The mid 80s were a good time to be a geek. In the music world, metal was revolting against its glam stars and producing a host of thrashers who put out the best stuff since Sabbath; Master of Puppets, Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?, and Reign in Blood were sure to be spinning in the record players and tape decks of every acne-scarred social outcast in the country.

And what do social outcasts read? Comic books, that’s exactly right. We’re a hated and mocked breed, but anyone who read them in this era was about to have their reading material finally “legitimatized.” A new breed of writers was revolutionizing the medium, removing the redundant and intelligence-insulting wordiness that plagued comics at the point and replacing it with more concise and more adult language as well letting the art tell the story. And chief among them were two men, each from one side of the Atlantic: Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

**spoilers after the jump**
(more…)