The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century!

Century is the third volume in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga (following Black Dossier which is not technically a chapter but an appendix of sorts) and it delivers on many of the plot threads which have been gathering through the early stories. This is the first volume published by Top Shelf. The focus as always is on Mina Harker, now immortal and still hanging around with the equally rejuvanated Alan Quartermain as the story begins. The "new" character Orlando, a transexual immortal who wields Excalibur, also plays a very bizarre and significant role. 

In 1910 Mina, Alan and Orlando along with other members the ghost hunter Thomas Carnacki (created by William Hope Hodgson) and the gentleman thief A.J. Raffles (created by E.W. Hornung) find themselves confronting a terrifying menace which seeks to do no less than invoke the Anti-Christ of all things. In the backdrop of London as usual, this menace is confronted in the form of Haddo, a cult leader who as we will learn is able to migrate from one body to another giving him effectively a potentially eternal existence. There is also the return of Jack the Ripper to contend with. We also meet Janni Dakkar, the daughter of the elderly Captain Nemo, who rejects his desires that she replace him as leader of the pirates he'd assembled for decades. She strikes out on her own and comes to London as well and meets a terrible fate. Her bloody wrath is biblical. 

We jump forward fifty years to 1969 and at this point Mink, Alan, and Orlando operate under the control of Prospero from his other-dimensional "Blazing World".  In a weird, wonderful and terrifying odyssey, beginning when they are returned to London aboard the Nautilus by a much older and calmer Janni, they again seek the Anti-Christ and again battle the sorcerer Haddo who seeks yet another new body. But things go even more unsettled as Mina defeats the plans of Haddo, but she herself meets a grim fate after enduring an exceedingly "bad trip".  Alan and Orlando are leaderless, and their mission is called into question as the story ends. The end of the world seems nigh, but most folks are high. (We also get another glimpse of Janni Dakkar, but more on that next week.)

We slip forward to 2009 and in this version of London life has gone quite astray. The promises of 1969 have fallen well short, and war and suffering abound abroad and in the city of London proper, Orlando is set upon by Prospero to continue the mission abandoned decades before and seeks both Alan and Mina who have become lost. The latter she finds, and Mina is rehabilitated to some degree following a miserable fate. The two seek to find the Anti-Christ and succeed, but his identity is quite a shock for fans of young adult fiction. Alan Quartermain returns to the battlefield for a final time as the threat is ended but at a terrible cost for one and all. 

"Minions of the Moon" written by "John Thomas" is the text feature in this collection. This bogus sci-fi epic supposedly appeared originally in the equally bogus Lewd Worlds Science Fiction. (Though that would be a great name for a sci-fi mag.) It's a hodge-podge of elements, mostly about a coming conflict on the Moon between a society of Amazons (in desperate need of sperm to continue their race) and the Selenites first seen in First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells. The Selenites worship the body of Cavor and it's his body, encased in amber that the Amazons wish to harvest for sperm. We also get the back story for the black-faced "Golliwog" who it turns out is an escaped slave from deepest space who landed in Toy Land on Earth and was saved by Frankenstein's Creature, among others. Mina Murray is around, sporting a helmet which renders her invisible as she tries stop the war per instructions from Prospero of the Blazing World. 

We also get a glimpse of the defunct "Seven Stars", a team of costumed do-gooders Mina organized briefly in the early 60's. The team disbanded after one tragic battle. And all of this is framed around a woman who is suffering delusions in a mental ward, and of course as we know from the main tale, that's Mina too. 

I really enjoy Century. The three chapters set in three very distinct and different settings is a very clever way to spin a yarn. Moore and O'Neill do a fantastic job capturing the atmosphere of the different eras - a dour 1910, a psychedelic 1969, and a rundown 2009. Besides our team of Mina, Alan and Orlando, the stories all share "The Prisoner of London", a man who cannot move from the geographical region of the city, but who slips through time and appears in all three times, often with bewildering advice. The creativity bounces off the page in these stories and O'Neill's artwork seems particularly energetic. Great stuff!

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