Customer Reviews

V for Vendetta

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This was Alan Moore's first attempt at writing a continuing series (along with Miracleman). It was started in 1981, but wasn't finished until 1989, due to the magazine it was published in being canceled. It is set in the "near future" world of 1997. There was a nuclear war several years before, but England managed to survive, since it had gotten rid of it's nuclear weapons some time before. A totalitarian government took over the country, getting rid of anyone who wasn't a white heterosexual (and anyone who spoke out against the government). Amidst this fascist environment, emerges the character of "V". V is a revolutionary intent on bringing down the government. He wears a Guy Fawkes mask, and his face is never seen. He enlists a teenage girl named Evey as his sort-of protege. That's all I will say about the plot, you should find out the rest for yourself. The story starts off a bit clumsily, but picks up steam while Moore finds his muse, as it were. This is a great story that helped establish Alan Moore as one of the most important writers in comics. I also should mention the great artwork by David Lloyd, who never gets as much attention as Alan Moore does. Highly recommended to anyone interested in graphic novels.

Moore elevates the medium far beyond what *anyone* has shown capable of. The series is no exception. Beautiful art, perfect story arc, great scripting, and real & unique characters.

It reads like an epic poem: "I know every inch of this cell, and it knows every inch of me. Every inch except one." He is the master.

The story will be especially appealling (or perhaps terrifying) to those of liberal bent as describes an England that deteriorates into a nuclear irradiated fascist hell. It's meant as a cautionary tale, and although the nuclear threat seems behind us, Moore literary illustrates the potential dangers of bigotry, hate, oppression.

The story is self-contained and does not require that you be a comic book reader.

Althought not the most famous one, V for Vendetta written by Alan Moore and drawn by David Lloyd deserves the title of one of the best graphic novels ever made. The themes of the story, the loss of citizenship, of both individual and colective freedom, how society lets itself blindly be taken into the abyss of the totalitaralism is as strinckingly actual today as it was before. All begins in England in the year 1998. It's been six years since the end of a catastrophical world war that led to the ascension of a fascist group called the "Norseflame". The country is now a slave nation under the chains of fascism and intolerance. The main character of our drama is V, a misterious terrorist whose face is hidden by a mask of Guy Fawkes a catholic radical who tried to blow of the parliament in 1605. V manages to succeed where Fawkes failed and with that struck, he takes away the government simbol of authority. He takes a girl called Evey Hammond of the street and turns her into his protegé having future plans for her. We later on discover that V was a prisioner in a government concentracion camp submited to unspeakeable medical experiments that augmented both his phisical and intelectual capabilities. He begins to kill one by one, three of his captors, the regime main radialist Lewis Prothero, the bishop Lilliman and a medic called Delia Portridge responsable for the medical experiments conduct on V. From there V begins his true crusade, that is, taking down the english fascist state. One of the best things of V for Vendetta is that all the characters are developing during the story. V steals the show being a mixture of Batman, Phanton of the Opera, and intelectual. His lectures to Eve teaching her all he knows are some of the best parts of the novel. Althought hopely the predictions made by Moore did not hapenned let us not be fooled dear readers. All it takes is a scratch in the shining surface of globalization with it's talking heads and pink colored news and the nightmare of V for Vendetta is there, open claws, with the sinister hailing "England triumphs".

This graphic novel is truly a masterpiece in both the artistic and literary realms. The plot recalls both Dick's "The Man in the High Castle," and Orwell's "1984" in a tale of post-World War fascism, freedom, and philosophy. An item overlooked in many reviews of graphic novels is the quality of the artwork. "V" is a delight to the eyes as well as the mind as one reads through it. The visual imagery is striking, yet subtle and smooth. The authors, amazingly, use only one instance of onomatopoeia in the whole novel, and have a great sense of timing and action in their visual depictions that makes the experience in this novel less "reading" than "seeing." I found this book a fantastic reading experience.

The Thominator

This is a dark, dark book, with a vein of hope like lightning running through it. It electrifies as it terrifies, and images and words remain burned into my mind eight years after my first encounter.

In a timeless, grey England during an infinite war between Us and Them, the concentration camps have come and gone. One man has escaped, after having been a guinea pig in Mengele-like experiments. Have they driven him mad? We never see his face. He rescues the character who unifies the story, a young woman, from brutality at the hands of police officers. He begins his vendetta against the people who tortured him, and becomes a focus for rebellion against the totalitarion regime

England in a post atomic holocaust: this is the setting of a magnificent work about one individual, who fights to resucitate the dying ideals of freedom and beauty. What England has forgotten, V remembers. With a blast greater than dynamite, he blows the eyes and minds of the Britons open so they can see what they are losing.

Moore's tale, with its heavy and often disconcerting imagery and its intricate story line keeps the reader captivated for the entire ride. The plot keeps the reader guessing at a number of things, not all of which are answered.

I recomend this to anyone, particularly those who say that comics are just for kids.

A fantastic "What If" set in a Fascist England following a limited nuclear war. "V", a rebel and romantic, strives to right the wrong and wake the complacent citizens of Britain--at all costs. A must read for comic fans, political science students, and everyone else that values freedom and what it means to lose it.

Alan Moore's dystopic vision of a future fascist England has become more harrowing and poignant in light of the situation in the United States under the administration of George W. Bush. These two worlds now appear to be more similar than not, with their terrified and docile populations willing to surrender their civil liberties in exchange for order and security.

Just as the England of 'V for Vendetta' has placed its people under constant surveillance with hidden cameras and microphones, the United States of George W. Bush and John Ashcroft has aimed to collect information on its citizens such as books borrowed and websites visited. Just as ethnic minorities and homosexuals in that England have been hauled off to remote death camps, demonized Arabs with supposed 'terrorist' links are being detained by the United States government in Guantanamo Bay without access to their families or legal counsel. Just like in 'V for Vendetta,' dissenting opinion is condemned as unpatriotic and dissenters are either imprisoned or deprived of their means of livelihood. Just like in the book, lies are fabricated by the state and broadcasted over the media to keep people fearful, pacified, and cooperative.

Hope stems from the voice of another human being, which can be transformative and liberating. It is none other than the capacity of the human spirit to struggle against the monolithic structures of power that isolate and dehumanize man.

"I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish... except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world that's worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us."