Tag Archives: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Monday Mini-Reviews: crimefighters, bookshelves & a certain je ne sais quoi

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For a number of books I’ve been reading lately I can’t really justify writing an entire review length post on them, regardless of liking them or not. Here are a few shorter than usual reviews of some of those books.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910 by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (2009)The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (2009)

I should have waited until I’d read the Black Dossier before diving into Century: 1910, as it dives straight into the newest incarnation of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a few years after the end of Volume Two (which you may recall I loved the ending of, I felt it offered complete closure thus making it difficult to understand the reason for continuing the series.) The literary characters that make up this version of the League, still led by Mina Murray, are more obscure than those in Volume One & Two which is a bit alienating. Here they appear with none of the rich back stories of the earlier League, which makes me feel like the Black Dossier must be a necessary link between the two. Nonetheless, the story of Century: 1910 is as exciting as we’d expect from Moore and O’Neill’s League. Captain Nemo’s daughter escapes to London against her dying father’s wishes and is viciously raped (as most female characters are in this series), and seeks her vengeance by succeeding her father’s post as the captain of the Nautilus and unleashing hoards of violent pirates ahead of the coronation. There are occult secrets, song and some inter-League feuds, but Century: 1910 seems undernourished compared to the narrative strengths of Volume One & Two.

Books Do Furnish a Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown (2009)Books Do Furnish a Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown (2009)

Though I enjoy books and well stocked bookshelves, I don’t think that that Books do Furnish a Room is really aimed at the book lover. There is lots of advice on what books to keep in different rooms and how to store them, but the advice on what particular types of books to keep in the guest rooms of your house felt particularly out of reach. This is not so much an exploration of the love of books and how, or why, we keep them in our homes, but rather looking at books serving a decorative purpose. There are lots of gorgeous pictures of bookshelves, some of them featuring some astounding design, but mostly unpractical and completely unattainable for those who do not live in converted barnhouses. Even the erratically placed books seem like they were done artfully, with design and aesthetic in mind. You’re likely to find more practical and realistic ideas on flickr or tumblr, try Bookshelf Porn or Bookshelves instead.

A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi: Words We Pinched From Other Languages by Chloe Rhodes (2009)A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi: Words We Pinched From Other Languages by Chloe Rhodes (2009)

I have been coveting this series of books in the bookstore for a long time, they feature a lovely nostalgic design, sturdy hard covers, and nerdy themes. Alas, working in a bookstore doesn’t mean that I get to sit around reading books all day (true fact!), so when I saw A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi on the shelf at the library I couldn’t resist. It is an interesting, if short, reference guide to how foreign words and phrases, some familiar and some not so, made their way into the English language. Rhodes traces each phrase from their foreign root words and the historical contexts which may have lead to their adoption into English. Illustrated by example sentences and cartoons, A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi is brief look at the etymology of foreign phrases but I’m not sure how much of it I will retain. Nerdy wordy fact du jour: did you know that the word LOOT came from the Hindi word “lut” meaning to plunder?

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume Two by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (2003)

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume Two by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (2003)I know. Another graphic novel. Every time I even think about looking at a novel my brain vehemently protests. I know it’s only temporary and I’ll be back to prose fiction soon, so to any readers who are not interested in graphic novels (and if so, why not?!) I apologize for the lack of variety lately.

Even though The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One didn’t quite live up to my high expectations, I still sought out Volume Two of the series and I am really glad that I did. Volume One lacked significant emotional impact and the iconic characters felt underdeveloped despite an impressive storyline. Volume Two corrects these missteps and the characters evolve in such a beautifully nuanced – if at times graphically violent – way. The War of the Worlds styled invasion seems mere background to the complexities of the relationships between the League members.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen itself is made up of figures from Victorian literature – Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll (and Edward Hyde) and Hawley Griffin (the Invisible Man) – a crime-fighting supergroup in an alternate version of Victorian London. Volume Two sees their London invaded by aliens from Mars – which sounds ridiculous I know, I even rolled my eyes in the opening few pages – but as I mentioned, this is mere backdrop as the relationships within the League to work themselves out. Nemo and Hyde are sent to the forefront of the alien versus human battle, while Mina and Allan are sent to find a Dr. Moreau to bring back humanity’s secret weapon and Hawley Griffin defects to the aliens side.

Mina: Yes. I was just looking at the sky. It just struck me that … well, that it won’t ever be the same, after this. It can’t be. I always thought of it as something that sheltered humanity, but now it frightens me, Mr. Quatermain. It frightens me.

Hyde’s increasing fondness toward Mina because she, having dealt with a much nastier beast, refuses to fear or hate him is touching in a Beauty and the Beast kind of way. The way he expresses and acts on this affinity to her becomes frightening as he seeks retaliation against the treacherous Griffin. Her beating at the invisible hands of Griffin is difficult to read, given her history in the series as such a powerful and tough leader. The confrontation between Griffin and Hyde is violent and shocking, yet fits with Hyde’s primal instincts.

Allan Quatermain’s affections for Mina are also further revealed in this volume. Under cover as a married couple as they seek Dr. Moreau, Mina invites him into her bed. I’m not sure that I enjoyed six pages of sex scenes – there is little tantalizing about Quatermain’s bare wrinkled buttocks dominating a panel – but it seems necessary to the story. Frightened by the impending alien takeover, Mina again has her vulnerabilities explored through sex, yet without the violent implications of Volume One. When Quatermain retreats at the sight of her scarred neck, it says so much about how and what we reveal to those we love, our fear of their reactions.

Yes, there is an alien invasion, weird hybrid creatures, biological warfare and countless references to Victorian literature but the real strength of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume Two lies with its treatment of iconic characters. The final dissolution of the group is frankly devastating and the final scene between two major characters is marked by a gentle melancholy. Privileging the human aspects over the adventure narrative makes the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen much more substantial and affecting than the first.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (2000)

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill (2000)In the first volume The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it is the late 1800s in England, and a group of characters from literature are pulled together to form something of a Victorian supergroup. Instructed by the mysterious Mr. M through his lackey Campion Bond, Mina Murray hunts out the various figures – each with their own issues, drug addiction, piracy, violent pasts, psychopathy, and personality disorders – in order to fight the criminal underworld in an alternate version of Victorian London. Mina, along with Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll (and his ape-like alter ego, Edward Hyde) and Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man), face off against the criminal mastermind, The Doctor.

The style of the artwork is suitably dark, the palette dominated by browns, greens, deep blues. The moral ambiguity of their boss, and even of those among their ranks, suits the tumultuous and uncertain times the story is set in. The Invisible Man in particular is thoroughly despicable, but I really wanted to see more of his misdeeds. Mina Murray – whose marriage to one Jonathan Harker has recently ended badly – is a great character as their tough, unofficial leader. I just wish that her vulnerabilities weren’t so often linked with rape, which of course her male cohorts rescue her from.

Oh, how typical! Are you men, or little boys? You play your little games with your elephant guns and your submersible boats, but one raised voice and you hide like little children!

It constantly felt like just as the characters’ stories were on the verge of becoming more complicated, they had to move on to their next mission. Although these missions are daring, adventurous and you’re never quite sure how they’re going to end or what they’re going to discover, stronger characterization of these admittedly already iconic characters would have given The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen another level of engagement. In a fictional world where history and technology are being played with for dramatic effect, how much of our previous knowledge about these characters are we supposed to bring to the story? Is the impact of the story lessened when we’re not well acquainted with their previous incarnations?

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen works as a thoroughly engaging story but without the same strong, multifaceted characters it noticeably lacks the emotional and philosophical king hit of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. (I think that may be the graphic novel equivalent of comparing every single film to Citizen Kane.) That said, I’m still going to be tracking down the second volume of the series.