Nemo: The Roses of Berlin

Written by Alan Moore
Art by Kevin O'Neil

Nemo: The Roses of Berlin is the second of the Nemo graphic novels, building on the world Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil created in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Compared to the previous book, Nemo: Heart of Ice, I enjoyed this one more, but still had some problems with it.

Janni Nemo and her consort, Jack, discover that their teenage daughter Hira has been captured by the Germans (it's roughly World War II), and they head to Berlin to rescue her.  Like with Heart of Ice, we got tossed very quickly into the story, without taking any time to care about the characters at all.

Berlin has become a dystopian nightmare out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and we quickly learn that Maria, the robot from the movie, is as much in charge of things as Herr Hynkel (Charlie Chaplin's stand-in for Hitler).

There is a brothel, a rescue, sleeping soldiers, and a fight with the woman from the last volume.  It's all handled well, but it also feels like Moore and O'Neil are going through the motions, as if the clever references to literature and film are sufficient replacements for compelling story.

I liked it, and as always, enjoyed puzzling out some of the references (while knowing that way more of them went over my head), but never felt invested in the story at all.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century #3 - 2009

Written by Alan Moore
Art by Kevin O'Neill

I don't know.  Maybe it's just me, but I'm not all that impressed with this latest appearance of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

In a nutshell, this issue jumps some forty years since the team was last seen.  Orlando has been in the army, fighting in Q'Mar (a stand-in for Iraq?).  Mina has been in a mental institute, and Allan Quartermain has fallen off the wagon, and is living on the streets. Orlando is called upon to put the band back together to fight the Anti-christ, so that's what happens.  There's a little more going on, but not much.

And therein lies the problem with this series, as it moves closer to the present day.  When Moore first started writing the League, what made it work was the use of so many different literary characters (Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, etc.) in a shared universe.  When the story was set in Victorian England, that was easily done; all the characters were in the public domain.  When setting a story in 2009, when copyright laws are still in effect, causes Moore to spend more time being cute with his references (it's pretty clear that the Anti-christ is Harry Potter, but it's never stated) than with actually developing his characters and story into something very interesting or exciting.

I'd expected this issue to be a little easier to read, as many of the references would be more obvious than the ones set in 1969, a time where I wasn't alive.  I didn't really find that to be the case - instead, I felt that each and every time a name was mentioned, or someone walked through the foreground of a frame, that there was some sort of easter egg that I was supposed to decipher, making this the literary comic book equivalent of Where's Waldo?.  I know there is an audience for this sort of thing, but it's not me.

On the up-side, Kevin O'Neill continues to impress.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century#2 - 1969

Written by Alan Moore
Art by Kevin O'Neill

It's hard to believe that it's been over two years since the last issue of LOEG: Century came out (I reviewed it in May 2009), but there you have it.  Any time there's a new comic by Alan Moore, there's a cause for some celebration, and this was easily the best and most impressive thing I picked up this week, but at the same time, I will admit to being a little disappointed.

First a recap:  Mina Murray, Alan Quartermain, and Orlando have returned to London after an absence of many years, because they believe that their nemesis for this series, Olive Haddo, has returned and is at work preparing for the birth of an anti-Christ or some such.  The trio are tasked with hunting down Haddo, who has been jumping bodies for a while now.

The twist is that our trio is not particularly prepared for life in 1969 London..  Mina's been around recently (apparently with a team of super heroes), but the others are not prepared for the free love and copious amounts of readily available drugs.  Nor are they prepared for Mina's desperate need to fit in, and not appear as 'square' as her companions.

That's what I found most interesting about this book.  Sure, it's fun to hunt Easter eggs (more on this soon), but what interested me was watching a trio of immortals (two of whom are relatively new to that status) adjust to the tempo and social revolutions of the twentieth century.  Quartermain and Orlando aren't particularly interested in staying relevant, while for Mina, it seems to be a necessity.

The rest of the book was secondary to me, as I find the relationship between these three characters most interesting.  Not being British, and not having lived through the '60s, many of Moore's clever plays on names and literary allusions were completely lost on me.  Having skimmed Jess Nevin's annotations, I am both awed and humbled by how much is in here that has escaped me.

Thus, I'm happy that Moore and O'Neill manage to keep things so interesting and fresh while still playing their own little reference games.  I think this book succeeds much better than The Black Dossier did because the focus is on the people, whereas that book got too caught up in the construction of its story.  With this book, it's not necessary to know that Oliver Haddo is supposed to be Aleister Crowley, or that the Purple Orchestra is a stand-in for the Rolling Stones to enjoy things; it does take things another level if you know that though.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910

Written by Alan Moore
Art by Kevin O'Neill
When I read The Black Dossier, I kind of wondered if it was in part Moore's way of showing DC/Wildstorm and the general readership just how many ideas he had for this franchise, and what they were going to end up missing by having pissed him off. The ideas flew too quickly to actually stick, and the book itself became something of a glorious mess.

Now, a couple of years later, Moore has entered into partnership with Top Shelf, and this has allowed him room for these ideas to grow into something more resembling what this title was like back in the day.

The 1910 iteration of the League is featuring Orlando, Carnacki, and Raffles, in addition to Mina and Quartermain. It also features the genesis of the new Captain Nemo, and a lot of stuff blowing up in East London.

Most intriguing were the sub-plots involving a looming Apocalypse, which sets up, I think, the next book in this series, and the Jack the Ripper storyline. I also really enjoyed the two singing characters, who gave the entire book a very Brechtian feel, and now have me wanting to listen to Tom Waits covering "What Keeps Mankind Alive".

O'Neill has outdone himself once again, and Top Shelf has made this a very attractive volume. Now I'm just patiently waiting for its companions to arrive....

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier

Written by Alan Moore
Art by Kevin O'Neill

This might be a case of ambition being greater than execution. The idea behind this graphic novel is amazing - that Mina Murray and Alan Quartermain, in Big Brother's London of the 1950s would have to steal the government file, or black dossier, about their 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', and that the information within it would aid them in their escape, is a great one. The notion that the dossier would become a part of the story, in a meta-textual way, encompassing a number of different literary genres, styles, and techniques, detailing the history of extraordinary people from the time of Ancient Greece to present day, is a very cool idea. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work.

The comic parts of the story read as well as any of the LoEG books have read so far - they are quick paced, beautifully drawn, and highly intelligent. My problem lies with the dossier itself. Moore has taken great pains to realize fully his world where our fictional characters are real and have over-lapping stories, but he somehow doesn't manage to make the dossier entries all that interesting. Some of them are great - the story of Orlando told as an old-school British comic strip in a boys' weekly is fantastic. Others though, are simply dense blocks of text that, while technically perfect, don't inspire the imagination. I found myself skipping over them, while still appreciating that they were there. I found I couldn't read more than half a page of Moore's Jack Kerouac novel, although other parts totally caught my interest.

In the previous volumes, I felt I could catch a lot of the references and jokes, but in this case, I was glad for the Internet, as I needed to look things up with great frequency (especially when the Golliwog showed up). Maybe if I was older and British, a lot more of the references would have made sense. I don't know.

All that said, the 3D section of the book is brilliant. There are a lot of really cool tricks - like the character that looks different depending what eye you are viewing him through, and the art here is gorgeous. O'Neill's never looked better.

As well, I like the way the framework is provided for the next volume of LoEG, which will be coming soon from Top Shelf.