for historians!

In American Century, however, Harry Block (a World War 2 Vet), fakes his own death and makes his way to Central America to create a new identity for himself as Harry Kraft, a hard-drinking smuggler. During a war in Guatemala, a CIA operative blackmails Block into assassinating Rosa de Santiis, a popular leader in opposition to the CIA puppet dictator General Zavala.

Afterward, he takes a road trip from Hollywood to Chicago to New York, exploring all sorts of facets of 1950s American culture. So, it's a great exploration of America's past - if that's your thing.

This one is a comic book one-shot and was written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Philip Bond and D’Israeli. It's a dark satire of British youth culture which revolves round a bookish middle class schoolgirl, who has a bland and unexciting life until she meets a strange young boy who convinces her to kill her boyfriend.

They then go on the run together for a series of anarchic adventures across Britain. Meeting up with a group of travellers in a double-decker bus, the pair indulge in more crime and sexual experimentation before making their way to Blackpool where they meet their final fate. It's very Bonnie and Clyde.

Written by Mike Carey and drawn by Peter Gross, The Unwritten follows protagonist Tom Taylor , who was the inspiration for a series of hugely successful children’s fantasy novels in the vein of Harry Potter.

The Unwritten deals with themes related to fame, celebrity, and the relationship between fiction and human consciousness. It also bares similar resemblance to other comic books that push the envelope on reality such as Sandman and Locke and Key. Or, even better, films like John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness.

Written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, Trillium is an inter-dimensional, time traveling love story between two explorers in two different time periods. William Pike, a World War I veteran on an expedition to the lost temples of the Incas in Peru in 1921. And Nika Temsmith, a botanist researching a strange flower on the outer-rim of colonized space in 3797.

Separated by thousands of years, William and Nika’s budding love threatens the fabric of the universe. It’s worth mentioning here that the work of Arthur C. Clarke and Moebius, and contemporary comic series Saga, had a major influence on Jeff Lemire’s writing and illustrating throughout Trillium. So if you're a fan of those works then you'll love Trillium.

Created by David Lapham, Young Liars centers around a group of 20-somethings in modern-day New York City. Though the story quickly expands to other parts of America and the rest of the world. All of the characters have disturbing secrets about themselves that they keep from one another.

Leaving the reader to decide what is the truth and what are the lies. Despite the series being abruptly cancelled after 18 issues, it's definitely worth the pick-up. If you can find it.

Written by Dan Abnett and with artwork by I.N.J. Culbard, The New Deadwardians was another short Vertigo series - clocking in at only 8 issues. It follows Chief Inspector George Suttle - as he attempts to solve crimes in a post-Victorian England where the upper classes are composed of vampires and the lower class are a mix of zombies and humans.

As Suttle tries to get to the bottom of an upper-class citizen’s murder, he discovers that there’s more to this murder than meets the eye. Common themes explored in The New Deadwardians involve class relations as well as the women’s rights movement. Seen in this comic by suffragettes fighting for the right to become vampires on their own terms.

Written and illustrated by Ted McKeever, Industrial Gothic follows characters Pencil and Nickel. Two inmates of a prison in a dystopian society in which ugliness is a crime. Pencil was born in the prison. Whereas Nickel is incarcerated there because she has no arms or legs.

They decide to escape, in order to find a semi-mythical place called "The Aluminium Tower", in which everyone is accepted no matter what they look like. Which sounds like an absolute pipe dream!

Written by Warren Ellis and co-created and designed by Darick Robertson, Transmetropolitan was not originally published by Vertigo, as it was originally part of the DC Comics sci-fi imprint called Helix. But I'm including it in this episode because it was the only book to survive the fallout of every other Helix title being abruptly cancelled. It was then moved to the Vertigo line with Issue 13.

Transmetropolitan chronicles the battles of Spider Jerusalem, infamous renegade journalist of the future. Spider dedicates himself to fighting the corruption and abuse of power of two successive United States presidents. He and his “filthy assistants” strive to keep their world from turning more dystopian than it already is while dealing with the struggles of fame and power.

Brought about due to the popularity of Spider thanks to his "hit pieces." It's for anyone who enjoys the likes of 2000 A.D., Judge Dredd or even sci-fi themed satire fiction. That said, there's plenty of action. And even more bleakness. But as much as you come to enjoy it - just know - that Spider will still hate your fucking guts!

Anyways, that's it for now, for another instalment of "List of the Damned". I've got parts 2 and 3 coming in the next few weeks. Please like and subscribe, hit that bell, and throw us a hype - it certainly helps the channel. Oh! And join the discord. It's free. Link is in the description. See you guys next time. For the next episode.

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