The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3: Century #1 1910 [Paperback]

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

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2009

The new volume detailing the exploits of Miss Wilhelmina Murray and her extraordinary colleagues, Century is a 240-page epic spanning almost a hundred years. Divided into three 80-page chapters - each a self-contained narrative to avoid frustrating cliff-hanger delays between episodes - this monumental tale takes place in three distinct eras, building to an apocalyptic conclusion occurring in our own, current, twenty-first century. Chapter one is set against the backdrop of London, 1910, twelve years after the failed Martian invasion and nine years since England put a man upon the moon. In the bowels of the British Museum, Carnacki the ghost-finder is plagued by visions of a shadowy occult order who are attempting to create something called a Moonchild, while on London's dockside the most notorious serial murderer of the previous century has returned to carry on his grisly trade. Working for Mycroft Holmes' British Intelligence alongside a rejuvenated Allan Quartermain, the reformed thief Anthony Raffles and the eternal warrior Orlando, Miss Murray is drawn into a brutal opera acted out upon the waterfront by players that include the furiously angry Pirate Jenny and the charismatic butcher known as Mac the Knife.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Sometimes less is more. Although only 80 pages long, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 is a spectacular return to form for Moore's critically acclaimed adventure series about a turn of the century superteam made up of characters from pulp/genre literature both famed and obscure. This time out, Captain Nemo's daughter, Janni, angrily refuses to become his successor and leaves for London and a new life, only to walk straight into the plot of Three Penny Opera. While Mina Harker investigates Mac the Knife's killing spree and a mysterious prophecy—less than ably assisted by the incompetent and sexist current group of Extraordinary Gentlemen—Janni rises triumphantly as the Pirate Jenny of song and story, more terrifying in Nemo's mantle than her father ever was. Moore's writing sparkles as he weaves Brechtian lyrics into a sharp, tightly paced story, and O'Neill's sardonic stylized art captures the spirit of the tale and the era perfectly. It's a romp for comics and literature fans alike. (May)
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From Booklist

Acclaimed graphic-novelist Moore (Watchmen, 1987; From Hell, 2000) continues his high-concept saga employing classic ­adventure-fiction characters banded together to answer threats to the British Empire. This first book of a trilogy spanning nearly a century sees Dracula heroine Mina Murray, H. Rider Haggard’s adventurer Allan Quatermain, and new colleagues Raffles (E. W. Hornung’s 1890s gentleman thief), Thomas Carnacki (William Hope Hodgson’s pre–World War I ghost hunter), and Virginia Woolf’s ambisexual Orlando investigate shadowy occultists with possibly apocalyptic intentions. Meanwhile, Brecht’s Mack the Knife is nabbed for dockside murders of prostitutes as Pirate Jenny warbles vengeance. While the premise of mixing and matching famed fictional figures has lost some of its novelty, the thrill of how adroitly and intelligently Moore does it remains. O’Neill’s detailed art matches the intricacy of Moore’s design, combining the meticulous line work of period book illustrations and a distinctly modern vitality. Since, after a spat with DC Comics, Moore has taken the series to relatively little Top Shelf, fans who can’t find the new League in comics shops will likely turn to libraries. --Gordon Flagg

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Top Shelf Productions; First Edition edition (May 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603090002
• ISBN-13: 978-1603090001
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 6.7 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Science Fiction
  • #9 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Fantasy
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moore goes Edwardian., May 13, 2009

By 

Sean Curley (Charlottetown, PE, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3: Century #1 1910 (Paperback)

Well, well, here we go again. After "The Black Dossier", which I found tremendously disappointing after so long a wait (v2 itself having been a bit of a let-down from the preceding one), Moore and O'Neill's famous Victorian adventure heroes return for an adventure with an actual plot. The first of three 'graphic novellas' (it's basically just a slim graphic novel) telling the story of an overarching plot in the 20th century, the events of this one were alluded to in the "Dossier". Plot details are discussed herein, so be warned.

Moore said he wanted this to function both as part one of three and as a story in its own right, hence the decision to abandon the more traditional 22-page single-issue format of previous installments in favour of larger bundles. In that sense, he has succeeded. "1910" has both an internal narrative arc and an ending that augurs future plot developments. On the question of how compelling this story is by itself, I would say reasonably so, moreso than either "The Black Dossier" or "League v.2", though many of my problems with this property remain.

As alluded to in "The Black Dossier", this story picks up in 1910, with the League consisting of old standbys Mina Murray (not yet a blonde), Allan Quatermain ("Junior"), Thomas Carnacki (from W. H. Hodgson's "The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder", originally serialized in "The Strand"), A. J. Raffles (another magazine serial character, created by Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, E. W. Hornung), and a male Orlando (Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name; a major figure in "The Black Dossier"). The reign of Edward VII has ended, and the inauguration of George V is impending, with the Great War that will bring to a definitive end this period in world history whispering on the horizon. Our crew is following Carnacki's premonitory dreams which involve the moon-child cult of Oliver Haddo (Aleister Crowley's "Moonchild") and the return to town of Jack MacHeath. Meanwhile, in a separate plot, Janni, the daughter of Captain Nemo, arrives in London hoping to escape her father's wish for her to succeed him.

Sexual perversion and violence against women has been a recurring theme in Moore's work (in his early classic, "Watchmen"), and repeatedly throughout the "League" books Moore seems to be depicting the nature of Victorian society (he did something similar in "From Hell", which also featured Jack the Ripper, though in a very different light to how he's shown here). Moore has taken some criticism for his use of rape as a plot device in the past, so those critics will find more to criticize here, as the poor Janni, violated by some wharfside scum, summons her father's men to wreak deadly vengeance on the waterfront before assuming her father's identity as Nemo. It's certainly not an act portrayed lightly, of course (and never was in his work), but as a plot element it can perhaps get a bit tiresome. Moore has already done many stories about how, as he ends here, human civilization runs on "monstrous deeds".

From a narrative perspective, this story repeats some of the problems I had with earlier iterations of this group: the main characters don't do or accomplish much in the course of the story, there's little character development (only, really, in Janni's case, and that's a fairly standard story that Moore doesn't add anything new to here), or any of the things that make Moore's best work special. The most notable feature is probably Moore's extensive use of written music, as both MacHeath and a seaside madame named Suki spend more or less all their screentime 'singing' (which comes across to the reader as rhymed narration or monologues). This is a unique use of the comic book format that I'm not sure would really work in a visual medium, given the time that passes between panels of the song. As with Moore's "From Hell", there's a great deal of criticism of Britain's class structure here, and the hypocrisy of the upper class of this era. Kevin O'Neill's art is customarily good.

This is probably the best whole installment of the "League" franchise since the original volume in 1999. All the same, I cannot escape the feeling that there are more interesting things Moore could be doing with his time.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The League Returns!, May 21, 2009

By 

Daniel V. Reilly (Upstate New York, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3: Century #1 1910 (Paperback)

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill's motley crew of Victorian-era literary figures, returns for a fourth outing, and the results are extraordinary, indeed.

The first in a trilogy, CENTURY: 1910 sees an modified League, consisting of Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain (Masquerading as his own son, thanks to his newly immortal condition, as seen in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: THE BLACK DOSSIER), Carnacki, Raffles, and Orlando, dispatched by Mycroft Holmes to prevent the apocalyptic vision received by Carnacki from becoming a reality. To say more about the story would do potential readers a disservice. (I will say that the story involves Captain Nemo and his equally hardcase Daughter Janni, the Ripper murders, Aleister Crowley, and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's musical THE THREEPENNY OPERA. An odd, but pleasing, mixture.)

The misgivings I had at the end of Volume II of LOEG still hold true, to an extent: Without the depraved personalities of Hyde, Griffin, and Nemo, the remaining members of The League are less than interesting. Mina and Allan are as boring as ever, and Raffles and Carnacki are not much better. Only Orlando delivers even a fraction of the personality that's been missing since Hyde and Griffin exited Moore's grand stage. However, the "new" characters (New to More's playground, at least- Jenny Diver, Jack MacHeath, Suki Tawdry, Oliver Haddo, and Norton, the "Prisoner of London") make for some interesting moments, and O'Neill's art is as grotesquely lovely and detailed as ever. The League itself, as always, is more of a group of passive observers than active participants- They seem very ineffective for such a highly-regarded team. However, I enjoyed the book immensely, and I wish there wasn't going to be the inevitable years-long wait before the next chapter. (Just as an aside, Moore, as usual, doesn't completely play fair with the reader, having a very important section of the book, Nemo's dialogue with his daughter, written in a completely untranslated foreign language. Jess Nevin's annotations for CENTURY: 1910 provide a complete translation, as well as invaluable background information that make the reading experience much more pleasurable for people who are not steeped in Victorian literature. The annotations for CENTURY:1910 are easily found online through a Google search, and are well worth hunting down.)

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pompous and overly self-satisfied, September 30, 2009

By 

Axton Blessendon, Jr. (Canton, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3: Century #1 1910 (Paperback)

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed the first "Extraordinary Gentlemen" series (and hated the movie) but I found this volume to be a bit dull, and couldn't help detecting a strong whiff of self-satisfaction wafting out of the script. "What a clever boy am I!" is the constant undercurrent to it all, even though Moore seems to have little new to offer his readers that we haven't seen before, time and again. Plus, the story is so slow-moving and inert -- I found it a chore to get through, particularly the extended "musical" sequences that are intended as an homage to Brecht and Weill: sheer torture. This was okay, I guess, but personally I found myself frequently bored with most of the book. (Axton)