Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Kevin O'Neill
Colourist: Ben
Dimagmaliw
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Chris Staros
Publisher: Top Shelf
productions / Knockabout
80 PAGES Paperback, 260
X 170mm
ISBN 9780861661633
The Book: The third
chapter of the third volume of
The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen continues the adventures of the three surviving
members of the League – Allan Quartermain, Wilhelmina Murray and
Orlando – from the preceding instalments.
As the story begins, in
the titular year of 2009, Orlando is the last survivor of a massacre
he is responsible for in the fictional Middle Eastern locale of Q'Mar
and about to be given a medal as a war hero. The character returns to
the underground base as seen in
Century: 1969, and while
beginning one of his regular transformations into a woman, Orlando is
visited by Prospero from the Blazing World and instructed to reform
the league and find the missing Quartermain and Murray before the
apocalypse they've been trying to avert all century comes to pass.
To aid Orlando on this
mission, she contacts a character previously seen in
The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen – Black Dossier for help and begins a
quest to stop the now adult moon-child / Antichrist, which series
antagonist Oliver Haddo has managed to create, from destroying the
world.
The Review: An epic
finale to volume III of the increasingly inaccurately titled
League
of Extraordinary Gentlemen –
although a league is equivalent to three miles, common parlance would
suggest it should be a team of more than three members, and volume IV
looks likely to feature a league where
the
women outnumber the men – which sees the plot strands of the
previous two instalments, as well as many elements from
Black
Dossier wrapped up before
setting up the future of the team.
The
comic displays the creative team's exemplary talent in creating a
gripping, thought-provoking and entertaining title as much as ever,
however while the story does provide an appealing conclusion to
volume III of the franchise,
2009
is less satisfying than its predecessors in using the recent cultural
landscape to provide a fictional universe.
The
previous instalments of
Century used iconic pieces of fiction
and fact to weave compelling backdrops to each issue's story.
1910
combined
The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
with
Moonchild by Aleister Crowley, mixing in the actual
events of the year such as the coronation of George V and the
appearance of Halley's Comet, while
1969 combined elements of
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin,
Performance by Donald
Cammell and Nicolas Roeg and
Get Carter by Mike Hodges and Ted
Lewis with the backdrop of events happening in 1969 in the lives of
The Rolling Stones such as the death of Brian Jones and the
band's performances in Hyde Park and Altamont.
In
comparison,
2009 sees
Moore and O'Neill mainly use only one
popular fantasy franchise as fictional inspiration and little –
beyond the opening scene in the Middle East – from the real 2009,
which saw such events as increased militaristic posturing by North
Korea, the second activation of the Large Hadron Collider and the
death of Michael Jackson, which could have informed the plot. Vaguely
hysterical newspaper headlines from around the time of the release of
the comic on June 18th 2012 will probably have spoiled the identity
of the Antichrist in
2009 for many people, but this was
signposted in the previous instalment when Tom (whose “middle name
is a Marvel” and “last name's a Conundrum”), a teacher of
“occult studies at a school up North” absorbs an evil spirit and
disappears through a wall next to Platform 10 at King's Cross
station.
Certainly,
the fictional franchise this character is the main antagonist from,
is one that has been incredibly successful in both print and film
formats, so you can see why it would be tempting for Moore to co-opt
some of the characters and situations, particularly as the film
adaptations have been a major cash cow for Time Warner, owners of
previous
League (and
Watchmen) publishers DC Comics.
However, the fictional landscape in recent years has been richer than
that, regardless of Moore's protestations on the subject, so there
could have also been references to the work of Terry Pratchett, Neil
Gaiman and even the author's own work (beyond a character
transforming from a 'real' person into a drawing, as previously seen
in his
Neonomicon). In the League's timeline, fantastical
creatures were banished from the Earth in the 17
th
century, but the massive re-emergence of fantasy as a genre due to
the work of Pratchett, Gaiman and J.K. Rowling should have seen more
fantasy in the fictional mash-up of the year being presented to us,
which the League has always typified in the past.
Specific
fictional events in previous instalments have come from fictions
written both before and after the years each issue has been set in –
for example the events in a fictional 1910 (or thereabouts) as later
conceived of by Brecht and Crowley – and there have been a handful
of apocalypse fictions set in 2009, such as the backstory of the
films
I am Legend and Roland Emmerich's
2012, not to
mention alien incursions witnessed by the media in
Cloverfield,
Doctor Who and
Torchwood – the latter two being
referenced anyway via pictorial cameos by a couple of Doctors and
Captain Jack Harkness. Instead, the rest of the fictional landscape
of 2009 is used to cameo various British comedies from
The Thick
of it to
The Fast Show and fifty years of James Bond on
screen. One could argue the dismal world presented in
Century:
2009 is due to much of our recent fiction being overshadowed by
the rise of 'reality television', but if I could find half a dozen SF
antecedents for a fictional 2009 by spending five minutes on
wikipedia, it seems odd that
Alan Moore hasn't provided his
2009
with a richer fictional backdrop.
The
previous two instalments of
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
– Century, not to mention
Black Dossier, which is also a
must read to recognise a handful of returning characters and
situations in
Century, were more ambitious and challenging
than the original two volumes published by DC. Criticisms levelled at
1910 and
1969 have been mainly due to too many obscure
references and the odd habit of characters breaking into song, and
neither criticism is that valid, looking at Moore's work as a whole.
With
2009 both the obscure
references and the singing are kept to a minimum and ironically the
issue is less satisfying, as it sacrifices some of its
meta-textuality for a simpler narrative than its predecessors.
However,
while the main plot may be a little over-familiar and derivative –
which is at least suitable, considering the franchise Moore is
riffing on – the excellence of the characterisation both in terms
of script and Kevin O'Neill's sensitive handling of the characters is as
great as ever. The continuing theme of immortals dealing with the
emotional and intellectual problems of their continued existence
becomes increasingly paramount in this instalment (references to
baryonic matter and immortality via Century's back-up text
story 'Minions of the Moon', suggest an influence by Stephen Baxter,
a writer who's also a fan of and sequel writer to the works of H.G.
Wells and Arthur C. Clarke) and I sincerely look forward to the
continuation of this narrative in volume IV and the proposed shorter
issues set in between the instalments we have already.
