ALAN MOORE & KEVIN O'NEILL – THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOLUME TWO 2003 DC COMICS.
For my Abstract-review of volume one see http://www.shvoong.com/books/comics/129208-league-extraordinary-gentlemen/
a welcome return for the eclectic, intrepid and unlikely band of Victorian
superheroes. England is in peril again. This time from the Martians of H.G.
Well’s war Of The Worlds, There is a neat prologue sequence in which the
Martian launch is witnessed on Mars by John Carter, the hero of Edgar Rice
Burroughs’s novels set on Mars) and by Gulliver, the traveler from Jonathon
Swift’s stories who also went there after his trip to Liliputt and other strange
places on earth. In London, Alan
Quartermain, Nina (heroine of Bram Stoker’s Dracula). Jules Verne’s Captain
Nemo, and R L Stephenson’s Mr. Hyde,
having over-powered Dr. Jeckyl completely, lead the defense of London.
It isn’t easy as they have a traitor in their midst. Griffin, the
Invisible Man, brutalizes Nina and assists the Martians by getting them to use
their red weed to block the Thames so Nemo’s Nautilus can’t sail. Hyde catches
and kills the traitor. Hyde later
sacrifices himself to bring down a Martian, pointing out to it exactly why God
saw fit not to make any creatures with three legs on earth as he dies. Nina and
Quartermain get a secret weapon from a Dr. Moreau, who has come from H.G Well’s
Island to practice his science in the forests of England. The hybrid humanoid
bear is clearly Rupert The Bear; the Toad is Toad of Toad Hall from The Wind In
The Willows, etc. The Doctor gives
Quartermain a germ warfare devise, (the common cold that kills the Martians in
the novel by Wells. The heroes triumph The Martians die, but Nemo is disgusted
by the use of germ warfare and leaves the country forever. Nina is also
disheartened and goes off to a convent to convalesce. Quartermain alone is left
of the original team, after having made love to Nina earlier in the story.
There are hints of a third book however, and I for one, can hardly wait for it
if the quality of the first two is anything to go by.
Arthur Chappell
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