I’ll still argue that continuity is as much a burden as it is a tool, but Moore makes a solid case for how it can work, taking his title character on the tour of the literal DC universe. Those who visit regularly will know that I tend to balk at excessive continuity, worried that a shared universe driven by editorial mandate and written by those with encyclopedic knowledge of the minutiae of the genre strangles creativity – as people worry more about how it “connects”than about whether it is a good story on its own terms. Here, in the final two volumes of this collection, we truly get a sense of how skilfully Moore integrates the story with the wider shared fictional universe. Not only did he stay on the title for a long enough time, he also managed to bend the series to both the shared continuity of the universe and its major events – notably writing one of the most impressive tie-in stories of all time with his Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-in. Not only did he offer a bold and clever reimagining, he also stuck around on the title long enough to develop it and to give it a solid arc.

Not only did Moore take an established character, but he fundamentally reimagined the character’s central concept. Still, Moore’s Swamp Thing feels like an entirely different beast. Not to mention high-quality self-contained series like Sandman or Starman, both impressive creations set within the shared fictional universe operated by DC. Around the same time, of course, Frank Miller was writing Daredevil, for example.

There were, of course, long runs on characters that are remarkable.

Alan moore saga of the swamp thing