8 Best Alan Moore Comics Every Fan Needs to Read at Least Once

While he has nothing but disdain for the industry surrounding it, Alan Moore is the greatest comic writer of all time, constantly looking for new ways to wield a medium that remains in its infancy.

Almost every comic Alan Moore has written is worth your time, but here are the eight that every fan needs to check out once in their life…

8

The Ballad of Halo Jones (with Ian Gibson)

Moore’s unfinished sci-fi masterpiece follows the titular Halo Jones through a turbulent future packed with imaginative details. Halo Jones is a drifter whose chaotic life tours the darkest corners of a satirical sci-fi universe, where AI pets exhibit disturbing loyalty and a popular cult implants a unifying drumbeat in its members’ heads.

The story was plotted to the end but was never finished due to a copyright dispute. We’ll never know how Halo’s story ends, but her universe is a fully realized place pulsing with creative intent.

7

Crossed +100 (with Gabriel Andrade)

Crossed +100 Volume 1 #1-6

In 2008, Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows created Crossed, kicking off a zombie franchise where instead of flesh-eating undead, the protagonists are pursued by viciously inventive sadists who will do anything to make their victims suffer.

Moore and Andrade’s sequel takes place a century later. Most of the Crossed are dead and humanity is on the cusp of bouncing back, albeit with a population vastly depleted by the outbreak. However, a mystery involving the last remaining Crossed and a dead serial killer is about to change the world forever.

Set in 2108, Moore imagines a totally new world, with language, religion and social norms transformed by a turbulent century. At the same time, Andrade draws a wild, vibrant world that might still be worth living in… or may be better off without us.

Crossed +100 asks a lot of its readers, turning a mean-spirited zombie franchise into a work of expansive dystopian fiction.

6

Superman: For the Man Who Has Everything (with Dave Gibbons)

This short story is considered one of the best Superman stories of all time. The Man of Steel finds himself trapped in a hallucination of what his life might have been, forcing him (and readers) to confront the destruction of his home planet Krypton like never before.

It’s not as dark as the other entries on this list, and exemplifies how Moore’s cynicism often comes from wounded empathy and the ability to see what humans are capable of at their best.

5

Saga of the Swamp Thing (with Stephen R. Bissette, John Totleben, Rick Veitch and More)

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume 2, #20-64

Moore reinvented DC’s horror character during his time on the ongoing comic, beginning with body horror and evolving into psychedelia and the philosophy of magic.

Whether journeying into Hell or encountering a twisted reimagining of Looney Tunes’ Wile. E. Coyote, Swamp Thing is an uneasy exploration of what makes us human, and how fragile that concept can be.

4

The Courtyard, Neonomicon and Providence (with Jacen Burrows)

Considered by some to be Moore’s masterwork, Providence is both a reimagining and a sharp-toothed critique of H.P. Lovecraft’s iconic Cthulhu Mythos. In Moore and Burrows’ story, journalist Robert Black investigates the hidden world depicted in Lovecraft’s fiction, learning dark metaphysical truths which drag him inexorably towards fathomless horror.

Providence gathers Lovecraft’s fiction together into a cohesive world that simultaneously examines the writer’s bigotry, while also casting some metaphysical magic that’s too core to the story to spoil here.

The Courtyard and Neonomicon are shorter prequels which are essential to understanding Providence‘s ending, but be warned that Neonomicon contains one of the most upsetting depictions of rape in comics, of which even Moore said, “maybe I have gone too far.”

3

V for Vendetta (with David Lloyd)

In a dystopian London, a masked freedom fighter begins a terroristic quest to bring down the government and unleash anarchy on the UK. Lloyd’s art depicts a grimy, sordid, dangerous London, fostering an oppressive atmosphere that depicts exactly what it’s like living under Norsefire’s fascistic regime.

Partly a teardown of Thatcher’s Britain, Moore has a lot to say about authoritarianism, and the everyday brutalities that make us feel too small to fight back. Unlike the more triumphant 2005 movie adaptation (from which Moore withheld his name), the ending asks dark questions that will stay with you forever.

2

Watchmen (with Dave Gibbons)

The graphic novel that changed superhero comics is still a fantastic read, primarily because of the top-shelf mystery at its heart. After a former superhero is assassinated, troubled vigilante Rorschach picks up the case, discovering a conspiracy of alarming scale and ambition.

Moore’s work was always intended to critique the concept of superheroes, with each main character acting as a different kind of grotesque. However, Moore also delivers human moments of tragedy that will make you weep, while Gibbons’ art conjures a unique alternate world where the existence of just one genuine superhuman changed everything.

The comic is a meticulous work designed to use the medium in groundbreaking ways, frequently inviting readers to literally flick back and forward as new details are revealed, empowering them to step outside time in the same way as the iconic Doctor Manhattan.

Watchmen has lost some of its bite thanks to decades of imitation, but there’s a reason that those who read it early end up obsessed with what comics can do for the rest of their lives.

1

From Hell (with Eddie Campbell)

From Hell is a controversial pick for Moore’s best comic, but the gigantic graphic novel is easily his most haunting. Moore reimagines the real-life Jack the Ripper killings as the result of a conspiracy intended to hush up a royal indiscretion. His antagonist, Sir William Gull, is a stomach-turning study in unchecked power, useful misogyny and the poisonous effects of conspiratorial thinking.

Campbell’s sharp, black and white art depicts a harsh world where there’s no question of true ‘justice’ coming to pass, while Moore’s writing distills his lifelong assertion that magic and mysticism do affect the physical world, as surely as any idea that leads to action.

From Hell explores the dark alchemy of how powerful men become disconnected from morality, remaining as relevant today as it ever was.

Those are our picks for the Alan Moore comics everyone should read once, but that’s no excuse to skip other masterpieces like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Captain Britain or Tom Strong. Let us know what you think of our ranking below, and what other Alan Moore comics shouldn’t be missed.