Saga Of The Swamp Thing

Alan Moore again, and not Watchmen. This was one of those moments in the history of comics where you can see the changes about to hit, and aren't entirely sure what to do about it. Swamp Thing had been around for nearly15 years at the point when Moore took over writing the title. Moore, a consumate comics historian, began to mine the history of DC comics to bring out long-dormant characters to light. The tone of Moore's run, dark, heavy, and densely-layered, was also incredibly adult, and is considered to be the first time that a mainstream title broke with the Comics Code Authority, which DC would run with by creating the Vertigo series of titles. You only have to look at what came out of characters used during Moore's run to understand the impact. Hellblazer's John Constantine was created by Moore in Swamp Thing, and Gaiman's Sandman used Cain and Abel, who had made appearances in the title. Add to that the power of Moore's more adult-themed work and you could see where comics were going to be headed in the 1990s, and beyond. Why it's on the list: The great on-going series run of all-time.