THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, V. 2 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 2, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O’Neill, collects the six-issue run of the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, originally published in 2002 and 2003. In 1898, immediately following the events of the first volume, the League must contend with invaders from Mars.

Moore puts his borrowed cast through H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, with added elements cobbled from a number of places, most notably other Wells stories and the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edwin L. Arnold, and C. S. Lewis. It’s not an original story, but it has a coherence and urgency not present in Volume 1’s plot. In any event, it’s more interesting.

What Moore does with Hyde in this volume is what makes it worth reading. In Volume 1, Hyde was little more than a Hulk-style weapon of destruction. Here we see a compelling, sinister persona bursting with internal conflict. But the other characters are much the same, and relatively flat: Nemo is contrary, Quatermain still never has anything to do, and so forth (Mina’s libertine behavior comes as no surprise at all).

While it appears at first glance identical, O’Neill’s art here is improved from Volume 1. Perhaps he’s paying more attention to background detail. His work on Mars and the Martians is quite good, and the first issue in particular looks fantastic.

This volume also includes Moore’s six-part “The New Traveller’s Almanac,” which expands the League world and reads like a declassified government document. It’s not exactly compelling reading, but it’s more interesting than the Quatermain short story in Volume 1.

While this volume largely improves upon the original, I still have my doubts about the premise. The story is fine, if unoriginal, but there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t have been as good or better with original characters. At least in that case Moore wouldn’t feel obligated to cram all and sundry literary characters into the work regardless of whether they fit (Moore’s inclusion of Dr. Moreau and his menagerie is downright painful). And Moore’s storytelling here still isn’t at the level we’re used to seeing from him; the Invisible Man plot here particularly feels arbitrary and ill-thought-out.

On the whole, though, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 2 is an entertaining comic and a sequel that improves on the original.

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THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, V. 1 by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O’Neill, collects the six-issue run of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series first published in 1999 and 2000. In 1898, in an alternate, technologically-advanced England where all the characters of Victorian literature exist, a team made up of Wilhelmina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man, and Captain Nemo works to save England from domestic and foreign threats.

There’s precious little story here; we don’t even get the group’s over-arching objective until a third of the way through the book. Moore has to do quite a lot of world and character building, and he does a good job of it, but beyond that, things too often get bogged down as the protagonists are given to near-constant bickering.

While I expect better storytelling from Moore, he definitely has ambience going for him. He’s obviously having a great time writing in a quasi-Victorian style, and his tongue is firmly in his cheek throughout. It’s the attention to detail, all the little period references, that make Moore’s world as interesting (or more so) as his characters and their adventures.

O’Neill’s art, which features exaggerated, jagged figures, is generally satisfactory, although certain panels look rushed or just amateurish (his Hyde, in particular, never looks right). Background detail isn’t always what it could be, although O’Neill never skimps on the money pages. And he seems to enjoy himself best when illustrating the book’s many gory dismemberment scenes.

This volume also includes Moore’s Quatermain short story “Allan and the Sundered Veil,” a literary mash-up written in the style of the penny dreadful. It is not particularly interesting, and its flaws, coupled with the flaws of the comic itself, give me doubts about the viability of the premise. A world where any literary character can show up at any time (and usually does), where the most broad-strokes science fiction elements of the day are present – this is a world that’s hard to take seriously, in spite of Moore’s solid attempts to ground it.

So The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1 turns out to be fairly underwhelming. The question of whether this is primarily due to Moore’s writing or to the premise should be answered by the second volume.

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