Synopsis:
In mid-1950s England, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have been disbanded and disavowed, and when the youthful Mina Murray and a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain return in search of some answers in a book buried deep in the vaults of their old headquarters, they must elude their dangerous pursuers who are recklessly determined to retrieve the lost manuscript and end the League for good.
Reviews:
Starred Review. After several delays, the latest installment of Moore's pastiche of public domain literary figures is finally here and it's worth the wait. In 1958, two mysterious figures steal the Black Dossier, a compendium of information and articles relating to the league's most renowned incarnation, the group headed by the intrepid Mina Murray. The theft launches a tense chase as the thieves fight to stay one step ahead of thuggish government agents while reading the contents of the dossier, pieces that shed light on centuries-worth of secret and bizarre intrigues. Moore and O'Neill are in top form, crafting a virtually flawless fusion of prose and visuals that's an overwhelmingly dense and exhaustive nod to pre-existing works in media ranging from literature, legends, television and film, teasing the reader in the know with appearances by Orwellian totalitarianism, Lovecraftian abominations, Jeeves and Wooster, Bulldog Drummond, Ian Fleming's famed double-o operative, lusty Fanny Hill and a host of others, capped with a section requiring 3-D glasses (included). Too loaded with content to be fully absorbed in one reading, this is a challenging, adult volume that's a delight for fans of pop culture and lovers of heroic adventure. (Nov.)
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Before it was a dismal Sean Connery movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a celebrated comic book bringing together characters from disparate literary works to protect an alternate nineteenth-century Britain. The latest collection—the last with DC—centers on the mysterious Black Dossier, stolen by H. Rider Haggard’s series hero Allan Quatermain and the forever youthful Mina Murray of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. As these two read the dossier while pursued by government agents, the secrets and history of the League over the years unfold, and various “documents” interrupt the story line, including a pornographic “Tijuana bible” aimed at Orwell’s 1984, a 25-page biography of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and an early League-days section featuring Shakespeare’s Prospero. The file proper includes a segment written in Beat style by Sal Paradise of On the Road and a 3-D finale (glasses come with each copy). Exhausted casual readers may think this is all too clever for its own good, but League-oholics will love undergoing multiple readings and poring over every packed panel and reference to adventure, travel, and speculative fiction classics. --Carlos Orellana
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