47 Years Later, Alan Moore's First Superhero Is Still His Most Twisted Creation

Published Oct 3, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor. It is 1979, and a young artist named Curt Vile has just co-created a truly unhinged underground comic book character, a kind of proto-Robocop meets Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. The artist stands at a career crossroads. Go down one path, and he can become Alan Moore. Go down the other, and he ends up more like Frank Miller , or maybe Garth Ennis. Of course, Curt Vile was, in fact, Alan Moore, writing under an early pseudonym. So, we know which path he took. And consequently, most people familiar with Moore today know him as the creator of the masked vigilantes in Watchmen, and the anarchist hero V in V for Vendetta, as well as the writer of several classic Batman and Superman classics for DC. Alan Moore's first credited comic book creation, Axel Pressbutton, is a deep cut these days, a footnote in his story. But early in Moore's decades-long comics career, back when he was just Curt Vile, Pressbutton showcased his penchant for the outrageous and his willingness to break all the rules and conventions of the medium. Meet Alan Moore's First Character, Axel Pressbutton, The Gonzo Killer Cyborg Axel Pressbutton debuted in the British magazine Dark Star in 1979, in the story "Three-Eyes McGurk and His Death Planet Commandos," by Pedro Henry and Curt Vile. Those were the pseudonyms of Steve Moore and Alan Moore. (Not blood related, but close friends.) The two traded off writing subsequent Pressbutton stories over the next few years. After that, Steve Moore kept the character going through the early 1990s. Within seven years of co-creating Pressbutton, Alan Moore had gone on to create Watchmen. It bears repeating: Axel Pressbutton is a truly wild character, unlike any other (either) Moore ever created. For Alan Moore, Pressbutton is a look at his madcap creative mind at its most raw and unrefined. Pressbutton is a cyborg, with a human head and hand and not much else organic matter left. His other hand is a terrifying, scythe-like blade. His likeness is drawn in the image of legendary actor Ernest Borgnine. And most over-the-top of all, he gets his name from the big red button on his chest. What does the button do? Nothing family friendly, that's for sure. If you really must know, it sexually stimulates the cyborg. (It is unclear which Moore, Steve or Alan, came up with that particular idea.) There is an alternate reality where Axel Pressbottom wound up being Alan Moore's claim to fame, but instead he turned out to be just scratching the surface of the anarchistic creativity that the author had to bring to bear on comics. Axel Pressbutton Was The First Step On Alan Moore's Road To Legendary Comic Writer Status Alan Moore was actually at more than one crossroads around the time he was co-creating and writing Axel Pressbottom stories? First, there is his decision to stop drawing in order to give his full attention to writing. That meant letting other artists, notably frequent Garth Ennis collaborator Steve Dillon, step in to illustrate the Pressbottom stories Steve Moore kept writing under the name Pedro Henry. Then there was the professional crossroads of pursuing mainstream comic industry work with Marvel and DC. As much as it pained Moore, Watchmen wouldn't have been possible without this move. Finally, there was the stylistic crossroads Moore came to in the early '80s. Axel Pressbutton was a transgressive character, but Moore realized that he could, proverbially speaking, "catch more flies with honey than vinegar," by encoding his transgressive ideas into more conventional packaging. So, Moore left his first and most over-the-top character behind and went on to bigger and better things. Axel Pressbutton was a necessary stepping stone, though, for Alan Moore to become the transformative comic book creator that he did.