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Vertigo First Cut

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Collects seven debut issues from Vertigo comics, including a world where fable characters come to life, twin siblings are hunted by a mythical Japanese soldier, and cowboys wage war among themselves in Reconstruction-era Missouri.

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 2008

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About the author

Brian Wood

1,179 books963 followers
Brian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.

From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.

His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.

He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.

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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for Stephen Theaker.
Author 95 books62 followers
July 8, 2008
Contains the first issues of seven different Vertigo titles (DMZ, Army@Love, Jack of Fables, The Exterminators, Scalped, Crossing Midnight and Loveless) and a preview of an eighth (Air). It hasn't left me desperate to read any of them, though they all seem like decent comics. They just felt a bit grim, taken together - two of them are set in wars, two are westerns, and another is about the ongoing war between man and vermin. The remaining two, Jack of Fables and Crossing Midnight, are the ones I'm most likely to read more of, though I'll probably be reserving them at the library rather than buying my own copies.
Profile Image for Mike.
234 reviews4 followers
October 5, 2020
Basically serves as a sampler. Useful for me even though it's old since I like a lot of Vertigo stuff. Found a couple I may delve into at a later date. Can't beat it as a way to dip your toe into some titles without much commitment.
Profile Image for Kris Shaw.
1,434 reviews
July 28, 2024
These are $4.99 sampler trades that the off-brands will offer to entice new readers. Honestly, Vertigo is hardly some small indie company, though; they are merely an imprint of DC, who is owned by Warner Bros., so much like much other so-called "indie" stuff, this is merely marketed that way so that people who wouldn't buy something mainstream, i.e. DC, would buy this.

Army @ Love, DMZ, and Loveless all sucked, and Crossing Midnight, The Exterminators, Scalped, and Jack of Fables were decent, but not enough to convince me to pick them up. I find it disturbing that these are marketed as "sophisticated" comic books. What is so sophisticated about profanity, nudity, excessive graphic violence, and titillation? To me those traits are very adolescent; hardly what anyone would rightly consider being adult literature.

I tried these out for something different, and while they are certainly different from my more mainstream superhero tastes, I ultimately found them wanting as intelligent reads. My search for sophisticated comic books continues.
Profile Image for PurplyCookie.
942 reviews207 followers
April 25, 2009
Seven premier issues from Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics featuring stories by some of comics' most popular writers and artists including Mike Carey, Brian Wood, Bill Willingham, Brian Azzarello and many others.

DMZ >>written by Brian Wood, with artwork by Wood and Riccardo Burchielli is about the brutality of combat when brought home in a future Manhattan condemned to serve as the front line in a new American civil war.

Army@Love >>drawn and scripted by Rick Veitch, with Gary Erskine on inking duties. In a merciless satire of thoughtless imperialism, military occupation is transformed into a viral marketing scheme gone mad.

Jack of Fables >>written by Fables writer Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges. The most cocksure Fable of them all finally gets the title his outsized ego requires--as well as the punishment his hubris demands.

The Exterminators >>created by writer Simon Oliver and artist Tony Moore. It's the bugs' world, we just live in it--something that the grizzled pest control team of Bug-Bee-Gone is about to discover in the most alarming way.

Scalped >>written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by R. M. Guéra. A prodigal son returns to his native reservation, where drugs, alcohol and despair have made a fertile ground for greed, corruption and murder.

Crossing Midnight >>written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Jim Fern and Eric Nguyen. The world of Japanese myth spills over into the modern day, with terrible consequences for a brother and sister pressed into supernatural service.

Loveless >>written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Marcelo Frusin, Danijel Zezelj and Werther Dell'Edera. In the chaos and violence of Reconstruction-era Missouri, one couple wages a private campaign of revenge against the occupiers--and their own past.


The dark side of this collection is "Exterminators" and "Loveless", two of the five debuts here, are now canceled. "Crossing Midnight" is in possible danger of cancellation as well. All in all, this is definitely worth a whole lot more just for the cover illustrations alone.


Book Details:

Title Vertigo: First Cut
Author Mike Carey, Bill Willingham, etc.
Reviewed By Purplycookie
Profile Image for Bill Davidson.
17 reviews
November 12, 2017
Worth a look if you like other Vertigo titles.

I like DMZ, would read more. Crossing Midnight is promising, might take a second look. The Exterminators and Jack of Fables are pretty good, but not on my must-read list. Army@Love is male wish fulfillment of war and sex, kind of stupid. Loveless and Scalped are appalling, mindlessly violent and foul-mouthed, everything I dislike about adult comics.
Profile Image for angrykitty.
1,120 reviews13 followers
July 21, 2008
got this mostly just because it was 4.99, but also since it has the first jack of fables story.

this was a real mixed bag. aside from the jof story, there were maybe two others that i may consider getting individual vols of. otherwise, the stories were kinda lame.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews