With the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I was not quite so sold on the single issues, but I greatly enjoyed the collection. I'm enjoying this second volume in serial format, which means I'm really looking forward to the collection, which I expect will read better as well. At any rate, League goes into some very adult territory this issue, with some brutal revenge on a traitor, a new and unstable ally and more indications that the Martians are a deadly and perhaps even unbeatable foe. It's been a long time waiting, but it's well worth the wait, as always.
The first League series seemed to me to be a lot of showing off, with Moore playing deliberately cagey and cutesy about who his characters were. It was like reading the Victorian fiction equivalent of something like Kingdom Come, where "spot the Easter Egg" was as important as the actual story. There are still elements of that here, as I sometimes get the feeling I'm supposed to be seeing more than is on the page and that I can't fully appreciate the series unless I'm a much better scholar of literature or have access to Jess Nevins's excellent annotations. However, the story does seem to have its eye on the ball a lot more in regards to the plot and character development.
Now that he's introduced his versions of these characters, Moore gets to play around with them interacting a little more, and that turns out to be a whole lot of fun. The relationship between Mina and Quatermain is dark, given that each of them have considerable personal demons, but it also feels a little bit sweet and tender, even with the lustful tone of their interaction in this issue. And speaking of lustful tone... my jaw dropped at the scene with Hyde this issue, and again when I realized what was going on with the spreading blood, a marvelous idea from Moore perfectly executed by O'Neill and Dimagmaliw.
Which actually could be used to describe a lot of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, actually. O'Neill's vision of London covered by the red muck of the Martians, his strange, almost cartoony vision of the animals of Moreau and the subdued threat and violence of Hyde all come through beautifully in his visuals. There's a definite feeling of being "through the looking glass" in this issue with the surreal goings-on and characters, and O'Neill captures that fantasy element while also hitting the brutal realities that are important to the tone as well.
Given the adult tone of the book, with some rather horrendous violence and uncensored sex, I was a little put off by the decision to center a curse word in the text. I found it distracting, and, to use the parlance of the book, ****ing ridiculous. That and the lateness are small flaws in an otherwise excellent issue, however, and I look forward to the conclusion... whenever we finally see that.
