Quick recap on the previous volumes!
Is Mina's comment in the second panel a critique of the movie based on Moore's comic book? Or just fan reactions in general? Do you suppose Alan Moore hates Steampunk? Or did he just hate the idea that people saw The League as Steampunk, which is a reimagining of the Victorian Era with steam-based technologies that didn't exist which were made up by the modern era author, when it was not technically anachronistic but accepted anything that had ever been written as if it actually existed (even having things exist in the past before the literature they were written in if the literary story took place in that past)? So if he introduced Nemo's submarine, it was only because it existed in literature at the time rather than an invention of Moore's asking, "What if steam technology enabled a submarine to exist well before one actually did?" Although that's not exactly a good example because The League stories pretty much all took place after submarines technically existed without steampunk technology. Whatever the case, I like that Alan Moore basically took the time to call some of his critics stupid asshats on an old-fashioned parody comic strip on his cover.
I am ignorant of most of these references (I meant that in an academic way and not in a popular culture "I Recognize What Movie/TV Show/Book That Name/Thing/Device/Idea/Line was from!" way).
One of the biggest problems with Libertarians is that they believe they exist inside a vacuum and that everything they know or have learned or experienced can be chalked up to something they did or something their brain figured out. They believe they live in a world based on their own actions, opinions, and gut instincts. To be a Libertarian, one must not believe in context. One must not believe in infrastructure. One cannot believe in inheritance. Any outside help they receive was never asked for and, as such, accrued no debt. Everything a Libertarian has ever done was done by that Libertarian alone. I mention this because somethings deserve context, need context, cannot exist outside of context. And yet a Libertarian will approach something like, say, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #4 and derive naught from it but what they've brought to it. Ultimately their opinion, rendered upon things they have never heard of before shines brighter than any information from outside. And even if they pick up some of the information presented, incorporating it into the context of "Their Knowledge", it has now been laundered into something they learned, by themselves, through outside reading. It is not something taught; it is something they found and now own. The context of accumulated knowledge thanks to civilization and history is not a platform that raises them up but a platform they either found and subsequently now own or, for many, something they simply built themselves.
Was that bit about context out of context? If so, I should explain a bit. I think some media needs the proper forum in which to be viewed. It's one of the reasons liberal arts classes are so important in colleges. Because a person can read Shakespeare on their own. But you get more out of Shakespeare if taught by somebody greatly familiar with his works and the times in which they were written and the stories from which Will stole. Some people read poetry and have favorite poets and yet they miss out on much of the context of their favorite poems because they never learn how much poetry is dialogue between the poet and the poets who came before. Absolutely nothing exists outside of the context of all of human experience and a dialogue with the past. One of the main reasons I suggest people read the Christian Bible is simply because it informs so much in every story that has come out of Western Civilization. Just like you should know every inch of the Bhagavad Gita if you want to understand past and modern media of India. And I bring all of that up to say this: Alan Moore's League comic books really should be read in a class forum. Alan Moore is a comic book and pulp story historian and he's not just writing whimsical little fan fiction fantasy stories here. He's engaged in dialogue with the past and the present and the future. There's context here and I, at least, am sorry for how much of it I'm missing out on.
Many years ago, I went to see Crispin Glover present his films, What Is It? and It is Fine! Everything is Fine. I don't want to discuss those films; I simply want to mention what Crispin Glover knew about context. He refused to let these films out into a contextless world. At the very least, he wanted to present them in a way to make them understandable to an audience. To let them out into the world without context was exploitation. To help create them and then present them to an audience as gently as possible, presenting why he thought they were meaningful, and how they came to be filmed and produced, and allowing for discussion with the audience afterward, was the only way he felt comfortable putting them into the world. I understand that there will always be a kind of narcissistic personality who doesn't believe they can be or need to be taught anything at all, that they can understand anything they need to by the power of their own unbelievably perceptive minds. I hate that kind of person and can only wish them a lingering and painfully unsatisfying end to all of their experiences.
This issue begins with some old time funnies.
Was that bit about context out of context? If so, I should explain a bit. I think some media needs the proper forum in which to be viewed. It's one of the reasons liberal arts classes are so important in colleges. Because a person can read Shakespeare on their own. But you get more out of Shakespeare if taught by somebody greatly familiar with his works and the times in which they were written and the stories from which Will stole. Some people read poetry and have favorite poets and yet they miss out on much of the context of their favorite poems because they never learn how much poetry is dialogue between the poet and the poets who came before. Absolutely nothing exists outside of the context of all of human experience and a dialogue with the past. One of the main reasons I suggest people read the Christian Bible is simply because it informs so much in every story that has come out of Western Civilization. Just like you should know every inch of the Bhagavad Gita if you want to understand past and modern media of India. And I bring all of that up to say this: Alan Moore's League comic books really should be read in a class forum. Alan Moore is a comic book and pulp story historian and he's not just writing whimsical little fan fiction fantasy stories here. He's engaged in dialogue with the past and the present and the future. There's context here and I, at least, am sorry for how much of it I'm missing out on.
Many years ago, I went to see Crispin Glover present his films, What Is It? and It is Fine! Everything is Fine. I don't want to discuss those films; I simply want to mention what Crispin Glover knew about context. He refused to let these films out into a contextless world. At the very least, he wanted to present them in a way to make them understandable to an audience. To let them out into the world without context was exploitation. To help create them and then present them to an audience as gently as possible, presenting why he thought they were meaningful, and how they came to be filmed and produced, and allowing for discussion with the audience afterward, was the only way he felt comfortable putting them into the world. I understand that there will always be a kind of narcissistic personality who doesn't believe they can be or need to be taught anything at all, that they can understand anything they need to by the power of their own unbelievably perceptive minds. I hate that kind of person and can only wish them a lingering and painfully unsatisfying end to all of their experiences.
This issue begins with some old time funnies.
I don't know what exactly British readers would recognize from this but I get old single page Mad Magazine gag vibes from it.
Orlando and Emma have subcontracted the murder of 007 to this guy King who is Bond's new M or something similar. I don't remember because I read a Justice League Quarterly between this issue and the last Tempest issue and it caused some light inflammation of the brain. It doesn't look like he'll be too successful. I gleaned that from the style of the comic book as well as his incompetence shown in the story. Luckily it was quite cartoony and silly so I only cried about the cat dying for ten to fifteen minutes.
The comic book continues with a story from one of the Special Team files that Bond and his group are studying: the League's encounter with Les Hommes Mysterieux. I was hoping for a Mystery Men parody but instead we just get Orlando fighting the albino Elric wielding his black sword, Stormbringer.
The comic book continues with a story from one of the Special Team files that Bond and his group are studying: the League's encounter with Les Hommes Mysterieux. I was hoping for a Mystery Men parody but instead we just get Orlando fighting the albino Elric wielding his black sword, Stormbringer.
Thanks for the early reminder that this is also a critique of modern comic books and their audience, Elric!
As for the women who set King on his current task, they have recently made acquaintance with Satin Astro and Marsman. The four compare notes concerning their associations with Mina Murray and look over files stolen from M.I.5. by the Moneypennys (who were sick to death of all the sexual harassment and were easily convinced into helping Orlando and Emma). One non-Mina related coincidence Satin brings up concerns the most horrific space pirate in the 30th Century who also happens to go by the name of Orlando. Marsman figures it's the same Orlando and now Orlando knows she's going to be a cool pirate dude in the far future. That could be concerning since the catastrophe that made the 30th Century suck so much began when Orlando battle the Anti-Christ in 2009. Maybe the world doesn't need an immortal, gender-swapping miscreant sticking their nose into everything?! I said maybe because you could argue that Orlando causes as much trouble as she solves but, on the other hand, she's super cool!
Moore and O'Neill have decided that every turn of the page this issue should be part of a different thread of the story in a different style so now I'm back to Mina in the Blazing Worlds. And, apparently, I have to dig my 3D glasses back out because Prospero hasn't fully reversed the nuclear explosion yet. Also these pages are parodying Little Nemo in Slumberland. Mina and Jack Nemo take a tour around the Blazing World and go see a play while Prospero continues to undo the nuclear explosion. They observe that things don't seem to be as well-off as one would expect after an unmade nuclear explosion. But they're also too engrossed in speaking like Little Nemo characters to make any perceptive revelations.
The next adventure is another pseudo-comic strip thing, "The Adventures of Jerry Cornelius." Orlando meets up with Taffy Norton and two of his pals, Jerry Cornelius and the Vegetative Buddha (a guy who anchors London in reality) on a bench in a park in London. She's dressed like John Constantine and his initials are "J.C." and there are loads of ghosts and weird paranormal crap happening in the comic so maybe it's partly about Constantine in as un-suable a fashion as possible? Even though, you know, Moore created the character!
Orlando learns that London has reached its narrative end and all the fictional-turned-real characters are fleeing. She borrows Jerry's needle gun to help kill James Bond and then fucks off, leaving Taffy and Jerry to head out on their own adventures. At least Jerry helped me out on one thing that I've always been too lazy to care enough about to look up: a lyric in XTC's "War Dance". I was pretty sure the lyric was "There's a cheap sensation keeping Fleet Street wide awake" but never was sure about the "Fleet" bit. But since that's where Jerry's fucking off to because there's a sanctuary there for fictional characters, now I know and I never had to take the scant few seconds it would have taken to search the lyrics on the Internet! Laziness for the win!
I shouldn't call that laziness. I should call it something more spiritual and high brow. Like Taoism! I always knew the answer would just come to me if I kept my mind open to receiving it!
Moore and O'Neill have decided that every turn of the page this issue should be part of a different thread of the story in a different style so now I'm back to Mina in the Blazing Worlds. And, apparently, I have to dig my 3D glasses back out because Prospero hasn't fully reversed the nuclear explosion yet. Also these pages are parodying Little Nemo in Slumberland. Mina and Jack Nemo take a tour around the Blazing World and go see a play while Prospero continues to undo the nuclear explosion. They observe that things don't seem to be as well-off as one would expect after an unmade nuclear explosion. But they're also too engrossed in speaking like Little Nemo characters to make any perceptive revelations.
The next adventure is another pseudo-comic strip thing, "The Adventures of Jerry Cornelius." Orlando meets up with Taffy Norton and two of his pals, Jerry Cornelius and the Vegetative Buddha (a guy who anchors London in reality) on a bench in a park in London. She's dressed like John Constantine and his initials are "J.C." and there are loads of ghosts and weird paranormal crap happening in the comic so maybe it's partly about Constantine in as un-suable a fashion as possible? Even though, you know, Moore created the character!
Orlando learns that London has reached its narrative end and all the fictional-turned-real characters are fleeing. She borrows Jerry's needle gun to help kill James Bond and then fucks off, leaving Taffy and Jerry to head out on their own adventures. At least Jerry helped me out on one thing that I've always been too lazy to care enough about to look up: a lyric in XTC's "War Dance". I was pretty sure the lyric was "There's a cheap sensation keeping Fleet Street wide awake" but never was sure about the "Fleet" bit. But since that's where Jerry's fucking off to because there's a sanctuary there for fictional characters, now I know and I never had to take the scant few seconds it would have taken to search the lyrics on the Internet! Laziness for the win!
I shouldn't call that laziness. I should call it something more spiritual and high brow. Like Taoism! I always knew the answer would just come to me if I kept my mind open to receiving it!
This issue is basically just a bunch of hilarious but oft-times disturbing sketches. It's like Donald Glover's Atlanta!
A lot of these threads, being told in half-page to two-page chunks, simply pad the stories and don't really move them forward too much. It's basically how comic books and comic strips work. Rare are the strips that allow characters to grow and move on like For Better or Worse, or comics like Cerebus. Most maintain a floating timeline where everything happens in a weird limbo that somehow includes major events across decades while the character maintains the same age. It's one of the reasons DC and Marvel love to reboot characters in one way or another so they can bring them up to date with the audience. Like how Sgt. Rock went from originally serving in World War II to serving in the '90s Iraq War in The New 52. What I'm trying to say is that I might be breezing through a bunch of these since I don't have the knowledge to discuss all the various styles of writing and art that Moore and O'Neill are using.
The Shakespeare play that Jack and Nemo venture out to see is called Faerie's Fortunes Founded. It's about secret League-style histories.
The Shakespeare play that Jack and Nemo venture out to see is called Faerie's Fortunes Founded. It's about secret League-style histories.
I think this is Shakespearean for "What Happens in Fairyland, Stays in Fairyland."
During the play, Mina learns that Prospero's original code was 007. That's important, right? He's all, "It seems like bosoms, or a brace of noughts; two O's within a seven bracketed." I didn't realize "007" was so sexy! But now I can't unsee it!
The play continues and describes the formation of Prospero's Men, the team that preceded The League. Its members were Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, Don Quixote, Orlando, the pilgrim from Pilgrim's Progress (I think), and that woman who flashed her tits in the last issue who was a character written in the 1960s but set in Elizabethan times. It was Queen Glorianna of the Fae who organized the team herself. She even mentions how the League, in time, will be run by a woman. Mina and Jack leave the play early, fearing some terrible long range plan by the fairies which Shakespeare wrote about to be performed secretly in The Blazing World four hundred and fifty years later?
The play within a play that reveals the conscience of the queen takes place at the center of this issue. That means it's super important and the bit which all else revolves around: the saving of the Blazing World, Mina's leadership, the assassination of 007, and the saving of the entire world. Somehow, the fairy are at the center of it. Also, did I mention that the ending of the last issue was the center of the entire story: Prospero unmaking the nuclear blast. So the first half of the story is about escalating destruction. The second half of the story will be about repair. Currently, here in America, we're in the destructive phase. Who knows when we'll get a chance to repair any of it. I can't pray any harder for clogged arteries on like five hundred different hearts.
After the play, there's a funny sketch involving all of the movie James Bonds stopping King's assassination attempt on the main Bond. In the chaos, Sean Connery Bond is killed and Timothy Dalton Bond takes a few needles to the arm. Orlando and Emma's disguises are exposed and they flee their surveillance outside Vauxhall.
After that, I have to put my 3D glasses back on because it's time for "Nemo 3-D"!
The play continues and describes the formation of Prospero's Men, the team that preceded The League. Its members were Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, Don Quixote, Orlando, the pilgrim from Pilgrim's Progress (I think), and that woman who flashed her tits in the last issue who was a character written in the 1960s but set in Elizabethan times. It was Queen Glorianna of the Fae who organized the team herself. She even mentions how the League, in time, will be run by a woman. Mina and Jack leave the play early, fearing some terrible long range plan by the fairies which Shakespeare wrote about to be performed secretly in The Blazing World four hundred and fifty years later?
The play within a play that reveals the conscience of the queen takes place at the center of this issue. That means it's super important and the bit which all else revolves around: the saving of the Blazing World, Mina's leadership, the assassination of 007, and the saving of the entire world. Somehow, the fairy are at the center of it. Also, did I mention that the ending of the last issue was the center of the entire story: Prospero unmaking the nuclear blast. So the first half of the story is about escalating destruction. The second half of the story will be about repair. Currently, here in America, we're in the destructive phase. Who knows when we'll get a chance to repair any of it. I can't pray any harder for clogged arteries on like five hundred different hearts.
After the play, there's a funny sketch involving all of the movie James Bonds stopping King's assassination attempt on the main Bond. In the chaos, Sean Connery Bond is killed and Timothy Dalton Bond takes a few needles to the arm. Orlando and Emma's disguises are exposed and they flee their surveillance outside Vauxhall.
After that, I have to put my 3D glasses back on because it's time for "Nemo 3-D"!
Are those creatures from the Upside Down?
Now that I've lost the last of my vision due to reading non-3D lettering through 3D glasses, I'm going to have to retire from comic book blogging. Thanks a lot, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill! Truly it was worth it, though. The 3D effects in this comic book are so fucking good.
Mina and Jack realize the fairies are up to something and now they're working with the Demogorgon and his buddies from Stranger Things. The explosion decimating the Blazing World somehow purged it of some anti-fairy nonsense, or opened a portal (thus the Upside Downians being here?) that now allows the fairy easy access to the real world. Somehow, the destruction of the Blazing World was needed for whatever plans the Fae have for the real world. Probably the thing that causes the world to be so fucked up in Satin Astro's time!
Back in London, the Bonds begin to trace Orlando and Emma back to their hideout. But before they discover exactly where it's at, London experiences a total blackout due to Electrowoman becoming aggravated at the chaos around her when she steps back into the public eye looking for some serious man meat. The comic style during her temper tantrum is straight out of Mad Magazine with the final page being a Sergio Aragonés crowd scene. Also it could have been in the style of something more appropriately British which I wouldn't know about because I, sadly, am not British.
And finally, the plot is revealed to Mina and Jack. Prospero and Queen Glorianna put all the pieces in motion, the 007s serving Prospero who first carried the designation. The reason for Fairy's assault on the globe? Retribution for mankind disbelieving them into oscurity. Now the portal between realms is wide open and Earth shall be covered in fictional nightmares like Godzilla, King Kong, and, um, Paul Bunyan? The rebuilding of the world in Prospero and Glorianna's eyes begins now and ends in Satin Astro's 30th Century where she gets the feeling maybe things didn't have to be this way? So now she's traveled back in time to stop the plans of Prospero and the Fae so that her future stops existing and she doesn't get the feeling she should go back in time which will mean she doesn't stop the plan and winds up feeling she need to go back in time to stop the plan and, well, you get the idea. Except maybe we jettison that model of time travel and go with the one that makes this possible: branching, alternate timelines. The timeline Satin Astro left will always be a shit timeline. She goes back in time not to save that timeline but to create a new timeline that she likes better and which she gets to live in. She doesn't even need to be born in the new timeline because that wouldn't cause a paradox having shifted from one to the other. Just watch Primer and forget all about Back to the Future. You'll get it.
And finally, the 4th installment of the Secret Stars comic book.
Mina and Jack realize the fairies are up to something and now they're working with the Demogorgon and his buddies from Stranger Things. The explosion decimating the Blazing World somehow purged it of some anti-fairy nonsense, or opened a portal (thus the Upside Downians being here?) that now allows the fairy easy access to the real world. Somehow, the destruction of the Blazing World was needed for whatever plans the Fae have for the real world. Probably the thing that causes the world to be so fucked up in Satin Astro's time!
Back in London, the Bonds begin to trace Orlando and Emma back to their hideout. But before they discover exactly where it's at, London experiences a total blackout due to Electrowoman becoming aggravated at the chaos around her when she steps back into the public eye looking for some serious man meat. The comic style during her temper tantrum is straight out of Mad Magazine with the final page being a Sergio Aragonés crowd scene. Also it could have been in the style of something more appropriately British which I wouldn't know about because I, sadly, am not British.
And finally, the plot is revealed to Mina and Jack. Prospero and Queen Glorianna put all the pieces in motion, the 007s serving Prospero who first carried the designation. The reason for Fairy's assault on the globe? Retribution for mankind disbelieving them into oscurity. Now the portal between realms is wide open and Earth shall be covered in fictional nightmares like Godzilla, King Kong, and, um, Paul Bunyan? The rebuilding of the world in Prospero and Glorianna's eyes begins now and ends in Satin Astro's 30th Century where she gets the feeling maybe things didn't have to be this way? So now she's traveled back in time to stop the plans of Prospero and the Fae so that her future stops existing and she doesn't get the feeling she should go back in time which will mean she doesn't stop the plan and winds up feeling she need to go back in time to stop the plan and, well, you get the idea. Except maybe we jettison that model of time travel and go with the one that makes this possible: branching, alternate timelines. The timeline Satin Astro left will always be a shit timeline. She goes back in time not to save that timeline but to create a new timeline that she likes better and which she gets to live in. She doesn't even need to be born in the new timeline because that wouldn't cause a paradox having shifted from one to the other. Just watch Primer and forget all about Back to the Future. You'll get it.
And finally, the 4th installment of the Secret Stars comic book.
Zom remembers his origin . . . of the Zodiac!
Having been sent into the higher realms by a magician from the future, the Seven Stars attempt to quest their way out. But to do so, they must contemplate infinity! Captain Universe gives Infinity a good thrashing by explaining Hilbert's Hotel and how multiple infinities exist simply in the spaces between whole numbers. Feeling less unique than when it all started, Infinity slouches away to have a long depression nap. The Seven Stars manage to get back to Earth only to find the 'Mass has already begun to devour London while killing all the British superheroes.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #4 Rating: A+. I'm not suddenly going to start finding fault with this series! If all you're interested in are the ratings I give comic books, let me save you the trouble of reading the next two League reviews: both A Plusses!
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #4 Rating: A+. I'm not suddenly going to start finding fault with this series! If all you're interested in are the ratings I give comic books, let me save you the trouble of reading the next two League reviews: both A Plusses!
Marsman!
