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'''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen''' is a [[comic book]] series written by [[Alan Moore]] and illustrated by [[Kevin O'Neill (comics)|Kevin O'Neill]]. The series was launched in 1999 as part of the [[America's Best Comics]] imprint of [[Wildstorm Comics]], intended to cover up the theft of an original idea pitched to Fox and stolen by them.. The series spans two six-issue limited series and a hardcover [[graphic novel]], with a third miniseries due to be published by [[Top Shelf Productions]]. According to Moore, the initial concept behind the series was initially a "''[[Justice League]]'' of [[Victorian England]]" but quickly grew into an opportunity to merge all works of fiction into one world. Says Moore: "The planet of the imagination is as old as we are. It has been humanity's constant companion with all of its fictional locations, like [[Mount Olympus]] and the gods, and since we first came down from the trees, basically. It seems very important, otherwise, we wouldn't have it."<ref>[http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12376 Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"]</ref> Moore and O'Neill have revealed that they plan to map out many different eras in the ''League'' series with [[Allan Quatermain]] and [[Mina Murray]] (of Bram Stoker's ''[[Dracula]]'') being the two constants.
'''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen''' is a [[comic book]] series written by [[Alan Moore]] and illustrated by [[Kevin O'Neill (comics)|Kevin O'Neill]]. The series was launched in 1999 as part of the [[America's Best Comics]] imprint of [[Wildstorm Comics]], intended to cover up the theft of an original idea pitched to Fox and stolen by them.{{fact}} The series spans two six-issue limited series and a hardcover [[graphic novel]], with a third miniseries due to be published by [[Top Shelf Productions]]. According to Moore, the initial concept behind the series was initially a "''[[Justice League]]'' of [[Victorian England]]" but quickly grew into an opportunity to merge all works of fiction into one world. Says Moore: "The planet of the imagination is as old as we are. It has been humanity's constant companion with all of its fictional locations, like [[Mount Olympus]] and the gods, and since we first came down from the trees, basically. It seems very important, otherwise, we wouldn't have it."<ref>[http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12376 Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"]</ref> Moore and O'Neill have revealed that they plan to map out many different eras in the ''League'' series with [[Allan Quatermain]] and [[Mina Murray]] (of Bram Stoker's ''[[Dracula]]'') being the two constants.


==Plot==
==Plot==

Revision as of 20:31, 12 March 2008

For the film adaptation, see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film).

For a list of the characters and their origins, see Characters in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Cover of Volume One
Publication information
PublisherWildstorm/DC Comics
Publication date1999 - Present
No. of issues12
Main character(s)Mina Murray
Allan Quatermain
Hawley Griffin
Dr. Jekyll/Edward Hyde
Captain Nemo
Creative team
Written byAlan Moore
Artist(s)Kevin O'Neill

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. The series was launched in 1999 as part of the America's Best Comics imprint of Wildstorm Comics, intended to cover up the theft of an original idea pitched to Fox and stolen by them.[citation needed] The series spans two six-issue limited series and a hardcover graphic novel, with a third miniseries due to be published by Top Shelf Productions. According to Moore, the initial concept behind the series was initially a "Justice League of Victorian England" but quickly grew into an opportunity to merge all works of fiction into one world. Says Moore: "The planet of the imagination is as old as we are. It has been humanity's constant companion with all of its fictional locations, like Mount Olympus and the gods, and since we first came down from the trees, basically. It seems very important, otherwise, we wouldn't have it."[1] Moore and O'Neill have revealed that they plan to map out many different eras in the League series with Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray (of Bram Stoker's Dracula) being the two constants.

Plot

Volume I

Main article: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I
File:Black Dossier promo.jpg
Promotional image from "The Black Dossier".

At the behest of Campion Bond, Mina Harker begins recruiting members of the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. After recruiting Captain Nemo on Lincoln Island, Mina goes to Cairo to locate Allan Quatermain, then on to Paris in search of Dr. Jekyll; finally in London she contacts the Invisible Man, who completes this incarnation of the League. Volume I deals with a power struggle between Professor Moriarty and Fu Manchu.

Volume II

Main article: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II

Placed during the events of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, the League split up into two groups; with Mina and Allan sent off to find a reclusive doctor in the woods, Nemo and Hyde remain to fight the first wave of tripods, but what is Griffin up to? Featuring John Carter and Gullivar Jones on Mars and a surprise ending to the invasion.

The Black Dossier

Main article: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier

The Black Dossier centres on the eponymous fictional book (that provides a comprehensive review of all of the previous leagues over the centuries) which is stolen by a young man and woman in 1958 in a post-Big Brother England where they are pursued by a trio of ruthless government agents. This release also includes a variety of extras including a 3-D section and glasses, a Tijuana Bible, and the Absolute edition will include an LP record.

About the series

The Victorian setting allowed Moore and O'Neill to insert "in-jokes" and cameos from many works of Victorian fiction, while also making contemporary references and jibes, and also bear numerous steampunk influences. In the first issue, for example, 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 even more minor 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. According to The New Traveler's Almanac, Mina meets Sherlock Holmes in 1904 as an elderly beekeeper. She also comments that he is "more likeable and warm than Mycroft" — though she strongly suspects Sherlock to only fake being a likeable person, just as a part of his detective activities, in order to gather information more easily, when interrogating people.

Second press run on issue 5

Issue #5 of Volume one contained an authentic vintage advertisement for a Marvel-brand douche. Marvel Comics is DC's chief rival within the comics industry and Moore had had a public dispute with Marvel, his former employer. This ad caused DC executive Paul Levitz to order the entire print run destroyed and reprinted with the offending advertisement edited. Some copies of the pulped print run escaped destruction and are the rarest modern comic books in existence.[2] It is estimated that fewer than 100 copies of this book exist, and none were actually circulated.

In Top 10, Moore creates a "Miracle Douche Recall" headline on a newspaper, which is not only a reference to the furor, but is also a reference to when Marvel Comics had previously forced Marvelman, which was written by Alan Moore, to change its name to Miracleman.

Future works

File:Allan Quatermain Jr. and Wilhelmina Murray.jpg
Promotional illustration of Allan Quatermain, Jr. and Miss Wilhelmina Murray from The Black Dossier.

Alan Moore has announced his intentions to write the adventures of other leagues in different historical eras. One group of the heroes is seen in a portrait dated 1787 in the League's headquarters in the first volume of the comic. The group includes an elderly Lemuel Gulliver, dark-caped Doctor Syn, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his wife (Sir Percival and Lady Margeurite Blakeny), Fanny Hill, and Natty Bumppo.

Another "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. It is mentioned in the back-up Almanac that both groups will eventually fight each other.

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.

Volume III: Century

Main article: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century

The third volume will be a 216-page epic spanning almost a hundred years and entitled Century. Divided into three 72-page chapters, each a self-contained narrative to avoid frustrating cliff-hanger delays between episodes, it will take place in three distinct eras, building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in the current twenty-first century.

Chapter one is set against a backdrop of London, 1910, twelve years after the failed Martian invasion and nine years since England put a man upon the moon. With Halley's Comet passing overhead, the nation prepares for the coronation of King George V, and far away on his South Atlantic Island, the science-pirate Captain Nemo is dying. In the bowels of the British Museum, Carnacki the ghost-finder is plagued by visions of a shadowy occult order who are attempting to create something called a Moonchild, while on London's dockside the most notorious serial murderer of the previous century has returned to carry on his grisly trade. Working for Mycroft Holmes' British Intelligence alongside a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain, the reformed thief Anthony Raffles and the eternal warrior Orlando, Miss Murray is drawn into a brutal opera acted out upon the waterfront by players that include the furiously angry Pirate Jenny and the charismatic butcher known as Mack the Knife. In actual fact Chapter One revolves around the song Pirate Jenny (Seeräuberjenny) from Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Characters in this chapter will burst into song at various points in the narrative. Moore has written new lyrics for Mack the Knife, Pirate Jenny, What Keeps Mankind Alive and Mack's Plea From The Gallows.[3]

Chapter two takes place almost sixty years later in the psychedelic daze of Swinging London during 1968, a place where Tadukic Acid Diethylamide 26 is the drug of choice, and where different underworlds are starting to overlap dangerously to an accompaniment of sit-ins and sitars. The vicious gangster bosses of London's East End find themselves brought into contact with a counter-culture underground of mystical and medicated flower-children, or amoral pop-stars on the edge of psychological disintegration and developing a taste for Satanism. Alerted to a threat concerning the same magic order that she and her colleagues were investigating during 1910, a thoroughly modern Mina Murray and her dwindling league of comrades attempt to navigate the perilous rapids of London's hippy and criminal subculture, as well as the twilight world of its occultists. Starting to buckle from the pressures of the twentieth century and the weight of their own endless lives, Mina and her companions must nevertheless prevent the making of a Moonchild that might well turn out to be the antichrist.

In chapter three, the narrative draws to its cataclysmic close in London 2008. The magical child whose ominous coming has been foretold for the past hundred years has now been born and has grown up to claim his dreadful heritage. His promised aeon of unending terror can commence, the world can now be ended starting with North London, and there is no League, extraordinary or otherwise, that now stands in his way. The bitter, intractable war of attrition in Q'umar crawls bloodily to its fifth year, away in Kashmir a Sikh terrorist with a now-nuclear-armed submarine wages a holy war against Islam that might push the whole world into atomic holocaust, and in a London mental institution there's a patient who insists that she has all the answers. This volume is set to be released in 2008.[4]

Tales of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

After volume three Alan Moore said that he would like to write some special, one shot stories that focus upon the personal adventures of the characters. "...me and Kevin would probably like to get on with some individual stories, some Tales of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that could focus upon, say, one character. Orlando is a very tempting character to do a one-off special based upon, especially after you see the way that we've treated him/her in The Dossier." [5] It will have three separate stories in it, the first two will focus on a single character, whereas the third will detail something that Mina did in the 1960s.[3]

The world of the League

Main article: The world of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

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 (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.

History of the League

Main article: The history of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

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".

Reception and influence

Time Magazine listed Volume II as the 9th best comic of 2003. [6] It was included in the 2005 edition of The Year's Best Graphic Novels, Comics, & Manga. Time also listed Black Dossier as the second best comic of 2007.[7]

Kevin J. Anderson's 2005 novel The Martian War uses several plot points from Volume II. Anderson wrote the 2003 novelization of the League film.

UK Hip Hop artist CASS also assumes the identity of Hawley Griffin, going as far as to cover his face for promotional and public appearances when performing. CASS/Hawley Griffin's lyrics often contain references to themes and plot issues within Alan Moore's and H.G.Wells' works, including but not restricted to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman series or The Invisible Man. [8]

A chapter in the 2005 nonfiction work The Cult of Alien Gods: H. P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture is titled "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."

Appendices

Collections

Cover of Volume Two.
  • 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 #1-6
    • 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 (November 2007)
    • Absolute edition (deluxe hardcover): ISBN 1-4012-0751-0 (June, 2008)

Source works

Principal characters

Secondary characters

Tertiary characters

girls in Ms. Coote's school:

Similar pastiches

  • One of the first modern works to combine characters from earlier fictions is the 1949 novel Silverlock, written by John Myers Myers; every character in this novel is 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 present various heroes and villains of adventure fiction as being part of the same family tree.
  • Anno Dracula and sequels, by Kim Newman; the original book is set in London at about the same time as The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and features several characters in common.
  • 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 the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny depicts several iconic characters coming together in a battle between good and evil. Zelazny's Roadmarks includes guest appearances, although unnamed, of both Doc Savage and his foe John Sunlight.
  • The comic novels of Jasper Fforde concern a world inside fiction; and feature fictional characters, e.g Miss Havisham and Humpty Dumpty as some of the key protagonists.
  • Warren Ellis's comic Planetary offers a "secret history" of the 20th century which integrates well known characters from pulp fiction and comics into a cohesive world. Characters in the public domain, such as Sherlock Holmes are present as themselves, while characters still under copyright are represented by close analogues.

Film

A film adaptation was released in 2003, also by the name The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The film stars Sean Connery and features the characters but an original story, which is common for comic book adaptations which seldom feature direct translations. The film was intended to begin a franchise but because of its poor reception (a 16% at Rotten Tomatoes) it is unlikely.

The film was disowned by Moore and O'Neill. Alan Moore has since openly refused to acknowledge any adaptation of his work including From Hell, V for Vendetta and Watchmen.

Interviews

The DVD of the documentary feature film The Mindscape of Alan Moore contains an exclusive bonus interview with the artist Kevin O'Neill, elaborately detailing the collaboration with Alan Moore.

References

  1. ^ Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"
  2. ^ Comic Book Resources (May, 23, 2005): Lying in the Gutters (column by Rich Johnston): sidebar "Alan's Previous Problems With DC" in column "Moore Slams V for Vendetta Movie, Pulls LoEG from DC Comics"
  3. ^ a b Winter, Andrew (2007). "Northampton's Finest: Alan Moore Interview". Tripwire Annual 2007. Tripwire Publishing. pp. 12–17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ [2]
  6. ^ 2003 Best and Worst: Comics
  7. ^ Grossman, Lev; Top 10 Graphic Novels; time.com
  8. ^ Hawley Griffin MySpace

Annotations

Jess Nevins has produced a series of annotations for each volume which are available online (see links) and have also been expanded into book form:

    • Heroes & Monsters: The Unofficial Companion to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (MonkeyBrain Books, 2003), ISBN 193226504X
      • Heroes & Monsters (UK) (Titan Books, 2006), ISBN 1845763165
    • A Blazing World: The Unofficial Companion to the Second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (MonkeyBrain Books, 2004) ISBN 1932265104
      • A Blazing World (UK) (Titan Books, 2006) ISBN 1845763173)
    • Impossible Territories: An Unofficial Companion to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen The Black Dossier (MonkeyBrain Books, due August 2007) ISBN 1932265244

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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