Name: B Sai Sushma's review of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore
Item: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Rating: 2
Author: B Sai Sushma

Alan Moore

Features the Victorian era adventures of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, comprised of Captain Nemo, Allan Quartermain, the Invisible Man, Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray, Detective Thomas Sawyer, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Matthew Jackson

Kevin O'Neill

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2

B Sai Sushma

Man, the first book was all right, this one plain sucked. I don't understand why Moore had to go and make it so grotesque, like the amount of graphic scenes was absolutely not necessary and the ending was just plain abrupt. Like what? How did they survive? And there are so many problematic takes in these books, especially with the way Mina is treated. Like, is half the cast in love with her because she is a woman? Only respectable character is Nemo. At least he backs out and retires after this shitty turn of events. It would appear that the League, for being a collection of so many protagonists, is always being manipulated, by someone or the other. I did not like it. Maybe my tastes are different but I thought I liked epic crossovers like this.

I had heard a lot of rave reviews about this book, because of which I decided to pick it up. While to a reader who is familiar with all the classic characters mentioned above, such as 2000 leagues under the sea, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll & Hyde, among the plethora of classical literature or literature set in Victorian Era that have cross-overed, it can be quite a treat, I imagine. I personally had to look up many characters because I haven't read much. There are however some plotholes. The Invisible Man's death's explanation for example, I wasn't very convinced. So there were a few other inconsistencies like that and somehow Dr Jekyll & Hyde, seems like a cheap version of Hulk, so that's a little, meh. The art work suitable to the steampunk style of story it takes, however, I am personally not a huge fan. I will be reading the sequel though.

Gavin

Great fun but not more. I admire their commitment to the bit: there are 6 pages of authentically cracked Victorian ads in the back of each issue, everyone's having a great time being haughty and obsequious in the letters page...

Moore is a master of flimflam and persiflage, of words like "flimflam" and "persiflage" and sentences like 

  
If man ye be and not some craven dog of Flanders, then G..'s name do not miss our profuse climax!



The key to seeming Victorian is hauteur and censoriousness, especially on race and sex, and it takes nerve to do that now, as Moore does.

As the 20th century begins, a league of extraordinary people--Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Hawley Griffin, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Mr. Edward Hyde, Mina Murray--is formed in England to help the Empire deal with new dangers. Each self-contained narrative takes place in three distinct eras, building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in our own twenty-first century.

Robert Hinchcliffe

As this series has progressed Moore has moved away from what I loved about the first two Volumes of LoEG (i.e. taking classic characters and slamming them together to see what happens) and moved towards creating an experimental, warped dreamscape that also serves as a did-you-spot-it game of obscure cultural references. It's still brilliant and thrilling, but while I'll happily pick up and re-read the first two Volumes cover to cover, the rest of the series will probably leave my shelf far more rarely.

Written by ALAN MOORE Art and cover by KEVIN O'NEILL "A sharp-witted gloss on the scientific and sexual obsessions of Victorian society." - TIME "Moore has combined his love of 19th-century adventure literature with an imaginative mastery of its 20th-century corollary, the superhero comic book." - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY At last, the original two LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN epics are collected in a single, hardcover edition! In this amazingly imaginative tale, Allan Quatermain, Mina Murray, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde, and Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man unite to defeat a deadly menace to London and all Britons! Then, one month later, the skies over England are filled with flaming rockets as Mars launches the first salvo of an invasion. Only our stalwart adventurers can save mother England and the Earth itself. On sale OCTOBER 26 - 416 pg, FC, $49.99 US

Haley Sherman

Not bad, just very graphic. while i loved all the references to classic lit, i'm not too fond of graphic violence and sex...

Kali Olson

The Victorian Age saw the creation of some of the most famous characters in Western literature: Captain Nemo, usually found in his mythical ship 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Allan Quartermain, the adventurer who discovered King Solomon’s Mines; Mina Murray, the heroine who barely escaped from Dracula; Hawley Griffin, the original Invisible Man himself; Henry Jekyll and his alter ego, better known as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Comics genius Alan Moore collects them all here and turns them into team of superheroes who use their unique capabilities, powers, and experiences to save England from the clutches of a mysterious madman. The year is 1898, and the heroes have been gathered together in London from all corners of the globe by the head of the Secret Service. They’re a rough-and-tumble bunch, flawed and washed-up, but when a criminal mastermind threatens to firebomb London’s East End and bring down the British Empire, these 19th century characters come to life and rally to the rescue. The illustrations are as bright and action-packed as anything out of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, or Moore’s own comic masterpiece The Watchmen. Originally published as individual comic book issues and then collected into two volumes, Moore and his team of artists at DC Comics created two additional adventures, The Black Dossier and Century 1910. Together, the series is as chock-full of superhero-style action, danger, gore, and derring-do as it is of historical detail, literary references, and Victorian flair. A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is another genre-buster that proves just how much mystery and adventure can be packed into one fantastic era.

Eugenia Andino

Magnífico. Me ha gustado más que el primero. Una historia bastante sencilla, llena de referencias victorianas y alguna posterior. Muy entretenido.

Megan Cooper

I liked Volume 2 more than Volume 1; but, really, you can't read volume 2 on its own. The main storyline was stronger than in the first one - War of the Worlds - but there was also more character development. Hyde is particularly disturbing and turns out more complex than I would have expected and, as brutal and vicious as he was, I kind of liked him (but would never cross him.

Reread this and re-evaluated my intial reaction. 

It is a great concept - gathering famous and infamous literary characters who have, in most cases, gone to seed and sending them off on new adventures. It was interesting - but I felt that the author and artist were at times trying to hard to be clever and I found myself a bit too distracted from the storylines, trying to catch all the literary character references. The artwork was not my favourite style and that may be part of my reaction to the series.

I liked the choice of characters and the rather seedy condition that most of them were in long after their "literary" life was done. All that backstory and "missing years" to play with would have made for a more fascinating read, but the focus of the stories was more on the plot than the characters and the plots weren't as strong as the characters in this volume.

Michael Cowell

Ray Zone

In an alternate England in 1958, Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain seek the Black Dossier, which contains the history of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen through the centuries, while fleeing from deadly secret agents.

Matthew Jackson &
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore

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Matthew Jackson &
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore