The Trenchcoat Brigade (Vertigo)

Issues 1-4 of 'The Trenchcoat Brigade'

Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999

Writer - John Ney Rieber
Artist - John Ridgway
Colorist - Alex Sinclair

The Trenchcoat Brigade is a four-issue comic book limited series that was published in 1999 as a part of DC Comics' Vertigo imprint.

The title references an offhand joke used by John Constantine in the earlier Books of Magic series to label a loose affiliation of mystics including himself, Phantom Stranger, Doctor Occult, and Mister E, who share a preference for trench coats as their outdoor wear. (Constantine was knowingly paraphrasing the title of Alfred Lord Tennyson's famous "The Charge of the Light Brigade", about a reckless military event.)

They first appeared together in Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic series, in which they attempted to guide Tim Hunter through various realms of Magic in the DC Universe in order to teach him all of Magic's abilities and consequences.

The group would later re-unite in the five-issue mini-series The Names of Magic, before finally getting their own mini-series.