It sounds rude, but it's true. Vertigo is a dumping ground for ideas. Not in terms of quality! However, they picked up a lot of kids who were too dangerous, unfashionable, outspoken for their parent company. House of Secrets, Changing Man, and Swamp Thing out of Vertigo as an adult, established phenomena, which wasn't the case when they first started. My reader will exclaim, "Of course, they had Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis! Thanks to them, the heroes became great!". Without ignoring truly significant masters, I tend to pay more attention to lesser-known authors or the contributions of major figures where they remain unknown. For example, Mike Carey effectively single-handedly made the laws of the magical part of DC an invisible and influential whole. The last volume of Gen 13 was written by Simon Oliver, who made his way into DC publications through Vertigo's Exterminators. Mark Millar's work on the Swamp Thing allowed the green monster to discover the power of traveling through the Earths. It sounds insignificant. In fact, it was this discovery that made the further integration of superheroes into everyday life so smooth and lore-justified. So, point one is: Vertigo is refining the Concepts.
Point two. While early comics had an aesthetic fanbase, works after the early 2000s allowed us to experience the taste of the Freedom in all its forms. Why this is so important? The world building, in its higher stages, is all about routine and small details. In the context of the universe as such, that is, when we are not talking about specific hero or events, there are many insignificant things that simply exist. The world will not explode if they disappear. But will it become poorer? Absolutely. So, you get your million gangster clashes, the authors' personal dramas, the strange worlds of the future, and the behind-the-scenes stuff. Do you know what Mnemovore, Otherworld, and Fables have in common? Yes, they are portals through the realities! So, total #2: Vertigo creates space for combining lore.
Third one. A plot breaks the plot. Comics by Vertigo are the closest to the traditional format that DC followed before the merger. The vast majority of them were approved by the publisher as completely independent adventures. However, we do have the fact of overlapping series, such as The Sandman and Shade. Swamp Thing uses a pantheon that spans across worlds. A couple of years ago, DC officially recognized a certain Vertigo Earth. In other words, despite the impossibility, the real Life of MF Grimm, a mystical Bodies, and how-to-explain-this Art Ops originate from the same point. Absurd!
Through such contrasts, we can better understand the boundaries of divergence. The problem with mainstream comics is the sequence of retcons. They either change everything or change minor details. These things cannot be understood outside of major events or specialized areas.
When you read The Filth, you get a lot of important terms, ideas, and concepts that then work in the main DC. That's why Vertigo resurrects every week!
