The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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- For the film adaptation, see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film).
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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, published under the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics. As of 2005 it comprises twelve issues (published as two six-issue limited series, each collected in graphic novel format, but forming a single ongoing story), as well as a film adaptation of the first six-issue limited series. There is also a prequel short story, "Allan and the Sundered Veil", included in the book form of the first limited series. The story takes place in 1898 in a fictional world where all of the characters and events from literature (and possibly the entirety of fiction) coexist. The world the characters inhabit is one far more technologically advanced than our own was in the same era.
[edit] About the series
The title and concept of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen may be inspired by The League of Gentlemen (the novel and subsequent film, not the unrelated comedic television series) as well as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. It may also have a seed in the comic book superhero teams Justice League of America, Legion of Super-Heroes and the Justice Society.
The Victorian setting allowed Moore and O'Neill to insert "in-jokes" and cameos from many of the great works of Victorian fiction, while also making contemporary references and jibes. (In the first issue, there is a half-finished bridge to link Britain and France, referencing problems constructing the real-world Channel Tunnel). The juxtaposition of characters from different sources in the same story is similar to science fiction writer Philip José Farmer's works centering around the Wold Newton family.
Besides the character of Campion Bond, who could not be called the ancestor of James Bond directly due to licensing issues, every character in the series, from the dominatrix / schoolmistress Rosa Coote to single-panel throwaway characters like Inspector Dick Donovan, is an established character from a previous work of fiction or an ancestor of a character from modern-day fiction. This has lent the series considerable popularity with fans of esoteric Victoriana, who have delighted in attempting to place every character who makes an appearance.
Sherlock Holmes and Dracula are notably absent from the League's adventures due to their deaths prior to the events of the series, though the former has a brother (Mycroft Holmes) in the League and appears in a flashback sequence, and the latter's connections to Wilhelmina Murray do not go unnoticed. Holmes is still believed by the public to be deceased following the events of "The Final Problem". Moore has noted that he felt these two seminal characters would overwhelm the rest of the cast, thus making the book a lot less fun.
[edit] Second press run on issue 5
Issue #5 of Volume one contained an authentic vintage advertisement for a "Marvel"-brand douche, which caused DC executive Paul Levitz to order the entire print run destroyed and reprinted with the offensive advertisement edited. Marvel Comics is DC's chief rival within the industry and Moore had had a public dispute with Marvel, his former employer. Some copies of the pulped print run escaped destruction and are the rarest modern comic books in existence. It is estimated that fewer than 100 copies of this book exist, and none were actually circulated.
In a later title, Moore creates a "Miracle Douche Recall" headline on a newspaper, which is not only a reference to this furor, but is also a reference to the Marvelman / Miracleman furor, when Marvel Comics had previously forced Marvelman, which was written by Alan Moore, to change its name to Miracleman despite the "Marvelman" having been around for 40 years.
[edit] Future works
Alan Moore has announced his intentions to write the adventures of other leagues in different historical eras. One possible group of heroes is seen in a portrait dated 1787 seen in the League's headquarters in the first volume of the comic, featuring 18th century heroes such as an elderly Gulliver, dark-caped Doctor Syn, the Scarlet Pimpernel and Fanny Hill among others. A slightly different version of the portrait can be seen in the film version.
Another possible 'Alternative League' is shown in the form of a sketch drawn by O'Neill titled "Les Hommes Mystérieux" showing an ensemble of French heroes and anti-heroes like the Vernian Robur, the Master of the World, Fantômas, Arsène Lupin and the lesser-known Nyctalope. Considering that most of these characters are thieves or conquerors, Les Hommes Mystérieux may actually be a Legion of Doom-style villain team, especially due to the rivalry between France and Britain that has lasted for centuries. (But it has to be noted that the Nyctalope was a trueblood heroic character in its own source material).
Moore departed from Warner Bros., including its subsidiaries DC Comics and Wildstorm Comics, as a result of a dispute with the filmmaker over an incorrect allegation that Moore had approved of the film version of another of his comic book works, V for Vendetta, and failed to retract the comment or apologize. As a result, Moore has confirmed that any future installments of League stories will be published by Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics.
[edit] The Black Dossier
The next published installment of the story will be called "The Black Dossier" (referred to as "The Dark Dossier" during early announcements of its existence), named for a fictional book the plot presumably revolves around. The official website of Wildstorm Comics gives a synopsis of the plot in a press release:
| England in the mid-1950s is not the same as it was. The Powers That Be have instituted some changes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have been disbanded and disavowed, and the country is under the control of an iron-fisted regime. Now, after many years, the still youthful Mina Murray and a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain return in search of some answers — answers that can only be found in a book buried deep in the vaults of their old headquarters — a book that holds the key to the hidden history of the League throughout the ages: The Black Dossier. As Allan and Mina delve into the details of their precursors, some dating back centuries, they must elude their dangerous pursuers who are hell-bent on retrieving the lost manuscript... and ending the League once and for all [1] |
It will contain "a 'Tijuana Bible' insert and a 3-D section complete with custom glasses, as well as additional text pieces, maps, and a stunning cutaway double-page spread of Captain Nemo's Nautilus submarine by Kevin O'Neill." Alan Moore himself mentioned that "he was in a recording studio last week, working on part of it" [1], referring to an LP record [2] that would be released with the book [2]
According to an interview with Alan Moore, "The Black Dossier" "will slip in between volumes two and three". Moore says it's not just "my best comic ever, not the best comic ever, but the best thing ever. Better than the Roman civilisation, penicillin, [...] the human nervous system. Better than creation. Better than the big bang. It's quite good." He adds that "It will be nothing anyone expects, but everything everyone secretly wanted." [3] Wildstorm Comics editor Scott Dunbier describes it as "one of the more revolutionary books the industry has ever seen". [4] The release date was originally May 30, 2006, then officially solicited for a release of October 25, 2006, it has been postponed until January 10, 2007 [5].
There are still few details regarding what the plot of the volume will entail, although there is much speculation. Alan Moore discussed the possibility of a 1950s League in an interview written prior to the release of the second volume, although it's unknown how much if any of these musings made it into "The Black Dossier"'s 1950s setting:
| I had a really perverse idea the other day, and I'll probably never get around to doing it, but it would be funny to have one series set in the 1950s where you have Sal Paradise from Jack Kerouac's On The Road and his crazy wired-up driver friend, Dean Moriarty, who of course is the great grandson of James Moriarty, or I could say that he is. Then there'd be Doctor Sax, a Kerouac character based on William Burroughs and The Shadow but who owes a lot [to] Fu Manchu. You could set it in Interzone with the Burroughs centipede people appearing all over the place. You could even have a couple of members of the Victorian League still around [3]. |
[edit] History of the League
Moore's work includes references to previous leagues and suggests there will be others subsequently. According to the New Traveller's Almanac, an appendix to the trade paperback collection of The League Vol. 2, the earliest incarnation of the League was known as "Prospero's Men."
[edit] The 17th Century League (Prospero's Men)
- Prospero, the Duke of Milan, the sorcerer protagonist of Shakespeare's 1611 play The Tempest.
- Caliban, Prospero's malformed, treacherous servant, also from The Tempest.
- Ariel, a sprite and air spirit, bound to serve Prospero, also from The Tempest.
- Christian, a pilgrim Everyman, protagonist of John Bunyan's 1678 novel The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come.
- Captain Robert Owe-Much, a British explorer and discoverer of the Floating Island called Scoti Moria or Summer Island, President of the Council of the Society of Owe-Much, and the title character from Richard Head's 1673 book The Floating Island (published under the pseudonym Frank Careless).
This league collapsed in 1690 when Christian found the "heavenly country" for which he was seeking, and thus left this world. Allegedly, Prospero later followed him, as hinted in the Almanac.
[edit] Early 18th Century League (the Pirates' League)
There was at some point in the 18th century a gathering of pirates that may or may not be a league. First mentioned in the Almanac, the details of this gathering were never stated. The pirate Captain Clegg, who gathered this group together, was affiliated with the later league assembled by Lemuel Gulliver.
- Long John Silver. The brutal yet strangely paternal pirate from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
- Captain Blood, rumoured to be the greatest buccaneer of them all, from Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini.
- Captain Slaughterboard and his yellow bunkmate. The homosexual pirate first appeared in Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake.
- Captain Pugwash the mighty pirate whose name was enough to strike fear into the heart of any sea-faring captain. From Eagle Comics and many animated TV shows.
- Captain Hook, archenemy of Peter Pan who lost his hand to a crocodile, from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie.
- Captain Pissgums from Zap Comics and many animated TV shows.
There are also two unidentified pirates.
[edit] The late 18th Century League (Gulliver's League)
The second league was formed by Lemuel Gulliver and secretly gathered in Montague House, London. They are seen in a picture of the group, dated 1787, shown in Vol. I #2. A portrait of the men of this group is also shown in the LXG movie.
- The Reverend Dr. Christopher Syn also known as the pirate Captain Clegg, and later known as the Scarecrow, the vicar turned pirate turned smuggler in the Doctor Syn novels (1915-1944) of Russell Thorndike.
- Mr. and Mrs. Percy Blakeney (the picture in Vol. II does not use the title 'Sir' which Percy had gained by the events of Orczy's 1st novel) from the Scarlet Pimpernel novels of Baroness Orczy published in 1905, set in late 1792. Though most assume that this 'Lady Blakeney' is the same character as Marguerite, Sir Percy's wife in The Scarlet Pimpernel, this grouping takes place several years before the setting of Orczy's novel. As Sir Percy and Marguerite had been married nearly a year at the start of the first novel, this puts the identity of Sir Percy's wife in LOEG into dispute.
- An elderly Lemuel Gulliver, the far-flung protagonist from the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, seen in the portrait with one of the famous miniature sheep at his feet; not to be mistaken for Gulliver Jones, seen on a magic carpet on Mars (he features in Issue 1 of Volume 2). Edwin L. Arnold created Gulliver Jones, who holds the titular role in Lieutenant Gulliver Jones: His Vacation (1905).
- Nathanael "Natty" Bumppo, the hero of the Leatherstocking Tales novels (1827-1841) of James Fenimore Cooper, the most famous of which is Last of the Mohicans. In Cooper's novels he is variously called Deerslayer, Hawkeye and Pathfinder as well as several other names.
- Frances "Fanny" Hill, the eponymous heroine of the 1749 erotic novel Fanny Hill by John Cleland.
[edit] Speculative early 19th Century League
Although it has not been confirmed, fans of the LoEG series believe that the portraits of the people behind the main 19th Century League on the cover of Volume 1 are an earlier past 19th Century League made up of characters active in their source material around the 1870's. The picture in which this supposed League is portrayed is inside the League's headquarters in the British Museum. This picture also includes the group portrait of the late 18th Century discovered in the story of Vol. 1. Also in this picture is the actual character Count Allaminstakeo (a mummy), sleeping, as well as a portrait of him.
- Phileas Fogg from Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in 80 Days; Book, 1872) by Jules Verne
- Sir Francis Varney from Varney the Vampyre, or the Feast of Blood (penny dreadful serial, 1847) by James Malcolm Rymer.
- Count Allaminstakeo from "Some Words with a Mummy" by Edgar Allan Poe.
- Sapathwa (a.k.a. the Blue Dwarf) from The Blue Dwarf by Lady Esther Hope (a.k.a. Percy B. St. John)
- Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
- Jack Harkaway from the Jack Harkaway Series by Bracebridge Hemyng.
[edit] The late 19th Century League (Wilhelmina's league)
The Victorian League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is led by Miss Wilhelmina Murray (of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula), recruited for Military Intelligence by one Mr. Campion Bond (likely a homage to Margery Allingham's Albert Campion and Ian Fleming's James Bond). They meet in the museum that was built on the remains of Montague House.
- Captain Nemo, the Indian submariner from Jules Verne's 1870 novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island and Journey Through the Impossible.
- Allan Quatermain, the elephant hunter and African explorer of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and its various sequels and prequels.
- Dr. Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 short story "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
- Mr. Edward Hyde also from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 short story "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
- Hawley Griffin, also known as The Invisible Man (from the 1897 novel by H. G. Wells. Moore gave Griffin his first name, that of murderer Dr. Crippen).
This league collapsed during the closing days of the Martian invasion when Campion Bond cut his losses and abandoned the now fractured League, after Griffin turned traitor, which started a series of events that lead to the deaths of Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr Hyde.
[edit] The early 20th Century League (Wilhelmina's 2nd league)
The Almanac hints that another league was led by Miss Wilhelmina Murray, founded after the Victorian league, which she had assembled, collapsed. It was presumably set before the events of The Black Dossier, probably still answering to Campion Bond and meeting in the museum’s secret vault.
- Professor Challenger, the palaeontologist from The Lost World and its sequels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- Orlando, the sex-changing immortal from many works most likely drawn from Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography. Orlando was actually confirmed both in the Almanac and by Moore as being a member of the league.
- Doctor Dolittle, the great naturalist and veterinarian first appeared in Hugh Lofting's The Story of Doctor Dolittle and its sequels. Note: Not confirmed and refered to once.
- Allan Junior, presumably a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain from H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and its various sequels and prequels.
Presumably there are more members who have yet to be mentioned.
[edit] The 1950's League
There is also mention of a 1950's league which Moore described as "pathetic, failed surrogate League that was set up in the '50s, and it's a complete disaster. We've got a character who's name is Jimmy. And he seems to be carrying that cigarette case that Campion Bond had." Presumably there are more members who have yet to be mentioned.
[edit] Rival leagues
These copycat leagues were apparently set up by foreign governments such as France and Germany as opponents to the true league, due to the rivalry between these countries and Great Britain that had lasted for centuries, as Alan Moore confirmed in an interview with Wizard #181. At least one, Les Hommes Mysterieux, fought the true League to the death as one of its members was shot and presumed dead, although this was never confirmed.
[edit] Les Hommes Mysterieux
Moore has stated that there will be a French version of the League, known as Les Hommes Mysterieux. This group will be active during the time of Mina's second league presumably as a Legion of Doom-style villain team and was, according to the "The New Traveller's Almanac", destroyed by it.
- Arsène Lupin, a master thief.
- Robur the Conqueror, an insane genius.
- Nyctalope, a cyborg super-hero who became a Nazi collaborator (it was stated that he was shot by Allan Junior, his condition after that is not made clear in "The New Traveller's Almanac").
- Fantomas, a criminal mastermind.
Other possible members include:
- Doctor Omega, a genius inventor.
- Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, a deformed assassin.
- Sâr Dubnotal, a master of the occult.
There are very strong similarities between the relationship of the Phantom of the Opera and the untrained singer Christine, and the relationship of Count Dracula to Mina Harker, therefore it would make a great deal of sense if Christine were the leader of Les Hommes Mysterieux as it would be a nice symmetry.
[edit] Die Zwielichthelden, the Twilight Heroes
Moore has stated that there will be a German version of the League, known as Die Zwielichthelden, or "The Twilight Heroes". He has not revealed any other information about this group.
[edit] Plot
[edit] Volume One
The year is 1898. Britain lives in troubled times, where fretful dreams settle upon its Empire's brow. If England's to survive them, a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is to be recruited by British Intelligence. A menagerie of the Empire's greatest heroes, adventurers, and foes is assembled.[citation needed]
Despite the boasting and hubris of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, an event of great self-celebration on the part of the British, the general mood among British leaders and opinion-makers in the late-19th century is pessimistic. France is re-emerging as a world power and expansionist European rival, newly-united nations like Germany and Italy are disturbing the familiar world order, British exports are falling, the country no longer maintains a trade surplus, and the supremacy of the British manufacturing and commercial empire is being threatened by the German Empire and the United States. Finally, Britain's diplomatic isolation, which Lord Salisbury approvingly called the "splendid isolation" in 1896, has grown increasingly uncomfortable. Britain has no reliable allies, and it is disliked by many in Europe and America, not least for its actions in maintaining the Empire, such as the Jameson Raid in South Africa in 1895, which was a failed attempt to overthrow the Afrikaner government.
Thus miss Mina Murray is recruited by Campion Bond to assemble the League. Bond dispatches Miss Murray to Egypt along with an unnamed "sea captain" (who later we discover to be Captain Nemo). Whilst in Cairo, Murray finds Allan Quatermain, who has become an opium addict. The duo are forced to flee to a port after Quatermain defends Miss Murray from a group of Arabs who attempt to rape her, killing two of their number. Down at the docks, Nemo emerges from the Nautilus and blasts the pursuing "mohammedan rabble" with a large harpoon gun, rescuing Murray and Quatermain.
Their next assignment is to head to Paris in order to rendezvous with C. Auguste Dupin (a detective from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue") and capture a beast-man who transpires to be Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde. He has been hiding in Paris after faking a suicide, and preying on prostitutes. With Jekyll / Hyde successfully captured and handed over to MI6, the remaining trio head to a girl's school in Edmonton, run by the sado-masochistic Miss Rosa Coote. Rumours abound that many of the female pupils have become impregnated by the Holy Spirit. After a single night's investigation, the trio discover that the "Holy Spirit" is none other than Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man, who (much like Jekyll/Hyde) has been hiding since faking his own death. At the time of his capture, he is attacking Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna.
The League is then convened at its headquarters in the "secret annexe" of the British Museum, where they are sent to recover a sample of cavorite from the clutches of Fu Manchu (who is not mentioned by name for trademark reasons, but is instead identified by his pseudonym of 'The Doctor').
Whilst Nemo decides to remain on board his submarine, the remaining quartet are dispatched to London's Limehouse district in order to discover more about the Chinese "devil-doctor". Murray and Griffin learn from an informant named Quong Lee (a storyteller from books by Thomas Burke) that Fu Manchu is indeed operating within the area and is planning something big, however Lee only gives them information in the form of a cryptic riddle, stating "The waters lap beneath the heavenly bridge. The dragon sleeps below it. My advice to you: do not awaken it". Although Griffin is skeptical, Murray concludes that Manchu's activities must be taking place beneath Rotherhithe Bridge. Meanwhile, Quatermain and Jekyll enter Manchu's lair itself (an opium den / bar), and Quatermain spots the doctor applying caustic paint to one of his victims. The duo are almost uncovered as spies, but they manage to escape.
Back on board the Nautilus, the League convenes once more and Miss Murray pulls all the strings of evidence together. She believes Manchu had obviously stolen the cavorite for some nefarious purpose, and states that there is an uncompleted tunnel beneath Rotherhithe Bridge, which would be a perfect place for him to craft some form of aerial war machine without being discovered. Four of the group plan to infiltrate his lair and steal back the cavorite, with Nemo remaining on board the Nautilus.
It is Quatermain and Murray who first manage to get into the Doctor's lair, and they discover a gigantic flying craft armed to the teeth with guns and cannons (which is obviously the "dragon" which Quong Lee spoke of in his riddle). Although they are discovered by a guard, an unnoticed Griffin is able to kill the guard and Quatermain takes his uniform, allowing him a disguise so that he might get inside the Dragon and steal back the cavorite. Griffin heads back outside to fetch Jekyll in the hopes of creating a diversion. Once inside one of the entrances (some form of office building/warehouse), Griffin infuriates Jekyll to such a degree that he becomes Hyde and begins slaughtering Manchu's henchmen.
Having stolen the cavorite, Murray and Quatermain are re-united with Hyde and Griffin in an underwater glass tunnel, and although they lock themselves in they realise it will only be a matter of time before Manchu's men burst in and kill all of them. Luckily, they are quickly able to come up with a plan and put it into action. Hyde grabs Quatermain and Murray, with Griffin holding onto his neck. Quatermain blasts a hole in the glass roof with his elephant gun and Murray activates the cavorite, propelling the group upwards through the cascading water. Manchu's base is flooded, the Dragon is destroyed, and the Nautilus rescues the group as they fall back down into the Thames.
Bond congratulates the group upon the success of their mission, and leaves the Nautilus with the cavorite, telling them he will take it back to his superior M (another parallel to the James Bond mythos). However, Griffin is oddly absent from the group, having disguised a load of brooms as himself, using his own bandages, spectacles and clothing. He follows Bond back to the Military Intelligence Headquarters, and discovers that M is in fact Professor Moriarty, the arch-nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. Moriarty has constructed his own aerial war machine, and with the cavorite he can now put it into action. Griffin returns to the Nautilus and informs the group of what he's discovered. Nemo realises that M is Moriarty, and that he plans to bomb London's east-end, wiping out what is left of Manchu's criminal empire.
After Murray and Quartermain try futilely to prevent Moriarty from launching his ship, and have a run in with The Artful Dodger from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, the League embark aboard the Victoria, a hot-air balloon on Nemo's ship that was once owned by Jules Verne's "Five Weeks in a Balloon's" Samuel Ferguson, and board Moriarty's ship. Hyde and Nemo begin an attack on the crew (Nemo using a minigun, Hyde using his fists), whilst Murray and Quatermain ascend to the top deck where Moriarty is waiting (Griffin has cowardly stripped and remains by the balloon, which is still anchored to the ship). Quatermain guns down Moriarty's guards using his own machine-gun, however the Professor disarms him and prepares to kill him. Just in time, Miss Murray smashes the case containing the cavorite and Moriarty foolishly rushes toward the device, grabs onto it, and propels himself into the night sky. The League leave the ship via the means of the balloon, and once again are rescued by the Nautilus, this time manned by Nemo's first mate Ishmael (the protagonist from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick).
The series ends with Mycroft Holmes congratulating the League for their work, telling them to remain in London should there be more for them to face in the future. The comic itself ends with the scene of Martian ships falling towards Woking, and thus sets in motion the second volume.
The book version of Volume one also includes a short illustrated prose prequel called Allan and the Sundered Veil, which features Allan Quatermain, John Carter, Lovecraft's Randolph Carter, and the Time Traveller from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. This prequel was originally published, serially, at the back of the six individual issues of the comic.
[edit] Volume Two
Volume two opens on Mars, where John Carter and Lt. Gulliver Jones (of Edwin Lester Linden Arnold's Gulliver of Mars) have assembled an alliance (including the Séroni from Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis) to defeat the aliens who have been bedeviling the native Martians. These prove to be the aliens from The War of the Worlds, who learn about Earth from spying on the humans on Mars (using the device from H.G. Wells' The Crystal Egg) and launch themselves there when driven off by the Martian resistance.
NOTE -- Many researchers mistakenly give Gullivar's name as Jones, due to the influence of the Gil Kane drawn comics version Marvel Comics published in the early 1970's. Arnold's original story, however, definitely gave his name as Gulliver.
When the aliens land on Earth, the League is dispatched to guard the crater in which they have landed. They are present when one of the first Martians emerges from the spacecraft, after an onlooker falls into the pit. When a team of men descend into the pit to make peace with the visitors, the aliens unleash the power of their Heat-Ray. Before the weapon opens fire, Nemo realises its nature and pushes the group onto the ground, thus keeping them below the deadly beam while the rest of the massed crowd is disintegrated. Jekyll turns into Hyde and begins to rage, threatening the aliens with violent death. Realising that they can hardly fight the creatures alone, the League retreat to a nearby inn, ("The Bleak House" perhaps of Dickens' novel) at which they run into a confident military division who have been sent to defend the crater. Hyde indulges in a somewhat compassionate conversation with Mina, and Griffin (under cover of invisibility) leaves to form an alliance with the Martians.
The next morning, the group emerge from the inn and hear the military shelling the spacecraft, and the aliens retaliate with their Heat-Ray. Most of the army division is obliterated along with the inn which the League were lucky enough to exit moments before. Presumably Griffin, who had already woken and left the building, had told the Martians the locations of the army positions and the location of the inn in hopes that the league would be incinerated in their beds.
A carriageman (William Samson, Sr., the father of the Wolf of Kabul) arrives to take the group back to the British Museum, where they shall receive more orders from Mycroft Holmes. He tells Miss Murray to stay at the museum and learn what she can about Mars, also giving her the locations of the British gun emplacements. This puts her in extreme danger, as while Nemo, Hyde and Quatermain return to the crater in order to survey the situation, Griffin stays behind and assaults Murray and helped himself to the rest of the military plans which he sent to the Martians.
During their reconnaissance, the other three members of the League come close to a Martian tripod, an enormous three-legged war-machine. They quickly return to their coach and are taken swiftly back to London. Upon returning, Hyde finds Miss Murray lying beaten on the floor and realises what has happened. Shortly afterwards, Mycroft Holmes sends Mina and Quatermain on a new mission, giving them very vague specifications concerning their task. In the meantime, Nemo and Hyde defend the capital by patrol London's rivers in the Nautilus, the advanced technology Nemo has aboard proving to be an even match for the Martian Tripods allowing them to kill and drive back the Martian advance and retrieving samples of their technology and engineering when possible.
During their mission in the countryside, Mina and Allan encounter a man called Teddy Prendick, the protagonist from H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. He is obviously insane and gives them little information, save that in the woods nearby lurks a Doctor whom he once encountered. Their search is uneventful, and they return to a country inn. Quatermain remarks that he'll be damned "if (he) sleeps on the floorboards", while Mina replies that he doesn't have to. This leads to a situation in which the two of them make love, and the comic from this point splits between their love scene, a scene in which Hyde is beating a Martian tripod on board Nemo's submarine, and a quick three-panel "shot" of Griffin telling the aliens they "have to do something to the river" in order to stop the Nautilus and invade London. Awakening post-coitus, Quatermain discovers the scars on Mina's neck, and is seemingly horrified.
The next day, Nemo discovers that the Martians have filled the Thames with some sort of red weed, draining all the water and immobilising his submarine. Meanwhile Quatermain tells Mina that he was not shocked by the nature of her scars, but rather his second wife (named Estella, from Haggard's book "Allan's Wife") had similar scars on her own neck, and that he found it odd "that destiny should so distinguish the two women (he) loved the most". They engage in another love scene in the forest, but this time are disturbed by one of Dr. Moreau's animen, who is comically based on the children's comic-book character Rupert Bear, and indeed the rest of his animal-human hybrids are similar to famous characters from children's fiction ( e.g Puss in Boots, Mr Toad, Mr Rat, Mr Badger and Mr Mole from The Wind in the Willows). The wood is identified (by a station nameboard) as being the Wild Wood from The Wind in the Willows, although Quatermain's comment that the woods are "huge" may be intended to draw comparisons with the Hundred Acre Wood from Winnie the Pooh.
Hyde returns to the British Museum and finds Griffin there. Taking full advantage of this chance encounter, (Hyde reveals that he has been able to 'see' Griffin all along, in a sort of heat-sensing infrared vision he possesses.) Hyde exacts his revenge by brutally beating (breaking one of Griffin's legs in the process) and then raping Griffin, "because (his) treatment of Miss Murray was uncivil..." Griffin ultimately dies from these injuries. Mina and Allan meet with Dr Moreau in his secret hideout in the forest, and tell him that Military Intelligence has asked for H-142. Moreau seems disturbed by this request, but obliges nonetheless and offers the duo dinner. On their farewell at the train station (where foxes can be seen devouring the body of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit) the Doctor casually comments that his nephew is the only human who visits him, seeking inspiration in his subjects. This is a reference to the real-life painter Gustave Moreau. He also makes a distinct reference to the trial of the publisher of Oz magazine when he describes the sexual tendencies of his Rupert Bear hybrid.
During dinner with Hyde back at the museum, Nemo discovers that the brute has killed Griffin when the Invisible Man's death results in the extensive bloodstains on Hyde's clothing becoming visible (suggesting perhaps that, aside from his other acts performed on Griffin, Hyde may have eaten part of him as well). Horrified and disgusted, Nemo attempts to kill Hyde, but is held back by the coachman Samson, who urges him not to kill the brute seeing as he is their only hope against the Martians. Nemo grudgingly obliges.
The following morning, Murray and Quatermain return to London with H-142, finding gas-masked intelligence agents waiting for them, along with Agent Bond. They proceed to the riverside, where Nemo and Hyde are waiting for them. Bond says that all bridges apart from London Bridge have been blown up in a bid to impede the invaders, and that H-142 must be "delivered". Bond leaves with the cargo crate carrying the hybrid. As the League arrive at the bridge, they see that the Martians have managed to destroy the last of the cities defences and have gathered their forces on the other side for their final push into the city.
Seeing that nothing is stopping the Martians from crossing, Hyde gives Mina a fond farewell, and dances out onto the bridge towards an oncoming tripod, singing happily. The machine attacks him with its heat ray, burning off his skin, but he survives, charging into its front leg and ripping it off. With the walking machine toppled, Hyde rips open the top hatch and begins eating the alien inside. The other tripods activate their rays and kill Hyde with a combined barrage, followed by a gun retort from downriver. Nemo is curious as to what the guns could be firing, and Bond tells him the H-142 has been fired. Quatermain is confused, and Bond explains indifferently that it was indeed one of Moreau's hybrids, but was in fact a hybrid bacterium, made up of anthrax and streptococcus. Nemo is infuriated, and Bond coolly replies that they will claim that, officially, the Martians died of the common cold, whilst any humans found dead will have been killed by Martians (crossing with Wells' storyline). Angered by the British government's heartless use of biological weaponry, Nemo leaves in the Nautilus and tells Quatermain and Murray to "never seek (him) again", mistakenly believing that they knew the details of the British plan.
A month later, Mina and Allan are walking through Serpentine Park (which Allan says will soon be named after Hyde, thus giving it the name Hyde Park). Mina says that she is to leave for Coradine, a ladies' commune in Scotland, leaving Allan alone on a park bench, and ending volume two.
[edit] The world of the League
Volume two has an extensive appendix, most of which is filled with an imaginary traveller's account of the alternate universe the League is set in, called The New Traveller's Almanac. This Almanac is noteworthy in that it provides a huge amount of information (46 pages) of background information - all of which is taken from pre-existing literary works or mythology, a large majority of which is difficult to read or at least appreciate without an esoteric knowledge of literature. It shows the plot of the comic to be just a small section of a world inhabited by what appears to be the entirety of fiction.
Many of the places described in the appendices seem to be drawn from Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi's The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1980), though Moore adds numerous places not covered there.
[edit] Appendices
[edit] Collections
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I, collects vol 1 #1-6
- hardcover: ISBN 1-56389-665-6
- paperback: ISBN 1-56389-858-6
- Absolute edition (deluxe hardcover): ISBN 1-4012-0052-4, including Moore's original scripts and additional artwork by O'Neill
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II, collects vol 2 #6-12
- hardcover: ISBN 1-4012-0117-2
- paperback: ISBN 1-4012-0118-0
- Absolute edition (deluxe hardcover): ISBN 1-4012-0611-5, including Moore's original scripts and additional artwork by O'Neill
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Black Dossier
- hardcover: ISBN 1-4012-0306-X (early 2007)
- Absolute edition (deluxe hardcover): ISBN 1-4012-0751-0 (June, 2007)
[edit] Source works
[edit] Principal characters
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- King Solomon's Mines and sequels, by H. Rider Haggard
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu and sequels, by Sax Rohmer
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
- The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
- The Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
[edit] Secondary characters
- The First Men in the Moon, The Time Machine, and The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
- A Princess of Mars and its sequels in the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Gulliver of Mars by Edwin Lester Linden Arnold
- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
- The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
[edit] Similar pastiches
- Perhaps the most notable predecessor is the 1949 novel Silverlock, written by John Myers Myers; every character in this novel had been lifted from the pages of works dating back to Beowulf and other ancient tales. It is unclear whether Moore drew any inspiration from Myers' book.
- Tarzan Alive, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, and the rest of the Wold Newton family stories by Philip José Farmer
- Anno Dracula and sequels, by Kim Newman
- The League of Heroes and sequels, by Xavier Mauméjean ISBN 1-932983-44-9
- Tales of the Shadowmen and sequels, edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier ISBN 1-932983-36-8
- A Night in Lonseome October
[edit] Adaptations
A film adaptation of the comic book was released in 2003, also by the name The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The film adaptation was not well recieved by fans, however,and was later disowned by Moore and O'Neill.
[edit] References
- ^ The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
- ^ News on Upcoming Volumes.
- ^ Alan Moore: The Tripwire Interview
[edit] See also
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen timeline
- The world of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)
- Steampunk
Similar works include:
- Scarlet Traces
- Ruse
- Necronauts
- Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained
- The Five Fists of Science
- List of steampunk works
[edit] External links
- The League Foundation
- Annotations to the League (Notes and annotations in a page-by-page commentary to the comics.)
- Review of LOEG comic written by Alan Moore
- A mirror site for the Commentary
- A fansite, which includes pictorial representations of the Leagues throughout the ages
- The DC Comics Message Board for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- A fansite dedicated to Mina Murray
- Peter Sanderson's in-depth analysis
