DC's Vertigo Line Rises From the (Sort-of) Dead

DC has long struggled about what to do with its Vertigo line. What was once a home to some of the biggest comics has for a good deal of time chugged along with barely anything of note coming out besides the occasional revisit to Neil Gaiman's mythos of, "Sandman," or such. Well, Vertigo just announced what is in essence a relaunch featuring a focus on a wide variety of creators in the hopes a wide-ranging line of titles will appeal to potential new readers with Mark Doyle (someone who got their start in comics with Vertigo) overseeing this new iteration. The press-release has buzz-words such as, "Returning to our roots," and, "New stories, new voices, new possibilities," but corporate-speak aside, the seven books that have been announced as spearheading this era of Vertigo do at least sound like the kind of quirky and unique reads it was once known for. 

The books include a tale of a superhero meeting Jesus in, "Second Coming," a funny-sounding sci-fi thriller about the regulation of pleasure titled, "Safe Sex," or a clever fantasy-political yarn where the damage of mystical monsters is blamed on, "Illegals," in, "Border State," these titles sound funny and interesting. It isn't all humorous stuff however, with the story of a biracial FBI agent passing as caucasian in a white supremacist group within, "American Carnage," sounding appropriately intense. There's also futuristic-sounding stuff like, "Goddess Mode," with its super-powered artificial intelligence and the woman who does tech support on it as well as, "High Level," set in the future after the world ended and rebuilt itself in odd ways. Oh, and a comic about witches brainwashed to become subservient housewives who of course are going to get some revenge, which sounds hilarious. 

Pretty much all of the seven announced comics in Veritgo's rise-from-the-grave sound interesting and I would hope they are all good reads. We will see this latest attempt to reinvigorate DC's original mature-readers line will succeed or wither on the vine. Whatever happens, at least we'll get that really striking cover for, "Safe Sex," you can see above that just looks like a cool and edgy piece of art.