The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a
comic written by
Alan Moore and illustrated by
Kevin O'Neill. The conception of the comic is that all of
Victorian's literary characters coexsisted in our world and presents this world in 1898.
Sherlock Holmes was once the greatest detective,
strange experiements that shocked the public come upon the world, and
mystical creatures roam it.
Campion Bond is a secretive fellow who works for a mysterious
M. This M fellow is collecting different people in the world together under the banner of the
British Empire. The first one collected and undeclared leader of this League of Extraordinary Gentleman (and one woman) is
Wilhelmina Murray. Her past is rather murky, other than the facts that she is recently divorced and returned to her maiden name. She is also mentioned as being ravaged by
some foreigner. Even among these other strange chaps she can hold her own.
Wilhelmina Murray: Preferable, surely, to Quatermain the opium-sot? I have, you may believe me, met with many deplorable specimens of humanity, but you...
Allen Quatermain, the great British explorer, is found by Ms. Murray in an
opium den in
Cairo. Washed up and heavily addicted to opium, Quatermain doesn't seem that useful at the time. He quickly breaks his addiction and tries to live up to the history books that list his many adventures.
Allen Quatermain: Madame, that's enough! I pray God that all Englishwomen are not now of your manly ilk...
Captain Nemo, captain of the
Nautilus, has also been recruited by Ms. Murray. His reasons for "defending the Empire" are less defined. Perhaps, it is an agreement that his faked death on the
Mysterious Island shall not be revealed. But in any case, Nemo is a strong force to have on their side.
Captain Nemo: Bond believes we are his pawns. He thinks no-one observes his game. But I am no-one. I observe everything... and to play with Nemo is to play games with destruction.
When the group returns to Britain with Quatermain in hand, Campion is quick to send them after another chase. This time in
France, they meet with a retired detective by the name of
Auguste Dupin. Apparently, a murder case on the
Rue Morgue, that was thought solved, have returned. They find that no normal beast or human is causing these new murders, but some sort of
changeling. A
Dr. Henry Jekyll who had created a potion that had seperated his evil side,
Mr. Edward Hyde, from his own personality. Unfortunatly, they are still stuck in the same body and Hyde no longer requires the potion to come out. The government works hard on trying to get Hyde to work for them, while Jekyll with his impeccable morals joins almost immediatly.
Mr. Edward Hyde: A CURE? You'll cure me, will you, like a wart on Jekyll's arse? Why, you self-important TURD! Unfasten these confouded straps. I'll snap your neck in TWO!
Campion sends them on yet another mystery. A series of girls at the
Miss Rosa Coote's Correctional Academy for Wayward Gentlewomen have been mysteriously been becoming pregnant. On the night that Murray, Quatermain, and Nemo stay there, this "holy spirit" appears having rather carnal affairs with one of the girls. They quickly discover that it is some sort of
invisible man.
Dr. Hawley Griffin, who faked his own death, is eager to join the group in order for a pardon and perhaps a cure for his condition.
Dr. Hawley Griffin: "Oh heavens! He's harmed a poor policeman!" Well, forgive me. I'd rather thought we were a covert military unit, but it seems we are instead a knitting circle!
After gathering this amazing group, Bond gives them their first true mission. Their mission is to retrieve the
cavorite, an anti-gravity material, from an Oriental man known only as "
The Doctor." But there seems more in store for them than just a simple retrievel, a force long thought gone.
As of August 2002, the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has begun. In this new saga, our adventurers are moving into the league of the extraterriestial as
aliens from
Mars crash in
England.