10 Legendary Comic Book Runs You Must Read Before You Die
3. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing
Alan Moore is well known around the world for his work on Watchmen, but he has been contributing his words to comics for decades with some of the most important stories told found in the pages of Swamp Thing.
For anyone who isn't familiar with his work on the books back in the 1980s, those are issues anyone who enjoys DC Comics has to read at some point in their lives. When he took over the book, he spent an issue tying up the plotlines from the previous creator and then let loose in his second issue, redefining the character in the process.
In his second issue, "Anatomy Lesson," Moore completely changed Swamp Thing's origin story such that he wasn't Alec Holland transformed by a chemical explosion, but rather, he was an amalgamation of animated sentient plantlife who thought he was Holland. It was incredibly meta and changed the way Swamp Thing was presented from that point forward.
While working on the book, Moore was aided with the incredibly artistic style of Stephen R. Bissette who illustrated the books and John Totleben who inked them. Moore's biggest impact was the development of DC's Vertigo imprint, which spun out of his work to help launch titles like Sandman and many more.
Saga of the Swamp Thing, Swamp Thing #20-58, 60-61, 63-64, and Annual 2