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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969

2011Alan Moore

3.3/5

Oof, where to start with this mess? Years ago when the “League” series began, I enjoyed the fact that Moore had used his vast literary knowledge to craft an adventure story within a kind of alternate Victorian world filled with magic and mystery, incorporating the best of Victorian lit into the books. But things got weirder. Things tend to get weirder when Alan Moore is involved but he didn’t seem to have disappeared up his own…self as he has done on past occasions. “Black Dossier” was really strange, Moore thinking his over-written and, frankly, pretentious prose being worth its own sections, unconstrained by panels. Unfortunately the panels forced Moore to be creative and self-edit his scripts to fit onto the page. Without this constraint he’s free to wander around and around in circles, boring the reader to death. Then “Century” began and the series was catapulted into the 20th century. “1910” was a very weak effort with very little going on and what actually happened could have been summarised in a page if the writer actually got right down to it. Honestly, with the disappointment of “Black Dossier” and “1910” I wasn’t expecting “1969” to be an improvement and I was right. Moore romanticises the 60s with all the clichés every other writer exploring the era has done. Hippies, groovy London, the emergence of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll fills each page in lieu of any semblance of plot. I have no idea what the point of this series is now – something about Oliver Haddo, the protagonist of Somerset Maugham’s novel “The Magician” a fictional take on Aleister Crowley, trying to bring about the end of the world? Haddo can’t be killed which makes for a tedious exercise in trying to kill him – and they don’t. Yaaaaaawn. The scenes in the book are laughable at best. The excess depiction of sex and drugs are totally unnecessary and the endless writing down of music lyrics fails to bring to the reader the euphoria of real music – comics do not communicate music well, at all. The lyrics though are abominable. Moore in his spare time fancies himself a singer/songwriter despite being unable to sing or play any instruments. The lyrics in this book shows how inept he is at this creative form. And the “psychic battle” at the end? Just pathetic. But by the end I didn’t care. The story is a mess, the charms of the League were totally missing, this might as well have been a completely other series. Allan Quatermain is and remains a dull character. Mina has no powers or any personality and is completely at odds with the Mina of previous volumes. And Lando? Just annoying, like Jar Jar Binks. If you think “Carry On” type innuendo is both amusing and funny then you’ll probably think Lando is an irascible charming scallywag – anyone else will just find him annoying. While I used to like the LXG, I don’t anymore. “Century” is a total misstep for this series and Moore has handled it poorly, completely losing sight of what made the series interesting in the first place. “1969” features a cast of characters you just want to punch in the face for being so bloody annoying, stupid and pretentious (woo, I do magic! Black magic! Wooo!) and marks the end of my interest in this series and I won’t pick up the next volume. If you’re new to Moore and wondering why he’s so highly thought of, I recommend the excellent “Saga of the Swamp Thing”, for brilliant storytelling and writing.
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