Karen Berger Era Vertigo, from Swamp Thing #20 to Hellblazer #300 Appreciation

[Lee Stone]

Technically, Karen Berger's first issue of Swamp Thing was #25 but Alan Moore's epic run had just begun five issues earlier.
And Stuart Moore took over editing on Hellblazer, the longest running first wave Vertigo title, with #41...

But the classic Vertigo that launched in 1993 really began with Swamp Thing #20 in 1984 and ended with Hellblazer #300 in 2013. A massive thirty year reign of mature, suspenseful and oftentimes surreal stories that still inspire comics today.
It can be argued that without the books that comprised some of Vertigo's best, there would be no Hellboy, no Madman, no Walking Dead.
Actually, all three could have all been Vertigo comics in another life.

So for sake of defining a period, the "Karen Berger era" encompasses everything from Alan Moore's first issue of Swamp Thing that would help shape what was to come all the way to Hellblazer #300, the last issue of the original Vertigo titles.

Before the arrival of Vertigo, Karen Berger was mostly over the Legion of Super-Heroes family of books and female-centric comics, such as Amethyst, Angel Love and George Perez's critically acclaimed Wonder Woman relaunch that came after Crisis on Infinite Earths.
But it was her earliest DC works, editing House of Mystery in the early '80s, that really set her down that twisted and dark path that everyone would come to admire her for a decade later.

Six of the eight Vertigo launch titles in 1993 had been around for quite a while, tucked in a corner away from the spandex and shiny-happy superheroes of DC's core universe. And Karen oversaw most of them before she drew them under the label that would come to define their look and feel for the next twenty years.

The launch titles for Vertigo were:
Animal-Man #57
Death: The High Cost of Living #1 (a mini-series)
Doom Patrol #64
Enigma #1 (a mini-series)
Hellblazer #63
Sandman #47
Shade the Changing Man #33
Swamp Thing #129

With Sandman Mystery Theatre #1 the following month.

Pre-launch Vertigo comics include:
Animal-Man #1-56
Doom Patrol #19-63
Hellblazer #1-62, Annual #1
Sandman #1-46, Special #1
Shade the Changing Man #1-32
Swamp Thing #20-128, Annual #2-6
Books of Magic, volume 1 #1-4
Black Orchid, volume 1 #1-3

I'll let Karen describe Vertigo here...
From the Vertigo Preview:



And for a bit more information, here's her editorial from the first month's books:



For me, personally, Vertigo became associated with tales of the supernatural, harrowing psychological suspense and bouts of existentialism.

Mystical characters like Zatanna, Phantom Stranger, Demon, Deadman, Spectre and Dr. Fate really found their purpose in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic.

Books like Shade the Changing Man and Swamp Thing became just as much about the supporting cast as the main characters. Kathy in Shade and Abby in Swamp Thing were just as important as the stars of the books. It was their strength and mortal frailty that helped ground the books and give readers an entry point to easily relate to.

If I had to pick the books to show someone what Vertigo was, I'd probably point them to the first books that made the most impact on me, personally-
Death: The High Cost of Living #1-3
Books of Magic, volume 1 #1-4
Sandman #50
Swamp Thing #49-50 & 56
Doom Patrol #19-22
Shade the Changing Man #33-35
Sandman Mystery Theatre #1-4
Black Orchid, volume 1 #1-3
100 Bullets #1-5 (from a later part of Vertigo's history where they began to branch out into more crime-fiction with less of a supernatural element)

What are your fondest memories of the Karen Berger era of Vertigo?