8 Incredible Creators That Changed Comics Forever

3. Alan Moore

Alan Moore - writer of Watchmen, Batman, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and others - is a true icon of the medium.

Chances are you already knew that, but still, it's easy to forget just how great an influence Moore had on the medium when he first got involved. A pioneer of the second British Invasion of the eighties, Moore took to DC and fundamentally smashed the notion of what a comic book could be, beginning with Swamp Thing (in which he oversaw the creation of Constantine), before rounding off two seminal Superman stories with For the Man Who Has Everything and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

1986 saw the creation of the Watchmen with artist Dave Gibbons, and the rest is history. Watchmen is commonly regarded as the best comic book story of all time - the best superhero tale, in fact. The book tackled Cold War paranoia, themes of war and peace, and deconstructed the superhero genre as it then existed in an insightful and thoroughly entertaining way. It's seminal in every sense of the word.

Moore would later tackle Batman in the controversial albeit equally influential story, The Killing Joke, in which the clown prince of crime paralysed Barbara Gordon in an attempt to prove that anyone - even Commissioner Gordon - could be driven insane, given the necessary push.

Several features surrounding the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would follow - on top of other independent ventures - and while Moore is quick to deride his older works, it's clear that they've all had a key influence in crafting the medium as it exists today.