The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (dt. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ) is a comic book series by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill , appearing since 1999. It begins in 1898 and is about literary figures who have come together to form the eponymous group to fight enemies of the British Empire . A special feature of these comics is the extensive use of figures and motifs from the (fantastic) literature published up to the respective story period. The comics also contain advertisements and forewords that are also adapted to this period. Six volumes have appeared so far.

Comic books

part 1

Campion Bond hires Mina Murray to put divorced Harker (from Dracula by Bram Stoker ) together a league of people with extraordinary abilities. Besides her, these are Allan Quatermain (from the series by Henry Rider Haggard ), Captain Nemo (from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Isle by Jules Verne ), Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde (from Robert Louis Stevenson 's novel of the same name ) and the " Invisible " Hawley Griffin (by HG Wells ). Bond himself receives his instructions from a person known only as M. The members of the league suspect that it is Mycroft Holmes , the brother of Sherlock Holmes . You are tasked with recovering the cavorite , a novel energy source developed by Dr. Fu Manchu (after Sax Rohmer ) was stolen.

After completing this order, you hand over the Cavorit Campion Bond. Having grown suspicious, the invisible Griffin pursues Bond and finds out that behind the mysterious M is not Mycroft Holmes, but Professor Moriarty , who was not killed in the Reichenbach Falls and is now in the service of the crown as well as the leader of a gang of criminals from west London is. He plans to use the Cavorit to drive a huge flying fortress and to wipe out his adversary from the East End of London, the Chinese doctor. At the last moment the league can prevent this and the Cavorit disappears into space together with Professor Moriarty.

The first volume contains the adventure story Allan and the Divided Veil by Alan Moore, in which Allan Quatermain meets the time traveler from HG Wells' The Time Machine .

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill, Ben Dimagmaliw: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 01. Tilsner, Bad Tölz 2003, ISBN 3-936068-13-5 .

Volume 2: War of the Worlds

On Mars is under the leadership of John Carter a city of Martians taken. However, some of the Martians can escape to Earth. There they start an extermination campaign against the people, whereupon the league opposes them. The invisible Griffin, who believes that the Martians with their three-legged fighting machines and their heat radiators, cannot be defeated, decides to betray Earth and collaborate with them. Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray are instructed by M to find a certain Dr. To seek out Moreau and bring a hybrid from him to London, which is threatened by the Martians. Captain Nemos Nautilus , who managed to shoot down a Martian tripod, is unable to maneuver due to red weeds in the Thames. Hyde discovers Griffin's betrayal and kills him. In London, the Martians are already standing on the south bank of the Thames. Hyde manages to stop a tripod, but dies in the process. Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain have now arrived with the hybrid, a combination of anthrax and streptococci . With this biological weapon it is possible to destroy the Martians. Horrified by this kind of war on the British Empire, Nemo leaves London with the Nautilus . The league is over.

The second volume contains as an appendix the New Almanac for Travel enthusiasts , in which various members of the league visit fictional places and countries from the (fantastic) literature published up to 1900.

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - War of the Worlds. Tilsner, Bad Tölz 2004, ISBN 3-936068-72-0 .

Black dossier

Unlike its two predecessors, 'The Black Dossier' is no longer set in Victorian times, but is set in the 1950s: The remaining league (basically only Allan Quatermain and Mina Harker) is supposed to bring the so-called “Black Dossier ” to safety which is also desired by the enemies of the British Empire.

In addition to the usual allusions to classic literary figures such as King Oedipus , the third volume also refers to numerous contemporary film and television characters. Adenoid Hynkel from Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Emma Peel from With Umbrella, Charm and Bowler Hat but also Ian Fleming's James Bond come to an appearance.

The volume has some peculiarities: Different types of paper were used for the passages from the “Black Dossier” and the actual comic story . In addition, some passages were drawn in 3D , for which the draftsman Kevin O'Neill specially designed 3D glasses. The parts of the fictional black dossier include a. an unpublished play by Shakespeare and an excerpt from a beat novel.

The volume does not run in the actual numbering of the series, but is considered a special volume due to its unusual structure. Legal issues prevented publication outside the USA. The German-language edition was published in December 2013.

Century

Part 1: 1910 - Because what does man live on?

After the original league broke up in Volume Two, in 1910 it consists of Mina Murray, Allan Quatermains, Orlando , the burglar AJ Raffles and the clairvoyant Thomas Carnacki. In visions Carnacki sees a secret gathering of magicians led by Oliver Haddo , a murderer who is returning to London - he is later identified as Macheath and linked to the Whitechapel murderer - and a terrible bloodbath in London. They follow different leads, but cannot prevent the massacre; Janni, the daughter of Captain Nemos, takes revenge on the Nautilus in London's East End for the rape and humiliation she suffered there.

The parts of the comic that deal with Macheath and Janni's experiences in London are provided with song lyrics inspired by the Threepenny Opera , e.g. B. Because what does a person live on? , The pirate jenny (Janni calls himself Jenny Diver in London ) and the ballad in which Macheath apologizes to everyone .

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1910. Panini-Comics, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-86607-464-4 .

Part 2: 1969 - Paint It Black

In Sussex, Basil Thomas, musician of the Purple Orchestra , is killed. The gangster Vince Dakin assigns the killer Jack Carter Thomas to avenge his lover. Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain and Orlando are made aware of renewed activities of the Haddo cult and the imminent birth of the Antichrist by Prospero . With the help of the dandy Jerry Cornelius and others, they find out in London that Haddo's mind is able to take over other bodies. The current host is Charles Felton, but Haddo wants to change into the body of the singer Terner of the band Purple Orchestra . This is to happen at the concert in honor of Thomas in Hyde Park. Allan and Orlando look for Felton, Mina takes the drug Taduki acid diethylamide and fights Haddo on the astral level. Haddo's body, Charles Felton, is killed by Carter at the same time, he cannot take over Terner and his spirit takes refuge in the body of a young man named Tom Riddle . Bats that are released at the concert remind Mina of Count Dracula and she is taken away by the ambulance in a mad state. Tom Riddle disappears in King's Cross station near platform 10 . Eight years later, Allan and Orlando have no clues about Mina's whereabouts.

In 1969, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill used the fictional characters from literature and film as a motif, as well as the death of Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones concert in his honor in Hyde Park in 1969.

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1969. Panini-Comics, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-86607-465-1 .

Part 3: 2009 - This is how it may fall

Orlando leaves the British Army as a highly decorated war hero and returns to London. In the abandoned headquarters of the now defunct league, he turns back into a woman and is contacted by Prospero, who tells her that the announced Antichrist has been born and that she instructs her to stop him.

Desperate Orlando seeks Emma Night , the new head of the secret service, and offers her the secret of immortality against Mina's whereabouts. On the way back she recognizes Allan Quatermain in a shabby heroin addict, but he flees from her in a panic. She is able to free Mina from a psychiatric clinic in which she has spent the past 40 years in confusion. Without the influence of the drugs, Mina remembers time traveler Norton, her last hope. On the way to Norton they meet Allan Quatermain, but he doesn't want to help them. Norton accompanies them to a hidden platform in King's Cross, where they find a train that will take them to a hidden college , the abode of the Antichrist. The damaged train takes them through enchanted Britain to the ruins of the college. There they find, among other corpses, the headless corpse of Haddo, who taught magic at the school. The Antichrist is his student of sorcerers with a scar on his forehead . You find a London address and drive back.

In London, Prospero orders them to stop the Antichrist. If Orlando moves Excalibur , he will send help. The address turns out to be a hidden house . The Antichrist appears to usher in the end of the world. Orlando pulls Excalibur, which sends a beam of light to the sky. When the Antichrist tries to kill Mina and Orlando, Quatermain appears and shoots him with a large-caliber weapon. This quickly recovers from the hit and kills Quatermain. A mysterious flying woman appears in the sky , who succeeds in destroying the Antichrist, just as she has dealt with all failed boys. The still living head of Haddos tells Mina that they have only postponed Armageddon. The woman takes him and disappears. Together with Emma Night they fly to Africa to bury Allan Quatermain and to visit the source of immortality.

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2009. Panini-Comics, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-86607-466-8 .

Minions of the moon

As an appendix, Century's three volumes include the story Minions of the Moon , written by John Thomas and published in Lewd World Science Fiction in 1969 , edited by James Colvin. Behind it are John Sladek as the alleged author, New Worlds magazine and Michael Moorcock as its editor.

The story, written in the New Wave style, contains a short framework story with Mina in psychiatry and the actual narrative in which Moore once again interweaves materials from literature and film and Mina Murray at the end of a war between the Amazons on the moon and the Selenites prevented.

Nemo

heart of ice

1925: Janni Dakkar, Nemo's daughter, commands the legendary  Nautilus . Tired of looting and killing, she plans an expedition to Antarctica. But a trio of ingenious inventors is supposed to find the lost treasures of an African queen and is hot on her heels. A fatal race to the end of the world takes its course ...

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo: Heart of Ice . Panini-Comics, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-86201-952-6 .

The roses of Berlin

The year is 1941. When the pirate queen Janni Dakkar learns that her daughter is  being held captive by the henchmen of the Toman dictator  Adenoid Hynkel in nightmarish Berlin, she meets the horrific  twilight heroes  ...

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo: The Roses of Berlin . Panini-Comics, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-95798-307-7 .

Flow of spirits

Janni Dakkar, the pirate queen of  Lincoln Island , is 80 years old and is gradually losing her sense of reality. On the hunt for the shadows of her past, Janni embarks on a final journey with old and new allies that will take her to literary sites in the Amazon ...

  • Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo: Heart of Ice . Panini-Comics, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-95798-562-0 .

filming

The first volume was filmed by 20th Century Fox in 2003 . The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen deviates greatly from the original, so Dorian Gray and an American secret agent named Tom Sawyer were introduced as additional members of the League ; Dr. Fu Manchu, on the other hand, does not appear. In the context of the film there was a copyright dispute, which led Alan Moore to distance himself from filming of his works.

Web links

Notes and evidence

  1. ↑ For example, the publisher's email address is referred to as an electromagnetic contact in the imprint .
  2. ↑ Confirmation of the publication of the Black Dossier by Alexander Bubenheimer, Sales Manager at Panini Comics Germany
  3. ↑ The figure is referred to as the son of Allan Quatermain, it is Allan Quatermain himself, who was rejuvenated in the flames / in the pond of Ayesha . This is only clearly mentioned in the second part in 1969.
  4. ↑ From stories by William Hope Hodgson
  5. ↑ From the film They make everything a pig by Michael Tuchner
  6. ↑ A character by the British writer Iain Sinclair
  7. ↑ Interview with Alan Moore