The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier [Paperback]

Alan Moore (Author), Kevin O'Neill (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2008

England in the mid 1950s is not the same as it was. The powers that be have instituted...some changes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have been disbanded and disavowed, and the country is under the control of an iron-fisted regime. Now, after many years, the still youthful Mina Murray and a rejuvenated Allan Quatermain return and are in search of some answers. Answers that can only be found in a book buried deep in the vaults of their old headquarters, a book that holds the key to the hidden history of the League throughout the ages: The Black Dossier. As Allan and Mina delve into the details of their precursors, some dating back centuries, they must elude their dangerous pursuers who are Hell-bent on retrieving the lost manuscript... and ending the League once and for all.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: WildStorm (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401203078
• ISBN-13: 978-1401203078
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.4 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars SHOW don't TELL, Alan!, November 30, 2007

By 

MJS "DrNilesCrane" (MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (Hardcover)

Imagine two of your very good friends taking off for a couple of years and going on all kinds of great adventures, but not bothering to invite you. Eventually they return home and tell you about how great it all was; meanwhile, you're wishing you could have been a part of the adventures as well. Feeling left out?

Welcome to The Black Dossier.

So goes my experience with this entry to the series. While this is reported to be something of an aside rather than the "true" 3rd entry to the series, it reads like an epilogue. Worse, The Black Dossier details numerous adventures of the League in its various incarnations, many of which are quite compelling and engaging, yet this is a book about TELLING the reader of these fantastic adventures, NOT showing them. We read reports about Mina and Allan in American dealing with Cthulhu horrors, or facing off with a rival league in France, but these are presented as rather dull after action debriefings or journals, often just pages of text, perhaps taking the "novel" portion of "graphic novel" too far, and not giving the reader involvement or a stake in these adventures. Even if future volumes were to detail the various exploits mentioned, they would be hamstrung given the publication of the play by play detailed within--terribly disappointing for a series that unlike many other comics, is willing to kill of major characters and surprise the reader.

Regardless, in The Black Dossier, of the original League of volumes 1 and 2, only Mina Harker (now a striking blonde) and Allan Quartermain return for the bulk of the story (both appearing quite young courtesy of a peculiar find in Africa, slyly revealed to the reader while it goes over the heads of British Intelligence), and steal The Black Dossier from a post George Orwell's 1984 England. The overall plot is little more than a straightforward chase (to use the term generously) as Mina and Allan flee England with The Black Dossier, although there is little sense of danger or urgency as the pair leisurely take flight, giving the impression of being on holiday rather than at any real risk. (The main action sequence, which takes place in a "space port", is brief and neither Mina nor Allan is particularly challenged by their opposition).
As usual, Mina (rightfully so) takes the lead, although poor Allan does little other than ask obvious questions so that clumsy exposition dialogue can tumble from Mina's mouth in an effort to explain what is going on and why. Again, the reader is often told rather than shown--a strange choice for this medium--and given the rather "extraordinary" exploits of volume 1 and 2, nothing here even comes close to matching the excitement. The story comes across as rather mundane, more "Jason Bourne" (well, James Bond) than fantastic until the very end--and ending which amounts to little more than a tour, rather than any kind of significant resolution (such as volume 1) or cliffhanger (volume 2). The Mina and Allan of fifty years later seem a bit like shadows of the characters fans of the series came to respect and appreciate in the first two volumes: Allan is largely insignificant and Mina is a mouthpiece for the writers, neither is allowed to flourish as characters or grow.

While I found this volume largely disappointing, there are numerous interesting bits throughout The Black Dossier, although these are individual nuggets here and there. For instance, the character of Orlando is introduced through an eighteen page back story, detailing how the immortal character "Forest Gumps" his (or her) way through 3,000 years of human history while often changing genders--it reads much better than it sounds in this review, yet the character has little to do with the story as a whole, other than a few other intriguing mentions during other League adventures the reader misses out on and what amounts to a cameo appearance at the end. This introduction, as well as the introduction of many numerous other characters (members of the League, rivals) give the feel of a rich and textured world that the reader is only given a sliver or glimpse to enjoy--frustrating when there is clearly much more than could be done with both this text and the series. Other sections of the book are small treasures, such as the "PornSec SexJane PicTell" insert (1984) and the postcards written by the League and sent to British Intelligence over their many adventures.

The literary and fictional references are not only present in this volume as the previous, but the volume is turned up to 11, giving those who enjoy the "Where's Waldo?" aspect of the League plenty to appreciate in this volume. The production values are also amazing.

Overall, for those readers coming to the series from the "LXG" movie, the graphic novels have nothing in common with the movie other than the shared name. Of the three, The Black Dossier is certainly the worst choice for anyone curious about the series, given it's clearly written for those already familiar with the characters and world. As another volume of the series, I found it was a disappointment, even if judged as a tangent to the "core" series of stories (which seems to beg for a sliding scale that The Black Dossier sorely needs). There definitely are gems here for the dedicated fan of the series (and frankly, those might be enough for the diehard fans), but the generally weak story and "tell, don't show" feel of the book far outweighed positives. If this were published as an epilogue after ten or twelve volumes of the League, I believe I would give it a positive review (under the assumption that the numerous adventures were told about were detailed elsewhere), yet published after the first two volumes The Black Dossier serves as little more than a clumsy tangent or (worse), as a spoiler for what could have been many engaging adventures of the League in its various incarnations.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Moore's Genius-Problem, December 9, 2007

By 

A. Smith (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (Hardcover)

Moore and O'Neil's latest installment of their now famous League (the hardback in the series), is visually splendorous but inevitably boring and poorly plotted. Moore gets lost in his references very early. As for Kevin O'Neil (the artist behind this adventure): well, he never fails to please as the artist behind LXG, and here is no exception--if you're solely for the art, well, go get this book.

In LXG Volume One, Moore sets his unique, humorous and decidedly adult twists on these pulp characters just as he adeptly links their worlds into a sprawling fictional universe. In LXG Volume Two, our old friends grow into the dangerous risks, possible loves, and superheroic potentials that Moore sets up--and they already seem like old friends by this point, if somewhat terrifying old friends. But where Moore's original Leagues seem like celebrations of old pulps and other fantastical tales, Black Dossier seems less a celebration and more an indulgence into Moore's impractical world views and towering intellect. And although Moore certainly has these former traits in spades, they are not, nor have they ever been the only things that make his work so transcendent, and perhaps more disappointing still: Moore is intelligent enough to know this, and he is neglecting his obligations as a story-teller in this book.

The Black Dossier in some ways is an ultimate reunion for his fans: at the end of Volume II Moore separates his age-defying lovers, Allan Quatermain (from King Solomon's Mines, among others) and Mina Murray (or Mina Harker, from Bram Stoker's Dracula), and here we find them lovers united and stronger in love than ever--but much to the failing of this volume, he leaves this far in the past, and begins with a vague explanation of the dangers that this couple now face. Stealing the Black Dossier, a hidden (if strangely neglected) file filled with Allan and Mina's past exploits, the couple flee from a stable of newly arranged Extraordinary gentlemen, a petulant, misogynistic, gadget-infested James Bond among them. And then Allan and Mina begin reading this Dossier, and when they open this folio so too must the reader, turning the page to find prose, postcards, illustrated books, and many other wonderful little mediums BESIDES comics within. And, as some of loyal Moore readers know, Moore is stuffy and a tad too purple when writing prose. When he writes his comics, these incredibly wordy and descriptive passage fall into his instructions for his artists, but here Moore crams and crams, and he is as dense, if not denser, than any of the mediums (and the popular writers in said mediums whom he emulates) which he works in. In Moore's other volumes he offered his prose as ancillary, if mildly entertaining backstories to his major throughlines. In Black Dossier, these subsections are in the majority, and though most do not exactly serve the plot (but do serve to hash out Moore's new characters, of which we don't care much about, because Moore hasn't properly introduced them to us in his comic), the reader will certainly be clueless unless they pay close attention. More often than not, however, I felt much like Allan Quatermain on first reading these lengthy gender-bending, sex-filled, and satire-filled passages: I fell asleep.

One immediately experiences the overwhelming sense that a host of esoteric penny-dreadful, pulp, and children's lit references are populating this world--a host of references that the average reader will have little knowledge of. And where Moore deftly engages his readers in finding out such things ONLY IF THEY WANT TO in his previous Leagues, here the reader is all but lost if they chose to skip the once optional subsections.

Moore's a master plotter, capable of juggling multiple story-lines and character-developments and twists and turns. We know this because we have read him doing it. And we also know Moore's exhaustive, beautiful implementations of research. But we also know Moore's literary, philosophical, and pomo metafiction tendencies.

Moore is at his best when checked by his propensity for the telling of a good yarn, and his love for visual storytelling: unfortunately, Moore's intelligence here gets the best of him, and though he throws in a token dose of action and sex for levity, he mainly mires under the crippling weight of trying to keep every single character of pulp fiction linked together, not in the potential for interesting dynamics between characters, or the occasional "low-minded" plot-point that makes most readers turn pages, and keeps most books (and especially comic books), as dynamic and compelling as they are.

40 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An utter mess, December 30, 2007

By 

Tom Knapp "Rambles.NET editor" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (Hardcover)

Black Dossier has been a long time coming. Plagued by copyright squabbles and endless delays in publication, fans of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at times despaired of ever seeing the book in print.

It wasn't worth the wait.

Far from the 1890s, in which the first two League adventures were set, Black Dossier takes place in 1958. A pair of World Wars has passed, as well as the Big Brother era set forth in George Orwell's classic 1984. Former Dracula's bride Wilhelmina Murray, now a blonde but still youthful, and adventurer Allan Quatermain, rejuvenated and posing as his own son, are the only remainders of the previous (but not original) League.

But where earlier volumes focused on adventure and conflict, Black Dossier involves simply a book about League history. Mina and Allan want to read it, even though it's largely about them, and certain forces in the British government want to stop them from doing so. That's pretty much it.

Oh sure, I'll give the book credit for incorporating a young James Bond, Emma Peel (nee Night) and Bulldog Drummond among the forces arrayed against them. But, while the literary references that punctuate these books have been a delightful puzzle in the past, many of them in this volume are so obscure as to be tedious.

It's well documented that creator Alan Moore spent much of the creative period for this book in a slap-fight with DC, which owns the America's Best imprint under which the League books to date have been published. And it seems to me Moore -- who has since severed all ties to DC and has promised future League books to Top Shelf -- basically just tossed a bunch of ideas into the Cuisinart to produce this mess.

Artwork by Kevin O'Neill, on the other hand, is as professionally handled as ever, and DC outdid itself in its presentation, which includes a heavier stock of paper for certain sections, a Tijuana Bible insert and fancy 3-D glasses for use in the bewildering conclusion. Sadly, Moore let his readers down. It remains to be seen if he can woo them back with promised future volumes.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(net) editor