Nemo: River of Ghosts

Nemo Trilogy #3

by Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill (Artist)

The rip-roaring Nemo trilogy (Heart of Ice, Roses of Berlin) reaches a stunning conclusion!

In a world where all the fictions ever written coalesce into a rich mosaic, it’s 1975. Janni Dakkar, pirate queen of Lincoln Island and head of the fabled Nemo family, is eighty years old and beginning to display a tenuous grasp on reality. Pursuing shadows from her past—or her imagination—she embarks on what may be a final voyage down the vastness of the Amazon, a last attempt to put to rest the blood-drenched spectres of old.

With allies and adversaries old and new, we accompany an ageing predator on her obsessive trek into the cultural landscape of a strange new continent, from the ruined city of Yu-Atlanchi to the fabulous plateau of Maple White Land. As the dark threads in her narrative are drawn into an inescapable web, Captain Nemo leads her hearse-black Nautilus in a desperate raid on horrors believed dead for decades.

Through the exotic spectacle of an imagined South America, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill steer their fifty-year-long Nemo trilogy to its remarkable conclusion, borne upon a RIVER OF GHOSTS. -- a 56-page full-color hardcover, 6 5/8” x 10 1/8”, co-published by Top Shelf and Knockabout.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Comic Book, Fiction, Adventure

56 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2015

About the author

Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.

Reviews

[Alejandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ireful mission!


This is the third and final book in the “Nemo Trilogy”


Creative Team:

Writer: Alan Moore

Illustrator: Kevin O’Neill

Letterer: Todd Klein


DINOSAURS, FEMBOTS & LIL’ CLONES

It’s the year 1975…

Janni Dakkar, daughter of the original Captain Nemo, now an old woman, already a grandmother, keeps to follow the legacy and she continues as the second Captain Nemo commanding the incredible submarine Nautilus.

Janni fearing the return of Ayesha (from H. Rider Haggard’s She, since the last time that they meet, it cost her dearly.

That’s why Janni isn’t waiting to respond anymore but taking the offensive.

Janni’s criminal operations (pirate, remember?) now they are powered by a society of felon allies: The House of Mabuse (from Norbert Jacques’ Dr. Mabuse the Gambler), Blofeld (from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels) and Lord Horror (from David Britton’s banned novel in UK).
The criminal society can’t confirm if the mysterious woman who had been seen, here and there, along two years, and now it seems that Ayesha (or whoever she is) is planning something and Janni won’t wait anymore, she will make a preemptive strike.

Along with the powerful submarine Nautilus, Janni hires Hugo Coghlan (from William H.D. Koerner’s Hugo Hercules comic strip) as her personal bodyguard. Coghlan and the Nemo family have plenty backstory.

Jack Dakkar, the very young grandson of Janni aboards the Nautilus without Janni’s knowledge and once he is discovered, they can’t afford the delay of getting him back to Lincoln Island.

Nautilus’s tracking of the supposed Ayesha takes the crew to the Amazon river, where they will have one heck of adventure dealing with elements from A. Merritt’s The Face in the Abyss, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and both works by Ira Levin: The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil.

The Nazi Reich is rising again, with new technological threars, and Captain Nemo II (aka Janni Dakkar) is the only one able to stop it!!!

The vendetta between Ayesha’s legacy and Nemo’s family is coming to a deadly closure!!!

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alan Moore is cool the same way Chuck Norris is a badass tough guy and there should be a genre of jokes to commemorate His High Coolness in the same way as Norris is so glorified.

“Who does Fonzy think is cool?” Alan Moore.

“Alan Moore is so cool they have to heat his home in the summer to offset”

etc. etc.

So we come to the final book in the series within the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 series about Captain Nemo’s daughter.

Now an old woman, the last Science Pirate still has some tricks up her octogenarian sleeves as does His Royal Cool Dudeness Moore. Dredging up more references from literature and myth, Moore keeps the LOEG theme rolling with a rollicking funfest of all the best characters interacting in new and exciting ways. This time look for a certain Celtic demi-god to stir things up as our heroine sends the Nautilus up the Amazon to throw down with some creepy goings on and some sparkling allusions to Ira Levin’s fine work.

And of course Kevin O’Neill refuses to be outdone, playing the Jimmy Page to Moore’s Plant and drawing up some more outstanding artwork.

All in all, more good fun in this very enjoyable series.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual - a review that's a bit long and, perhaps, a bit too arrogant for some but it burns me to see such honest, heartfelt work being ignored due to comics-fan insecurity and the short attention spans of the TLDR culture, when it should be examined and championed.

One of the things that's most satisfying about Moore's work on the NEMO trilogy is that it's complex without being obviously "deep", resonant and thoughtful while never needing to clumsily pause its pulp adventure story to dance the intellectual dance. You are gonna get Pteradons eating Nazis and supermen moving great weights if that's all you want, in other words. So, for those critics coming to the trilogy with a chip on their shoulder, looking to expose the "famous author" for having had the audacity to create works of genius (often, while said critics were children), NEMO can be easily smirked at and walked away from - "oh he's just an old man telling a bunch of action stories with borrowed characters and impressing the geezer trainspotters with his boring references". And off they go (as being a callow, knee-jerk iconoclast is a 24-hour job nowadays, what with the internets). And, as I've said before, those who missed the clues in THE BLACK DOSSIER and pick up this series (still pining for the original status quo of the first two series) may complain about a "thin story" & too few references (here's the 70's edition - "why no Richard Blade teaming up with The Red Lips to take out Dr. Orloff?") and then also move on.

But, if you've been paying attention and if you're reading this far, you know there's more going on here. Moore is playing this book at several different levels than the mere surface - which makes sense for a series about a submariner - and that becomes more apparent the more you reflect on the previous two NEMO books and, as I stated in my review of Nemo: The Roses Of Berlin, the NEMO books in relation to the CENTURY series. Again, CENTURY was about our immortal characters moving through the 20th Century (1910s, 1960s & 2000s) and dealing with everything that happened during it, while also dealing with what it means to be immortal (which ends up destroying at least one of them). And in NEMO we have the story of a human woman, heir to a portentous & ponderous legacy thrust upon her, living through the same century and all of its changes (1920s, 1940s and 1970s - notice the staggering with CENTURY) while dealing with the weight of what it means to be human, fragile and mortal - and still being thought of as a legendary figure, as someone more than human.

The story, as noted, is fairly straightforward. Over the years, the aging Captain Janni Nemo consolidates her pirate empire's power base through strategic alliances and marriages, all while tracking rumors that the Immortal Queen Ayesha (who she beheaded in combat in Berlin for killing her paramour) has somehow resurfaced and is pursuing some mysterious goal at the headwaters of the Amazon. So it's one great last adventure - we've seen her explore the Antarctic and take the Nautilus into a futuristic city - and now we travel up the Amazon into the heart of darkness to uncover a personal, political and philosophical threat. There are, of course, characters along for the ride (as any good captain must have a crew) - the aging Ishmael and his more effective wife, Nemo's daughter Hira and her lover Air Captain Mors, two young stowaways, and a genial (if only slightly amoral) hulking superhuman demi-god. Also aiding from global bases are a network of supervillains, comrades & equals in the endless battle. Oh, and all of Nemo's ghosts. This being South America - there will be Lost Words and dinosaurs and Gillmen. This being the 1970s, there will be fembots and hidden Nazi enclaves (just like the A-Team discovered in one TV episode!).

Kevin O'Neill is firing on all cylinders here and, given the straight-ahead approach of the plot, is given recurrent splash pages in which to really shine, although I was also impressed with how good he is at facial expressions and body language cartooning here - check out page 2, panel 4. His sense of costuming is excellent as well - Hugo's dapper suit and straw boater, Nemo's sucker-embossed vest. (I wish the letterer wouldn't bold the references in the dialogue though - that just gives more ammunition to nitwits who dismiss the books as being all about the references).

Beyond that, it's spoiler zone. Summed up - a solid if initially slightly underwhelming read (the splash pages make the book move faster) which massively rewards a slower pace on re-reading and reflection. This may be it for a while for the LOEG, although I think Moore has at least one more planned.

And now, for those who have already read it:

As I said, a slow reread, paying particular attention to both the wonderful art and the thematic resonances with the past NEMO volumes and CENTURY, proves very rewarding. Consider this - each of the NEMO books involve the Captain leading a crew on an expedition into hazardous territory - which is a pretty straightforward example of a "pirate narrative" combined with the Verne-influenced "science explorer" - but this being the 20th Century, pirate narratives are no longer popular and so, on a metaphorical level, you have Nemo and crew traveling to some fairly outre places during the 20th Century while the popular zeitgeist's attention is trained elsewhere, piloting their miraculous craft "under the surface" into places uninteresting (a desolate arctic wasteland), dangerous & transient (a despot's mechanized kingdom moments before the inevitable collapse) or exotic (the Amazon basin - one of the world's great "projection screen" geographies) and discovering or observing marvelous things.

And Moore and O'Neill do some marvelous reflections on technology and psychology here (as manifest in the pop-culture of the times) as well - As in Nemo: Heart of Ice (which was underpinned with the 1920's shift of the culture's fascination with science to mere gadgetry, and the pointless drive to explore for no good reason outside of "conquering") and Nemo: The Roses Of Berlin (which showed technology being used for enslavement, mass production & war and the resultant "decadent" culture it fosters) - here the two examine the 1970s and tie these themes together while also echoing one of the resonant ideas from the climax of CENTURY. The title page (modeled after Men's fiction's magazines like TRUE and SAGA) is but the first hint that we'll also be traveling deeply into the conflicted male psyche of the 1970s, a psyche which dresses up its fears of the feminine in "manly adventure" stories and busty dominatrixes and call-backs to fetishistic, already-defeated threats like the Nazis. The Amazonian lair Nemo and her crew discover is a mash-up of pop-cult signifiers of the time, breeding multiple threats: the return of Hynkel through a "Boys From Brazil" cloning program (sadly, no Hynkel head gibbering in a jar, as I'd hoped) and a return of Ayesha through same, as well as the most important point - a factory turning out subservient, busty Fembots (STEPFORD WIVES, DR. GOLDFOOT, THE BIONIC WOMAN foes, elements of WESTWORLD and BEYOND WESTWORLD as well) and shipping them out into the world as a reductive, restrictive model of what a misogynistic totalitarian Master-Race type imagines the "perfect woman" to be... a capitalist mass-producing of pre-established gender roles.

And arrayed against this we have Captain Janni Nemo and her crew, aided by a network of very specifically female supervillain allies (Ms. Mabuse, Blofeld's surviving daughter, the Scaramanga sisters - even Hildy can be seen as representing the feminine in the rising power-base of Journalism). Which directly mirrors Mina's calling on the "practically perfect" feminine near-God and reliance on Emma Peel's team of associates at the climax of CENTURY. On the more human scale, you can see the shift in the Ishmael clan, with Mrs. Ishmael taking over the "wise counsel" role from Mr. Ishmael and Tacarigua's express desire to be addressed as "Mr. Ishmael" foreshadowing the future crew configuration. Time is moving on for everyone and in the deeply mythic and feminist work Moore's doing here (and in CENTURY), it's clear that the 20th Century, despite all of its horrors and travails, was the century of Ishtar Rising. Let the intellectually lazy and reactionary rail on and miss the point, Moore never needs to write large or hold your hand - he respects his attentive and thoughtful audience.

Of course, since this is Moore, that lens can also be switched to a class and political view. Here we have the great anarchist Queen - a legend as a Pirate and "supervillain", ruling a thriving multi-ethnic "mongrel" community and living free - pitted against forces of repression, imperialism and normalization who are looking to mass-produce all these aspects out into the larger world (and, I think, you could also view the Nazi project as analogous to Hollywood, what with Mengele's line about "creating all you younger versions of previous legends"). The face-off against Ayesha this time around plays this wonderfully straight - a robust, young, classically beautiful queen with a despotic, racist, imperialist soul against an aged, possibly enfeebled, pirate queen, arguably as domineering but committed to "freedom" in its most basic sense - a commitment that means she has to knowingly force this confrontation, at the cost of her own life. Better to die on your feet... (it's to Moore's credit that while Ayesha's denigration of Nemo exposes all her own awful qualities, the line about Lincoln Island being a den of "child molesters" does not seem an unlikely accusation - the dangers of an anarchist pirate community passingly alluded to. Note also Mabuse's mention of "recruiting for brothels"). Even Hugo Hercules is more in tune with Nemo's outlook than any possible "good guy" replacement character - good-natured but somewhat amoral (as a super-human hitman who dismembered Dr. Nikola), he still retains a code of honor.

Or, another lens - the ocean having been culturally coded as the subconscious and anti-rational (and feminine for that matter) and thus the adventures of a female legend who rules the seas and moves through it with ease, could be seen as an exploring of the unconscious... well, I'll have more to say on that when I finally get around to the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier reread and review but let's just say that Nemo herself seems a representative figure of the unconscious in the book - symbolic of instinct and wisdom (receiving wise counsel from her "ghosts" who may be real but perhaps just a manifestation of her brain tumor), moving through hidden depths to achieve great things - it's funny how her extremely rational daughter is rebuffed in this volume: "Reason has afforded me few favors. Why should I grant it an audience now?"

And that touches on yet another wonderful detail the three books have been working in the background (and distinctly different from CENTURY) and which come to fruition here. Since the focus is on humanity and mortality and being a living legend, obviously reproduction and family descent must also factor into living a life, and so we have a focus here on strategical marriages (The Nemo-Robur-Mors coalition) and handing down of legacies. Hira, as presented here, is her own person and obviously not up to taking over the Captain's mantle, so Janni has planned around this (adding the technology of the air pirates to her armory), not just preserving the Nemo legacy but allowing Hira her own life (a consideration she was denied for herself by her father). Again, this is reflected in the Ishmael family dynamic, Hugo Hercules (who, although he's an Immortal/Demi-god type, gets in mentions of his father and grandfather, as well as his illegitimate son Desperate Dan) and passing mentions of other legacies and children (Ms. Mabuse's father and son, the "pink child" princess, Doc Savage's dad - heck, even the Gillmen are protecting their children!). See page 2 for a wonderful representation of all human levels of maturity in one sequence.

So gender, politics, psychology, family - what's left? Mortality, of course. We know this is the end and Nemo's aged state is paramount in the narrative - the crew is wary of her discussions with ghosts, her children worry about her mental and physical health, and she takes moments for quiet reflection (Broad-Arrow Jack's jacket clutched tenderly in the splash page, the panels of silent rumination on the gillmen). Also, in narrative, we see the dead-ending of cultures: ancient ruined temples of former glories, dinosaurs, Nazi ideologies run out of options, and the final, unrecoverable extinction of an Immortal imperialist. Hugo Hercules, adorned in century-old styled clothing, is greying at the temples, the gillmen represent "the last breeding colony" and we even open the book on Nemo's collection of artifacts... and ghosts. All science can offer are clones of madmen and sterile robots as a means of reproduction. And so it all ends in fiery cataclysm, a strong, proud, *human* woman seated on a throne of her defeated foes after taking down both a monstrous ideology and a full-blooded immortal - no pirate could ask for more.

(I was originally going to write that perhaps the lack of "interiority" of Janni's thoughts and feelings at the culmination added to some reader's feelings of a thin story - but after typing all this out, I realize how full and robust the story is - we have no need to be walked through Nemo's interior narrative - she lived her life demonstrably and here it all is in the books!)

As always, any regrets I had were few and minor: with the 1970's setting and all the pro-feminism/pirate utopias, I was expecting maybe some kind of small reference to Moore's friend Kathy Acker. I was a bit surprised that Bormann and Mengele were not replaced with appropriate pop-cult doppelgangers. And with the increasing unveiling of splash-pages, and the introduction of the wonderful Vincent Price character Dr. Goldfoot, I was left wanting a song and dance splash-page of Goldfoot and the Fembots (something which Price filmed for DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE, but which was cut as "too fey") - as it would have resonated nicely with CENTURY (you may remember in the last installment of which, Mina attempted to initiate a song as in previous books, but was unsuccessful - so it would have been symmetrically pleasing to see one of Moore's consistent cultural signifiers shift over to the villains).

"Mobile in a mobile element" is the Nemo motto (Janni even speaks it at a stonewalled moment of frustration) and this series ably demonstrates the joys and pains of a life lived as a mobile human in the mobile element of time. "Let us enjoy this marvelous vessel's departure" says Ms. Mabuse as the Nautilus launches for the last time under Janni's command and I can think of no better final testament to Moore's continuing strength as a writer in that such a simple, throwaway line can sum up so much of a story.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epic and emotional conclusion to the Nemo trilogy.

"The boys from Brazil", "Black Lagoon Creature" and all the other references were really great.

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A much better showing than the first two Nemo volumes, with two the intersecting lives of the aged Nemo (daughter of science-pirate Nemo of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), her grandson, and her enemies. Moore's apparent need to shroud his knowledge of fictional characters in mysteries too devious for the casual reader continued to get in the way of plot, as the first few chapters were again a travelogue of other stories. Some of the mysteries were cleared up, though, in several nice little plot twists near the end.

I'm glad to have read the series, to have seen Mr. Moore's talents and brilliance, but I can take-or-leave returning to the world of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one had even less for me to get into. 1975 Janni is now the queen of Lincoln Island and 80 years old. She sees ghosts. They go to the Amazon and battle Nazi Fembots. Again O'Neill is drawing some really cool fantasy worlds but it's all a bit too quick.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's 1975 and an elderly Janni Dakkar is obsessed with tracking down an old enemy she has already killed once. A trip up the Amazon allows Alan Moore to play pastiche with properties like The Lost World, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine(?!?!).

I've liked the previous two entries in this trilogy, but this one fell flat for me. There's a gloomy tone overall, and the action all feels rather pointless in the end.

I was hoping this final volume would tie the trilogy together, but it just feels like the biography of a character instead of a story about a person. Maybe this all pays off in the final League book, Tempest, that I'll be reading in the coming days?

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I zadnji broj ove trilogije je pun maste ako nista drugo i prtstavlja fin zavrsetak za piratsku kraljicu. Glavna pricica je jakoo mrsava ovde ali zato sve ostalo vise nego vredno paznje pa se to moze oprostiti.

Nedostatak maste sigurno nije problem sa kojim se gosn Mur srece.

U svakom slucaju nadam se da ce sledeci strip iz ovog univerzuma biti neke klasicne duzine (oko 200 strana) posto imam osecaj da ovako kondenzovano na 50 strana jednostvano ne daje mesta da se prica razmahne.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, if you'd told me after reading Nemo: Heart of Ice I would eventually love one of Alan Moore's Nemo books, I would've told you you were insane. It's like he decoded everything he was doing wrong with the first one, improved it in The Roses of Berlin, and then really brought it home in this final story.

With how short this book is, it very much helps that Moore focuses all of his attention on two or three characters. Without a lot of distracting and forgettable side characters, we're instead able to learn a lot about Nemo, her new bodyguard Hugo Hercules (or whatever he's called, he went by like 4 names) and her grandson.

Moore really digs in to Nemo's state of mind near the end of her life, and it feels very personal. We get a look at an extremely headstrong character who is basically refusing to change, but is literally haunted by the decisions of her past in the process. She on some level knows her life has been a myriad of mistakes leading to the deaths of people she cared about, but she's so blazingly confident that she never fully wrestles with it. It felt poignant to see this character, who we have so far only seen wreak vengeance on all who've wronged her, have moments where she struggles with the path her life has taken.

Then, the addition of Hugo Hercules is a welcome injection of fresh energy. He's a ridiculous character that seems to have fallen out of an American tall tale, but is extremely likable despite the fact that he's a literal assassin. His bravado and attitude are infectious and a joy to read, and reminded me of how much I loved reading Moore's takes on Hyde and the Invisible Man back in the original League series. They were flawed, but they had something to offer. Same here with Hugo.

The story itself is simple enough. Nemo has heard that the immortal Queen Ayesha, who she supposedly killed, has returned from the dead. She sets off to South America to settle the score once and for all. Along the way she encounters all sorts of beings from fiction, from the Creature from the Black Lagoon to Fembots to what I assume is the Land of the Lost. The action is well-paced and beautifully illustrated by O'Neill, and builds to a very satisfying conclusion, which I won't ruin.

So, if you are like me and thought Heart of Ice was a miserable pile of dreck, don't worry. The Nemo Trilogy does actually get better, to a point where it almost justifies the events of that terrible book. And if you also just want to act like that book didn't happen, I'm sure that works too. Here's hoping Moore's final League book is as character-driven and thoughtful as this one!

[Wreade1872 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nemo Trilogy is not the best part of the League books but nonetheless this volume is a pretty good ending to Janni Nemo's story.
It has a decent timescale and much better mix of humour and drama than previous volumes. Along with having more to say about families and how parents influence the next generation etc.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last issue of Nemo was nice but it didn't seem to have quite as much plot as the other issues. Janni was old and haunted by the ghosts of her former crew who'd died before her. But in a nice way. The story focused on her obsession with She trying to track her down and she was supposed to be dead. The literary allusions seemed a bit thin (Or perhaps I just don't read as much 70s literature as I do Victorian - which is definitelythe case). But there were fembots and clones and Irish mythological figures disguised as modern day heroes. She still had issues with her daughter and her grandson was getting ready to take her place. It was also drawn beautifully by Kevin O'Neill who deserves as much credit as Alan for bringing the story to life. Actually as I'm writing this I realise there is more to it, without the simple over-arching story of Lovecraft or Metropolis that the other two issues had. Now I want to go back and re-read all three.

[Florin Pitea · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK, but nothing to write home about. Whatever charm The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen used to have, it's long gone by now.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the three in this sort of spin off trilogy from Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman, I liked this one slightly best, though none of them that much. The art by O'Neill is good fun and Moore, not great here, works with O'Neill to layer his tale with references as he usually does. The first volume was set in 1925, the second in 1945, now this one in 1975, sort of like the historical LOEG Century series, though in this series there isn't as much political commentary, it's more of an opportunity to do period pieces. This is a pulp comic in the fashion of fifties men's adventure comics.

In this one a now aging (but consistently dull) Captain Nemo goes up the Amazon to find archenemy Ayesha, finds escaped Nazi scientists in Brazil making Ayesha clones and so on. These guys make an army of Bikinitrons, which is sort of funny early seventies stuff. Eh, I guess it was all right.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, one's enjoyment of this League of Extraordinary Gentleman installment is likely to depend on your familiarity with the characters and references in the tale. I found it to be a fun conclusion to Moore and O'Neal's Nemo stories.

This third book in the Nemo series takes place in 1975, when Janni Dakkar is roughly 80 years old, very near death, and regularly hallucinating visions of those she has loved and lost. Despite her physical infirmities, Janni suits up one last time to pursue her long-time nemesis, the seemingly immortal Ayesha, who seems to have turned up yet again, though Janni decapitated her three decades earlier (the tale told in Nemo: The Roses of Berlin). Janni and her crew chase this new Ayesha into the jungles of the Amazon, where they discover a plot by none other than the infamous Doctor Joseph Mengele to create children clones of long-dead dictator Heinrich Hynkel along with the psychotic Ayesha.

As usual for a LoEG tale, there are plenty of fun incorporations of known (and some not-so-well-known) characters and locations from popular fiction. What made this story so much fun though was Moore's use of the character Cuhulain (or Mr. Coghlan, as he is referred to in the story), the mythical strongman from Irish lore. Coghlan is a great return to the use of a character possessed of brute strength, a la Mr. Hyde. Whereas Hyde was clearly a maniac, though, Coghlan is a rather charming sort, and seeing his casual feats of immense strength are entertaining. I only hope that Moore and O'Neal see fit to bring him back for future LoEG stories.

The story serves as a somber and almost touching end to the epic life of Janni. Taken with the first two stories in the set - Heart of Ice and Roses of Berlin - it makes for a solid trilogy within the LoEG series.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rating is for the Nemo trilogy overall. While this is Janni's final adventure, I remain interested in her as a character, and Moore did some character development with her.

It feels like Janni is not only acknowledging that she is her father's daughter, but unfortunately she has given up trying to be better than her father (in her mind). When news reaches her that her husband's killer is alive, she sets out on a final voyage driven by revenge.

We get a combination of new characters (Janni's grandson Jack, Ishmael's wife and son), but also Coughlan, who does call himself one of the first super humans. We even get a glimpse of the aforementioned Colonel Mors (the grandson of Captain Mors).

This installment, more than others, feels like it edges into satire with whom the villains are, but hey it appears to be the 1960s and Dr. Goldfoot probably is the right villain (well among the multiple villains) in this installment.

[Nate]

Probably the best Nemo book, which still isn’t saying much. It’s definitely the most fun. Here, Moore embraces pulp, all robot Nazis, dinosaur islands, and strongmen. But I don’t feel like we got to know Janni all that well across the three short books. Or at least I never felt her story was especially compelling. Maybe you really do have to be intimately familiar with the characters to get the most out of this series.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

In what is likely to be Janni Dakkar's last adventure she takes along a few stowaways (her grandson and a friend of his), but her drive to see a end to a "ghost"- the long dead Ayesha, thought to be going mad at eighty and haunted by those she's lost, Janni none the less sees her mission to it's end, and the glimpse we get of a future makes it one worth her heartbreak and loss.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not entirely sure why I bother anymore. Still, better than most comics, in all probability.

[Kai Charles(Fiction State Of Mind) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final volume of the series as the Nemo mariachi must decide if vengeance is worth her distruction.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

While still fun and inventive (especially O 'Neill's art) this was an anticilamtic conclusion to the Nemo books.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a minute where I thought River of Ghosts wasn't as good as the rest of League, and then I realized I was wrong and this series is great, just great, thanks.

[Bob Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best of the Nemo trilogy. Great art with an emotional, funny short story.

[Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a review for all three comics in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen spinoff series, Nemo, which follows Captain Nemo’s daughter and successor, Janny Dakkar, who was introduced as the avenging Pirate Jenny in Century: 1910, after a typically Mooreian use of rape as origin story. From 1920s Antarctica to the Berlin Metropolis of the 1940s under the rule of the Tomainian dictator Adenoid Hynkel to the dinosaur haunted plateaus of 1970s Brazil, Janni leads the crew of the Nautilus against the forces of Ayesha, She Who Must Be Obeyed.

While Janni’s personality makes for a little more engaging and fun story than the rather joyless slog that was most of Century, the series features much of the same issues I’ve discussed of Moore’s work, particularly the crowded, almost suffocating references and a lack of focus on what message is really being made here. The blurb of The River of Ghosts, the last entry in the series, calls it a “rich mosaic,” but a “turgid soup” is an equally accurate description, I feel.

Aside from Janni Dakkar, Captain Nemo, we’ve got early American science and superhero comics, Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness, Fritz Lang’s and Ira Levin’s cinematic work, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World, piling on the references from earlier entries into a recursive slurry of crossover madness.

Of course, this would be incomprehensible to someone who has not read all the volumes of LoEG first, but would such a person bother to read this?

I discuss my feelings on Moore's other works in LoEG and his genre deconstruction in general at https://spoonbridge.medium.com/decons..., Harris Tome Corner, here.

[Rory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I criticised the previous Nemo book for the fact that Alan Moore appeared to be trying to be clever, rather than actually being clever... In this volume he does neither, delivering a straightforward but action-packed finale to the life of Janni, and it benefits as a result. A fun and emotional conclusion.

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful conclusion to Moore and O'Neill's Nemo series that spun off of their League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The highlight of this installment is Janni Dakkar's aging, her possible senility, and her links to the past. We review it for the podcast at http://comicsalternative.com/episode-....

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

lighter on the allusions, but a better story than the LXG diaspora has generated for a while. I wish it were longer, I wish we got inside Nemo more than we do, if only to undermine the inscrutable Oriental tropes Moore was comfortable with throughout Nemo Sr.'s tenure.

[Ignacio · Rating 2 out of 5]

De la trilogía de Nemo vs Nazis es el volumen que menos me ha interesado, seguramente porque las referencias visuales me parecen las menos atractivas (dinosaurios, androides, el monstruo de la laguna negra). La historia está en la línea de las anteriores.

[Alex Sarll]

An elegiac conclusion to the LoEG spin-off trilogy (albeit for a value of 'elegiac' that covers dinosaur attacks, Nazi fembots and Desperate Dan's dad).

[Samichtime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid end to the series. Kevin once again kills it with the artwork! 🧑‍🎨

[Tim O'neill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nemo: The Roses of Berlin actually returned a bit to what I’d enjoyed in the first two volumes: a retro adventure story that happens t’include some famous characters. This returned to the references-first, story-second model from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, my least favorite part of the series. I certainly admire the way the references in this volume were woven together, especially the three antagonists at the end, but I didn’t feel involved in the story; it reminded me more of what I liked about The Almanac, but that didn’t fulfill my need for the story. The Nemo trilogy dœsn’t even totally work, since her story begins in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 (where she’s a co-lead) and Dakkar characters have a fairly significant role in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009. As a whole, I like the Dakkar storyline thruöut the series, and I am still a fan of the series, but this book did not contribute too much to this impression.