The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century : 1910
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Century : 1910 – Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill (Top Shelf Productions)
There are those amongst us who would have you believe Alan Moore is a god, but as I am at heart a Humanist, I have no gods, no belief nor faith in gods, “real” or imagined, celestial or Earth bound, and as such, I know that Alan Moore, whilst not a god, is one of the most gifted and talented writers to have ever graced the comic industry. He, like the rest of us, is mortal, and as such is fallible, and if ever proof of that fact were needed, you need look no further than ‘Lost Girls’ an exploration of sexuality and pornography that used literary characters (Dorothy Gale, Wendy Darling and Lewis Carol’s Alice) in order to communicate it’s ideas and story, but one that used the wrong medium in order to try and achieve it’s goals. As a novel it would probably have worked, in comic form, it felt a little tawdry and, as far I was concerned, made light of the subject that it was trying to enforce, that is female sexuality and the equality of sexuality and it’s perception between genders. It was Moore’s first own goal in comics, and kind of made me think that maybe, just maybe, he was bored of the medium in which he had made his name and launched his own version of shock an awe in order to bow out and concentrate on other projects. However, that was then and this is now, and in this now, Alan Moore has once again teamed with Kevin O’Neill in order to revive one of his most famous franchises, ‘The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, and in ‘Century: 1910’, he drags his heroic avengers kicking and screaming into the Twentieth Century. The turn of the century brought incredible change, the end of the days of Empire, and Victorian England, the death of glory and everything that “Blighty” had once been, and would never be again. Quatermain is gone, replaced by his son, whose companion is the only constant in the league, Mina Murray, and the death of Nemo sees his daughter try to branch out and join the world in order to escape the mantle of responsibility that he wishes her to wear, a decision that both she and the rest of the world will come to regret. Add occult trappings and plots upon which rests the fate of humanity, a new league and the return of Jack and his knife and the hard hitting transition from days of glory to a dusk filled with neglect and death (Moore using traditional type folk song lyrics as well as dialogue with which to illustrate the death and rebirth of a country and all that it was and eventually will become), and with a flash of imagination, the masters of the League are back on top of their game. ‘Century : 1910’ is a welcome return for one of the most readable, imaginative and intelligent franchises in comics, and shows just why Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill are held in such high regard and esteem. Bravo gentlemen, bravo…Tim Mass Movement
