“God, is this what it’s come to?” Allan Quartermain asks as he kicks
a sniveling, bleeding James Bond in the nuts. “The British adventure
hero? Pathetic.”
So begins The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black
Dossier, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s third entry in their series
of fantastically literary (and fantastic) comics. From the get-go, it’s
clear what Moore thinks of 007, just as it’s clear how much he
continues to love classic adventure literature. Previous entries in
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics detailed the
exploits of a motley crew of Victorian heroes and villains in service
to the British government, but Black Dossier‘s a bit different:
This League jumps between traditional comic panels and Moore’s
dense prose, also throwing in some diagrams, a 3-D section, and a
Tijuana Bible insert.
The schizophrenic format is justified by the plot: Set in 1958
rather than the Victorian era, Black Dossier finds ex-League
members Quartermain and Mina Murray on the run from British authorities
after stealing the titular dossier—a folder that collects all
sorts of classified info about the origins of the League.
But as fun as Black Dossier‘s setting and plot are, they
largely exist as a framework that enables Moore and O’Neill’s
exploration of the dossier itself. The scope and ambition of the
dossier’s documents is astonishing: Spanning time and literature from
Beowulf to 1984, there’s a chunk from a Kerouac-inspired
beat novel, the first act of a “lost” Shakespeare play, even a passage
of erotica starring Fanny Hill. By turns, Black Dossier is
clever, funny, erudite, scary, and sexy; Moore’s nuanced writing and
O’Neill’s versatile artwork are, as expected, excellent. For anyone
who’s enjoyed previous League entries—or is anticipating
upcoming ones—Black Dossier is a blast.
Actually, if there’s one drawback, that’s it: While earlier
League stories were exhilarating bits of high-brow adventure,
Black Dossier is decidedly more scholarly and dense, appealing
more to established fans of the series rather than to newcomers. But
for those newcomers, at least, Black Dossier‘s release is as
good of a reminder as any: Pick up the earlier League titles,
and by the time you’re done with them, you’ll be as eager as the rest
of us to delve into Black Dossier.
