The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #6 (June 2019)

"This comic book is too woke!" screams some lunatic because of the three women on the cover while ignoring the Gollywog in the background.

Look, I just made up that lunatic out of my imagination. Some might call that a straw man and those "some" would be delusional centrists who choose not to believe in lunatics behaving lunatically so they can not believe in anybody warning them about the lunatics. "Both sides are so crazy!" is a thing they are able to say because when they decide not to see the lunatics then the people pointing out that there are lunatics seem like lunatics themselves. I've seen it with older in-laws living in red states. They think you're crazy when you point out reality because their information sources never point out reality. So if reality doesn't exist for them, anybody expressing concern over the current realistic conditions in our country just appear like Chicken Littles screaming that the sky is a white supremacist nation and the only thing that concerns members of the right wing party in America is when the government helps people who are not white or male or rich. The most pressing concern for Republicans is coming up with a new dog whistle for the N-word when the current one becomes too obvious to centrists. Lee Atwater's quote about how you have to find new ways to say the N-word is pretty much the entire Republican strategy. N-word. Forced busing. States' rights. Thugs. Woke. DEI. It's their only platform and I hope they all fucking choke on it as soon as possible.

Lotta people in power who can't swallow two barrels of 000 buckshot fast enough.

This might be the last cheated artist article by Al and Kev but remember, kids: almost all comic writers and artists have been cheated by their publishers!

The issue begins with a scene in 1904 in which Mina Murray has just finished afternoon tea with Sherlock Holmes and Alan Moore is all, "I'm going to do a little tiny meta for the fans."

I don't mean the elephant. If I knew what the elephant was and was commenting on it, I would have said "reference" instead of "meta".

The elephant is being chased away from Holmes' bee-keeping farm by a man with a bident. It must be a Heffalump going after the honey. But if a Heffalump makes an appearance here on Sherlock's estate, can we at least maintain a sliver of belief that Pooh and Piglet were also once members of The League? Maybe a back-up League dealing with smaller and less apocalyptic mysteries?

Mina and The League have just destroyed Moriarity and she's asking Holmes to be a sort of League mentor and advisor. But he refuses, wanting nothing to do with the superpowered and strangely unique. He believes there is no place in regular society for them, himself and his powers of perception and logic included.

Heffalump confirmed!

Holmes surrounds himself with metaphor, the bees being a version of society he sees as orderly and humane, the Pooh Bear representing the concept of Tao, the raging farmer chasing away the Heffalump something, um, about capitalism and class struggle?

Holmes compares Mina to Irene Adler which is a compliment and an acknowledgment that Mina doesn't need his mentorship; she is equal, if not better, to the task of League leader on her own. He also mentions that if a unique and selfish bee were to present itself to the colony, the colony would have to flee the chaos which would ensue. Was he, in 1904, seeing the pattern presented by Prospero and the fairies which would lead Mina and The League to remove themselves to the moon in 2010? Probably!

Back in 2010, all of the fictional characters that have immigrated to Lincoln Island evacuate into Nemo's Nautilus Rocket for immediate evacuation from Earth. Who are they? I don't know!

David Bowie's Starman? Blofeld? The Beagle Boys? Mindman, Electrowoman, and Captain Universe? Six-Gun Gorilla? The Moneypennies? The Pink Child and her Bodyguard? Um, a load of others?

I put a question mark by all the suggestions because I don't want to appear arrogant that I might actually know who Moore and O'Neill were going for, even if they're main characters!

Satin Astro finally meets Vull the Visible aka Mina Murray and lets her know about how the world goes into an apocalypse spiral from this point on. Being that this is a 2000 A.D. parody, she explains how the world gets fucked in Judge Dredd style with killer sentient radioactive monkeys and killer robots. Or that's just Terminator meets Planet of the Apes. Or both, probably!

Emma Night and Orlando console each other with their failure to kill that sexist piece of shit James Bond even though the fairies got him in a nuclear blast that was contained by Captain Universe. Also he didn't die in that blast but nobody knows that yet. He sneaks on board the Nautilus with Spy vs. Spy and The Shadow.

Van Dusen takes a moment to describe more of mankind's fictional nightmares attacking the world.

I don't know these references but they sound Lovecraftian with the odd-angled house and the fishmen.

The final images of Earth being destroyed are broadcast to the Nautilus as everybody climbs into their launch recliners: a Jabberwock decimating London. Leaving Earth to its nightmares, the Nautilus flies past the moon where they see gigantic ants, the Selenites, killing the inhabitants of all the various nations' Moon Bases. But they're leaving all the technology intact as if they're being directed by some sentient being or, as they postulate, black monolith! But it's not just the Selenite army they witness forming on the moon; it's also the army of Amazons which Mina dealt with previously (I think it was in the all text adventures described in one of the earlier volumes). But the Amazons are simply stealing the Earth ships and heading to Venus. Seems logical.

Bond bides his time as the trio of women from the cover discuss a few stories from their past, like how Mina told some sci-fi magazine editor her adventures on the moon which must be where the previous all text adventure came from. This chapter ends with the revelation that the Amazons have already conquered Venus and are possibly heading to Mars next. Marsman cries like an Earth baby.

"They've changed those Amazons from the frozen mountains (of the moon)!"

On Mars, the League find evidence that mankind's nightmares have overreached Earth itself and breed anew on Mars as well. Anywhere human contact has been made, their dreams and nightmares have traveled with them.

Mars got the really spooky nightmares.

All the evidence points to Prospero and the fairies manipulating mankind for its entire history. Mina has been nothing but a pawn. It was Mina who provided the Amazons with the frozen body of Professor Moriarty so that they would have access to his sperm. The next generation of Amazons included men and after long having been pacifists, they were now warmongerers. Holmes's prophetic bee metaphor now haunts Mina's thoughts. Was it her uniqueness, intelligence, and power which caused the downfall of Earth as she was puppeted by Prospero from behind the scenes?! Will she be able to reverse this seemingly unstoppable chain of events? Or will James Bond save the day, an unlikely Gollum accidentally derailing the entire plan as he selfishly tries to fuck more women? Or kill them, I mean?

The revelation that Mina may have been the unwitting pawn of the Fairy all along comes at the center of this issue. That means it's important! I mean, even if it wasn't at the center, it would be an important revelation, I guess.

The Nautilus, unable to make landfall on the moon, Venus, or Mars, continues deeper into the solar system looking for their new home: Captain Universe's Universarium in the Oort Cloud. Captain Universe has opened his home to Jack Nemo and his refugees on one condition: Jack, Captain of the ship, performs a marriage ceremony between Captain Universe and Electrogirl.

On their way, they pass by Jupiter whose orbit is chock full of black monoliths.

Double-O Seven? More like Double-O Anticlimactic.

Yeah, James Bond doesn't do anything exciting at all after all the sneaking and stalking and sexual assaulting.

The marriage between Captain Universe and Electrogirl goes off without a hitch minus the close call with sparking the oxygen in the ship and blowing everybody to smithereens when the bride and groom kiss. Also there's the matter of two wedding crashers who get their comeuppance.

The super tiny speech bubble from Kev reads, "Al, you're a complete cunt."

So that's it! That's the end of everything! Except for the last installment of the Seven Stars battle against the 'Mass and maybe an epilogue or two detailing what happens when Earth has been destroyed by man's imagination.

The Seven Stars' story ends with Zom returning Toby the Schoolboy to his overly fat size so that he can consume the 'Mass and save the country. Most of Britain's heroes have died and the Seven Stars discover that their careers are over since they've all been Seduction of the Innocented into bad press and legal troubles. The team breaks up and Mina heads off to go crazy for a few decades.

The final epilogue reveals that New Lincoln in the Oort Cloud continues to prosper as they watch every fictional alien invasion of the solar system from every year after 2010 blast toward Earth. I guess 2010 was the end of the world because of the 2001 sequel? We did see the monoliths around Jupiter and they were apparently tools of Prospero and the Fairies in controlling and manipulating mankind. The entire series ends with Mister Hyde resurrected in a new immortality pool recreated by Captain Universe so that Mina can have somebody to dance with. Also the Pink Child winds up dating Astro Boy. The end!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #6 Rating: A+. I haven't read the parody letters page yet because I never really write about it even if it's possibly the greatest part of every issue. I wish Alan Moore would make fun of comic book readers more often! Anyway, that's it. I'll probably understand it all better when I re-read the previous volumes (probably out of order). Just one last scan and I'm done!

Zom!