Friday, January 24, 2025

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #3 (October 2018)


Now in 3-D!

Hopefully the part of the story where Mina takes off her bra will be in 3D. I want to feel like her nipples are poking me in the eye. I mean, I also hope that all the fantastic action that men love will be in 3D because I love it so much too, being a man and all. Also cars! Vroom vroom! Today I learned (or re-learned because I've been listening to the song I should have learned it from since the '70s) that a car can have a triple carburetor engine from the song "Seven Little Girls (Sitting in the Back Seat)" by Paul Evans. I knew some cars had dual carb set-ups because my first car was a 1972 Volkswagen bus. But three?! Why the fuck do you need three, Paul Evans?! Obviously not to impress the ladies because not one of those seven girls stopped giving Fred a handjob in the back of your car while you drove them around talking about your trip carb set-up. Wow! Look at me! Talking about cars! The last time I had a conversation about cars was in 1991. I was playing Pictionary with a bunch of friends and the word was "Chirp" and this guy my friend Odessa was dating looked at me and said, "Man, if we were a team, we would have gotten it!" Then he showed me the picture he drew of a car burning out and I look at it and then looked at him blankly for an awkwardly long amount of times and he was all, "You know? Chirp the tires!" And I was all, "Why didn't you just draw a fucking bird?!" After that, I decided I didn't need to talk about cars anymore. But I still purchased a 1972 Volkswagen Bus which I miss terribly and still dream about and did not masturbate inside while moaning, "I love you, Volkswagen. You are my car wife."

This cover echoes the first cover in that it has question marks (related to the League's original logo?) and lock boxes and laser guns and mist and Mina. The second cover had a crashed space ship while the first cover had a crashing sailing ship. I think the dead person in the lower corner of this cover represents a crashed human being ship. This is to represent something that I'm either too stupid to figure out or I'm pretending to be too stupid to figure out. Probably the latter one.

Also, every time, it takes me way too long to understand which is the former and which is the latter when somebody says "the latter" or "the former" because we are time-based beings and does "the latter" mean the one that is further back in my conscious past which would be the former one in the text. But's it's latter to the way I experience things. See? It's only me, isn't it?

This issue begins with another mini-biography of an artist screwed by and forgotten by the industry which they gave their lives to. This time, it's Marie Duval!


Alan Moore loves the comic book medium more than anybody which is why he hates most of the comic book fans so much.

I should be scanning the Letters Pages in these things because they're quite entertaining! But sometimes I think it'd be like putting a hat on a cat. Isn't that the thing writers aren't supposed to do for some reason? I don't know why because everybody wants to see a cat with a hat on it. Is that why Dr. Seuss is such a rebel? Because he was all, "I'm going to write a whole book about a cat with a hat on it!" What I mean is that my comic book blog persona is the cat and Alan Moore's letters pages where he makes fun of comic book fans in voices that sound a lot like my blog posts are the hat. Who needs to read my blog post where I pretend I had to stop writing to jerk off over Orlando's naked titties only to have Alan Moore write a letter from a fake comic book fan saying, "And my other question is, wouldn't Marsman be a more scientifically realistic Martian character if he used his mind-powers to make Satin Astro take her bra off?" See? Nobody needs that hat on this hat!

Oh wait! Yeah! The thing writers should avoid is putting a hat on a hat (which, to be quite frank, also sounds funny and like something people would want to see). I always mix up the words "hat" and "cat". I still don't know which one Sting was saying was caught in a high tree top in The Police's "King of Pain"!

The actual beginning of this comic book and not that Marie Duval sob story finds Orlando, Mina, and Emma (along with Coghlan and Jack Nemo) discussing what to do next after hearing that M.I.5 nuked the Blazing World, Prospero's island of misfit toys. Orlando and Emma decide to head to London to kick James Bond in his massive cock for also murdering their friends from Girl Spy School. Mina, Coghlan (with the Pink Child under his care), and Nemo will head to the Blazing World to see if they can help irradiated Prospero and his melting and burning fables. The Pink Child continues to act weird while everybody tiptoes around it. Either The Pink Child is supremely powerful and prone to destroy everything around it at the slightest disturbance, or it just scares easily and shits itself and nobody wants to change its horrendous pink boom-booms.

I'm using "it" as The Pink Child's pronoun in the manner a callous person might use "it" to describe somebody else's pet and not in a jerk anti-pronoun way that's supposed to be some kind of weird joke. I once used the pronoun "it" for The Shining Knight and got scolded for it although, to be fair, it wasn't meant to be some kind of edgelord jock joke about trans identity. I was just changing the pronoun of Shining Knight every time I referred to them because according to the Shining Knight, they didn't identify as any gender. In retrospect, I should have just stuck with "they" and left it at that. It wasn't worth the scolding for the one time I used "it" that didn't reference how I also used "he" and "she" and "they" as well. But to be fair to Natalie Reed who scolded me about it, I did go back and take out the "it" reference because why the fuck should anybody have to even for a second think I was being off-handedly cruel to them?! Every now and again, a tumblr cop can be right! But even tumblr cops are ACAB.

Having mentioned that she went to a Boarding School for Girl Spies (like the one in Grayson! Remember how hot that was? How all the young women wanted to fuck Teacher Grayson?!), Moore and O'Neill decide to write a fun little comic strip about her sexy adventures there.


Finally a reference I know! Patsy from Ab Fab!

I love that Alan Moore sticks so many references throughout these things but being that he's my mother's age and British and also well-studied in pulp and comic book history, I only ever understand about 3% of them. But I don't mind because he never makes knowing them mandatory because he's a super cool genius magician writer! Do you think he'll ever read how much I'm lauding him in these posts and finally agree to be my Magic Dad?

There was, of course, a shower scene but no naughty bits were shown because, presumably, the girls are underage here. They're also fictional representations of adult real people so even if Moore and O'Neill chose to show a butt cheek or two, I wouldn't care. Of course, I don't care about anything so that was probably something that didn't need to be stated. And if you've read any of my other blog posts which seemed to suggest that I did care about something in this shit world, you're remembering it wrong and/or I was totally lying. I'm way too cool to have "feelings" about stuff. Ew! Gross!

Hmm, was that a feeling? No, that was a logical opinion based on rational decisions and hours and hours of rabbit-hole research on YouTube. At some point when some idiot is going from insane conspiracy video to insaner conspiracy video, YouTube should stop recommending videos and just put up a link to the Dark Web.

Orlando and Emma drop into London from one of Nemo's supersonic planes, taking refuge in one of Emma's secret properties to make plans and have a few martinis.


If James is going to be interested, they'll have to introduce themselves as Emma Putitinyou and Orlando Eatmypussyraw.

We leave Emma and Orlando there for the moment as they come up with their sexy female villain names that will probably be way more subtle and creative than mine (and Ian Fleming's as well, obvs). The next scene involves Mina Murray and Jack Nemo and no art from Kevin O'Neill because the images are all photos of two people playing as Jack and Mina. Unfortunately, Moore didn't write this scene in the shower.

Mina and Jack discuss the route they're taking to the Blazing World. Mina thinks it's closer to the Antarctic so she doesn't understand why they're going through the Arctic. It sounds to me like Alan Moore making excuses for somebody fucking up the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic, like every single writer at DC. Jack explains the discrepancy away, plays the piano, and reminds everybody that Allan Quatermain is dead, all while flirting super badly.

I don't know if Moore is referencing a specific, famous British magazine that made comics with actual photographs or if he's just acknowledging that it had its place and time. I've even done it for the cover of one of my 'zines back in the '90s! Sort of.


We forgot to get the artist to draw the cover for this issue so I improvised.

I just realized Insectorama (played by Greedo) looks like he has a massive cock here. The other characters are Buck the Ogre (played by the Rancor Beast), Grunion Guy (played by a member of Max Rebo's band), and Teleman (played by a Playmobile man (I think?)). I made the spiked ceiling out of paper, spray paint, and cardboard. Alan Moore just paid a bunch of actors and photographers to get his done! I think. He may have just conjured them out of the ether, forcing them to take the pictures with him lest he reveal their true names and force them into subjugation for eternity. It's a coin flip between those two possibilities.

The next two pages are three strips stretching horizontally between two pages about three of the Seven Stars we've seen so far: Carol Flane, Jim Logan, and Satin Astro. Carol Flane has decided to leave her Faraday Cage to find somebody to fuck (probably Jim Logan).


Jim Logan, busy not yet fucking Electrowoman, acquires some pertinent information from a snoopy little twat named Mind Man.

Mind Man sends the information to Garath Gannz via telepathy. Marsman tells Satin Astro he's just learned some critical information, so critical that Satin Astro should sit down when she receives it: Vull was a *GASP* woman! That's where the scene ends but I'm sure if there was one more panel, a speech bubble would be coming out of Satin's mouth as she screamed, "NOOOOOOO!", while another speech bubble would be coming out of her butthole as she shit herself, "SPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPTHHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTHTH!"


She's talking about Terminator and The Planet of the Apes! And probably loads of other movies with alien invasions. So many!

On the trip to the Blazing Worlds, Mina and Mr. Ishmael, Nemo's Second-in-Command and the Tank Girl reject I mentioned previously, get to know each other a little bit. Mostly it's just Mina trying to find out if Jack Nemo is single because the flirting apparently went better than I thought. But Mina also mentions how many more women characters there are in comics these days. I mean in positions of authority on Lincoln Island. Hopefully all the Comicsgaters who ruined the first few copies of the original run of The League because they jerked their incel semen all over them due to how obviously for boys they were (one of the reasons Alan Moore was all, "Ugh. Gross. This is my audience? Why am I still writing comics?!") didn't throw this issue down in anger and curse Alan Moore for going woke. I mean, I say "hopefully" but I don't really fucking care. Fuck those guys. Fuck them right in their dirty buttholes because wiping is gay. If only they knew the kinds of things I've done to my butthole and I am the manliest man that ever manned! Three of my fingers will never be the same!


Mmm. Such a confident lover! And so big! Yes, please.

Disappointingly, Toyland is not Sex Toyland like we all thought it was going to be. It's just a bunch of teddy bears, hobby horses, and wind-up queens with massive badonka-donks. I'm talking shelving, baby. Two frozen turkeys resting side-by-side. The death star trench ending in a tight little thermal exhaust port. The Platonic cushion that allows for shadowy pushin'. I know, I know. You just have to see it now, right?


If I'd gotten that toy on Christmas morning, it would have been wrecked by noon.

Every turn of the page in this issue reveals a new style of comic art and storytelling. Of course I mean an old style being played with by Moore and O'Neill! I should have said the art style changes with every turn of the page! I'd love to see Moore's script on this thing. I'm sure every page had a description of the references he was going for and wanted O'Neill to use. And O'Neill probably knew exactly what Moore was talking about and nailed each one first try. Hey, if Moore doesn't want to be my Magic Daddy, maybe O'Neill will offer to be my Long Lost British Uncle.

Back in London, Orlando and Emma work on taking down Bond and stealing back all of Emma's intel and trophies from M.I.5. I probably don't need to say anything about this part of the story yet except that at one point, Emma compares being an agent in the '60s to living in a paranoid and hallucinatory comic strip. She doesn't realize it in the way people often don't realize exactly what they're living through at the moment but she's living in a paranoid and hallucinatory comic book now.

I almost forgot to mention that the center of this story was the Toy Queen's massive ass! I don't think that's the important part of the center for Moore, though. I think for him, the importance was the reveal that things are changing and that, as Mina floats through the Sea of Frozen Words, we learn that Lincoln Island has become more equal than most any other place in the world, natural and supernatural. Which is probably why Toxic Masculinity James Bond wants to fuck it with a nuclear bomb just like he fucked Orlando's Pool and Prospero's Blazing Worlds.

Back in Toyland, we discover that Queen Olympia of the Mighty Cheeks runs the island with her consort, Frankenstein. Yes, you heard me. Alan Moore ways in on the Frankenstein vs. Frankenstein's Monster bit and comes to the exact right conclusion.


"It's more correct to call the poor bedeviled creature who never asked to be brought into this world 'Tess'." I mean monster!

That other expedition Jack mentions had Toyland's noble "Galley-Wag" and his Dutch concubines sailing to check on the Blazing World in their ship, Rose of Nowhere. Oh no. Galley-Wag? As in Gollywog? Oh no. I suppose it was a popular toy at one time so it's, um, got to, you know, um, make an appearance. For history's sake! Hopefully he doesn't appear in any plot-important moments so I don't feel I need to scan the horrific little racist stereotype!

Back in London, Emma and Orlando head back to an old hideout Orlando used when working with Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray. Turns out, it's also the old hideout Mina commandeered to use for her Seven Stars project. They interrupt Satin and Garath discussing Vull, whom they now know is Mina Murray, and how to find her. After a brief dust up, they realize they're probably all on the same side and no serious damage occurs. Darn it. I guess Moore never liked those comics where two good guys would wind up fighting each other for most of an issue and then, before anything was settled as to which could actually beat the other one, they realized they should be working together. Moore decides that should last all of one page so he can get back to the actual plot of catching Bond and, ultimately, saving the world from Satin's coming catastrophe.

Okay, kids! Time to put on your 3D glasses as we enter the irradiated area surrounding the Blazing World! The world was sort of destroyed but, due to Prospero's magic, it's been reforming and the inhabitants have been resurrecting. Also it's become discolored so that everything is in three dimensions now. And, seriously, it's really fucking good 3D. Some of the best I've ever seen. I've just been staring at it with my special glasses for about a minute and a half marveling at the depth of field and how so much of it comes out over the page as well. I don't know if it works after it's been scanned because my scanner probably fucks up the colors but let's try it, right? Get them glasses on now!


It works!

The final page of the story has the team walking in on Lord Prospero at the near center of the nuclear blast. He's been working on it for two days, to shrink it, to "unhappen" it. And it just so happens, Prospero's got a bit of an Alan Moore vibe going. Who would have guessed? Plus one of the creatures on the final 3D page has a massive cock! In 3D! In really, really fucking good 3D! How did they do it?! Oh yeah! I know. Magic!

All that's left now is the Seven Stars story which probably matters but feels like one of those extra stories in Justice League Quarterly that only exists for the proclamation on the cover that this comic books is 80 fucking pages! I probably shouldn't be reading Quarterlies while also reading this. It's like I'm eating the most succulent Michelin Star meal by one of the greatest cooks to ever live and washing it down with a Monster energy drink. Also I've shit my pants. And the editors at DC keep sticking their dicks in my lobster risotto.

Anyway, let's get this dick-flavored lobster risotto down!

Having realized the twat British superhero team knows where the Seven Stars hangout and might drop by any time because they think they're peers, the Seven Stars head into space to avoid them. Captain Universe has a space headquarters at the edge of the solar system. That's why these back-up stories are important! They fill in the gaps on who the characters are, why Mina fell out with them, and create the illusion that places and people important to the story have existed for quite some time and aren't Alan Moore's version of a deus ex machina. It's Alan Moore putting the snake puppet on his arm and telling us it's God so that we'll take everything it has to say to heart even though it's not actually speaking. Moore is speaking. And he's writing some '60s knock-off silly comic book twaddle. But the snake is telling us about it so you need to listen to how important it is! And, sure, you can see Moore's arm going up into the snake puppet but you don't have to acknowledge that you see it if you don't want to ruin it for everybody like a didactic little asshole piece of shit.


See how much we learn here that will be important (or answers questions from before)? I bet we see the space fortress at some point in the main story!

Also important in the previous bit is that Electrowoman fucks. She's probably fucked every member of the team. We see here that she fucked The Flash Avenger into the hospital. And we saw earlier that she had a picture of Captain Universe that hinted at their relationship. And you know Mina fucked her with an invisible strap-on because Alan Moore is writing this.

Moore makes it apparent exactly what this back-up story is doing in the mundane sense by highlighting how comics do the same thing all the time but simply referring back to the previous few issues, helping remind old readers what was happening and getting new readers up-to-date if they picked it up in the middle of a story. Look how awkward this panel is but always deemed necessary by editors.


In all actuality, I could have used more of this the older I got. Real life could use this kind of exposition at times!

When Flash Avenger lets Electrowoman know they won't be dating again any time soon, Carol becomes super sad and it's time for her flashback origin story. She lost her father to electricity and then, after she completed her father's work and developed electric powers, she accidentally killed her cat Buster. After that, she felt so lonely that she put on a skimpy costume to attract men to her but none of them stuck around after nearly dying while fucking her. So she pursued super villains but that only caused more death and destruction. So that's why she's so lonely. But I bet Captain Universe would only find the shocks slightly stimulating!

Captain Universe's tour of his space fortress, and especially the private tour of his space bedroom and his space crotch for Electrowoman, must wait for the base is attacked by every British superhero to ever exist! A battle rages on and Electrowoman discovers that her sex life is going to be fucking incredible when she sees Captain Universe's power of Bilocation where he can split himself into multiple versions! She can be spit-roasted by the same guy! That would avoid the awkwardness of having to hear the two guys Eifel towering her constantly muttering, "No homo! No homo!"

A good portion of the British heroes are killed before they unleash their greatest weapon: The Black Wizard from 6400 AD! He sends the Seven Stars into an alternate dimension, ridding Britain of them once and for all! Or at least once and that once being this chapter of the story because there are still three more chapters and I don't think they'll all take place in the alternate dimension.

Meanwhile, the British government officials who might also be comic book publishers are busy with their plan to get the populace excited for British heroes by releasing "The 'Mass" on the public. The Victory Vanguard will stop it, save the day, and go on to earn millions of dollars in publishing deals and merchandise! It's a plan that can't fail! Unless, God forbid, the Victory Vanguard aren't up to the task of defeating it? No, no! That would be silly!


A plant? That thinks it's a man? Preposterous! All that might do is change comic books forever in ways unforeseen!

After the fat government agent finishes giving the skinny one an anatomy lesson on the 'Mass, all hell breaks loose in London and the Victory Vanguard shit their pants. Be sure to tune in next time to see how they all die!

Once again, the fake letters page is well worth the price of admission. But I won't be discussing it here because of that rat in the cat thing I talked about previously! So long, space chums!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #3 Rating: A+. I can't get enough of this! Alan Moore, you mad bastard, do more comic books! Until then, I'll keep reading your prose stuff. But I guess I need to buy your new fantasy book first. Until then, I'll finish up the book of short stories, Illuminations. And also, let me know about that father deal. Maybe you can have me every other weekend? It'll be such fun! I can't wait to call you Papa Moore!


The Flash Avenger and a woman!

No comments:

Post a Comment