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.
This is the box set of all 3 Nemo books (Heart of Ice, Roses of Berlin & River of Gods).
The three books form a series which follows the love and life of Janni Dakar who is the daughter of Prince Dakar who is better known as Captain Nemo. The books fit in to the larger series of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also by Moore.
The images are quite stylised which can be both jarring and distracting till you realise that they reflect the atmosphere the various stories are being set. Like most comics and graphic novels the backdrop to the story almost play as an extra unspoken character to the story.
Likewise the various characters you are introduced through the stories are more than they seem. Without going in to greater detail it was fascinating looking up the various characters and seeing their significance in various publications around the times the 3 stories were set (from Charles Foster Kane to Doctor Mabuse). It felt at times like there were literary nods on every page, making it almost a competition to dissect the story for deeper meaning.
At the end of each book is a short text story which helps fill in the gaps. These stories help link the books together as well set the scene for further adventures.
I will admit that these books are not for everyone - in material or style however I thoroughly enjoyed them seeing the final chapters of the league. It was also great fun looking up the various characters and learning more about authors and books which have slowly slipped in to obscurity.
Really great, well told and excellently drawn adventure stories with a surprising amount of heart. I'm glad I decided to expand beyond the main League stories to read this really nice collection.
What a wonderful series by Alan Moore. Intelligently written and beautifully drawn by Kevin O'Neill. Loved all the three stories but best one was the second one - The Roses of Berlin - Nemo and co kicking some Nazi asses..awesome. Alan Moore did a fantastic job keeping the Nemo legacy alive through these beautiful stories of second Nemo (Janini - Captain Nemo's daughter). I am recommending these to everyone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
a) geniální vypravěč posouvající hranice žánrů, autor skvělých postav, nositel nápadů, propojovatel vyšší literatury a pulpu
b) pulpopisec se zaměřením na rozhazovačné trousení popkulturních odkazů
Tohle je ten druhý z nich. V první ze tří povídek Moore pracuje především s literárními narážkami (Lovecraft, Verne), ve druhé je výrazně filmový (hlavně německý expresionistický), ve třetí to tak nějak míchá dohromady. Všechny tři příběhy vypovídají o různých pasážích života dcery kapitána Nema a o střetech s její nemesis.
I přes poněkud příliš dopředu uhánějící scénář a zbytečné textové vložky v podobě reportáží jde o nadprůměrnou knihu, kterou spousty vynikajících nápadů a především vizuál nesou někam mezi 80 a 90% .
In this set of three books, we follow the original Captain Nemo's daughter Janni through three separate though tenuously connected consecutive adventures. Overall, the art is of a higher standard than the previous book, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, though the writing is a much more direct kind of comic-adventure mode from Moore. The first, Nemo: Heart of Ice, begins in 1925 when this new Nemo absconds with some property of the immortal African queen Ayesha. This brings down the wrath of Ayesha's host, Charles Foster Kane, who swears revenge. To this purpose, he hires some American science-adventurers and they follow Nemo's crew into the Antarctic through misadventures leading ultimately to the 'Mounts of Madness' (and the kind of work that O'Neill is made for). This is an outing peripheral to the annals of the League, so it's a world familiar to readers of the previous volumes. Though the adventure stands on its own (and will especially appeal to H.P. Lovecraft fans), it serves even better as a more thorough fleshing-out of mentions made in previous League volumes. Also included is a Hildy Johnson text column on the marriage of Hira, authored in classic breezy 1940s society-page style. Second we have Nemo: The Roses of Berlin, jumping forward in time to 1941, when their world -- like ours -- was embroiled in World War 2. Their fuhrer is Adenoid Hynkel, and he is also in cooperation with Ayesha. However, that is the backdrop for a rescue mission Nemo is on to retrieve her daughter Hira from the clutches of Berlin's Metropolis. Naturally, this touches on the Lang film of the same name and the personages therein, as well as involving the German 'League' mentioned in earlier books. The plot seems to lean a little too heavily on the Metropolis connection than these stories tend to do, forsaking the usual guess-the-reference that has made previous volumes so fascinating to read. Instead, we get a pretty standard adventure/rescue tale with some fairly glorious splash panels from Kevin O'Neill. Again, we are given a supplementary text piece by Hildy Johnson, this time returning to Lincoln Island for Nemo's 70th birthday celebration. Finally comes Nemo: River of Ghosts, which once more leaps ahead, this time to 1975. A now-elderly Nemo is determined to track down what appears to be the long-lived Ayesha, with plans to destroy her before Ayesha can harm Lincoln Island. Throw in some Boys From Brazil, various monster-movies and the latest batch of original-Nemo descendants, and here we are. The titular river largely refers to those personages from this Nemo's past, as mentioned in the Johnson piece in Roses of Berlin: the dead friends and enemies she's left behind in the stream of her life. Though their presence does end a bit of gravitas to the story, mostly we get yet another punch-up on a glorious scale with the sort of culmination we should have come to expect by now. These three books (merely slipcased copies of the extant hardcovers, rather than any new versions/editions) are certainly worthwhile and entertaining additions to the League arc. I can not help feeling, however, that we would be no worse off without them.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo Trilogy by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill set off on a spin-off trilogy revolving around Captain Janni Dakkar, the second Nemo, published in the style of Volume 3, three graphic novels published across three years. The supplementary story involves an interview between Janni and Hildy Johnson (His Girl Friday), talking about all kinds of adventures in her career as a science hero:
Nemo: Heart of Ice - Set in 1925, this story features Janni in a race against a team of former teen geniuses from the "Edisonades" to the South Pole based on The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Gym of Nantucket and At the Mountains of Madness.
Nemo: The Roses of Berlin - Set in 1941, Janni and her family battle the Berlin of Metropolis ruled by the dictator of Romania, Adenoid Hynkel (The Great Dictator). Recurring villains include Ayesha from H. Rider Haggard's She.
Nemo: River of Ghosts - Set in 1975, it features an 80-year-old Janni going on her final adventure in the Amazon River Basin to fight the possible resurgence of Ayesha via android duplicates (The Stepford Wives), Hynkel clones (The Boys from Brazil) and Nazi She-Wolves (Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS).
These books are lighter, briefer and more adventure heavy…kind of like Indiana Jones stories. It was intended to spoof 20th-century pulp science fiction and discuss the overall development of science fiction from the 19th to the 20th Century. Building on an essay he had written for Dodgem Logic, Moore notes how the Victorian optimism in utopian science, represented by Wells and Verne, was replaced by 20th Century science being far more uncertain and dystopian. Starting from Lovecraft's ideas of discoveries making observers go mad from the revelation to beings like King Kong and Godzilla regarded as freaks and monstrosities rather than wonders. Likewise, scientific discoveries are used to serve less than noble aims, with Tom Swyfte wanting to become a weapons manufacturer, German geniuses building machinery for the state of Tomania. Robots likewise become a tool to create consumerist visions of the ideal female body programmed to serve men (as in Metropolis and The Stepford Wives), twisting the progressive ethos of science to perpetuate patriarchy and dominance.
Liga Niezwykłych Dżentelmenów Nemo: Trylogia to zbiorcze wydanie trzech komiksów (Serce z lodu, Berlińskie róże, Rzeka duchów), z których każdy jest zamkniętą historią. Sam tytuł może troszkę mylnie wskazywać, że gwiazdą albumów jest kapitan Nemo. Główną bohaterką scenariusza jest jednak jego córka, a sam członek Ligi już od pewnego czasu nie żyje. Akcja każdego rozdziału toczy się w zupełnie innej epoce. Pierwszy z nich to lata 20. (dokładnie 1928), śledzimy tu losy młodej bohaterki, która przemierza Antarktydę śladami swojego ojca. Druga z historii przenosi czytelnika do lat 40. (1941), gdzie Janni trafia w samo serce niebezpiecznej Rzeszy i wraz z mężem próbuje uratować córkę. Ostatni z rozdziałów dzieje się w połowie lat 70. (1975) i widzimy tu doświadczoną życiowo osiemdziesięcioletnią seniorkę, która ostatni raz wyrusza na pokładzie Nautilusa w wyprawę w górę Amazonki, aby ostatecznie zmierzyć się ze swoim największym wrogiem. Pomimo tego, że Nemo nie odgrywa tu pierwszoplanowej roli, każda z historii staje się w pewnym sensie odzwierciedleniem jego życia. Wszystko to za sprawą córki, która zarówno zachowaniem, jak i poglądami na świat dosyć mocno przypomina ojca.
Każda z opowieści w dużym uproszczeniu to wartka dawka prostej przygodowej rozrywki, w której widowiskowość miesza się z ciekawymi bohaterami i całą masą kulturowych nawiązań/easter eggów (tak bardzo charakterystycznych dla całej serii). Miłośnicy wyłapywania różnego rodzaju smaczków powinni być więcej niż zachwyceni. Autor przygotował bowiem dla nich gigantyczną ilość poukrywanych znaczeń (wiele mocno niejednoznacznych). Miłośnik dobrej popkultury odkryje tu między innymi elementy Lovecrafta (W górach szaleństwa), nawiązania do filmu Metropolis, Tytanik, Obywatel Kane czy powiązania z całą masą popularnych książek, chociażby Zaginiony świat Arthura Conana Doyle’a. Jest to ledwie wierzchołek przysłowiowej góry lodowej i jestem przekonany, że niezależnie od tego ile razy będzie się komiks czytać, to zawsze odkryje się w nim coś nowego.
Overall I enjoyed this more than the individual volumes would indicate. Moore takes Janni Nemo across the 20th century and all around the globe - Antarctica, Nazi Berlin, and the Amazon. But at less than 160 pages of comics I think there's too much going on with too few pages.
Book 1 Heart of Ice With Verne, Poe, and Moore's favourite Lovecraft all visiting the South Pole - it was inevitable that the LXG would eventually head that way. With Nemo's daughter now captain of the Nautilus. It's more Mountains of Madness than anything. I think O'Neill continues to do a bang up job on the art. Moore's script is way more convoluted than it needs to be - he has a lot of interesting ideas but there's not enough pages here to give any breathing room. In the end we get a visual tour of Lovecraft with a bunch of characters shooting and hunting each other for various reasons that I think ends up just dragging down the proceedings.
Book 2 Nemo: The Roses of Berlin Janni Nemo in the 40s battling science-fiction Nazis in Berlin. The dictator Hynkel has some of Nemo's family held hostage. There's some pretty cool fighting with some wonderful drawings by O'Neill. Somehow it does get bogged down by Moore. There's lots of pages with German dialogue, that I'm unsure if Moore expected me to translate or just go with the flow. I feel like it's trying to do too much with too few pages.
Book 3 Nemo: River of Ghosts 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.
- Heart of Ice: Moore's OCs are less compelling than his pilfered ones - Roses of Berlin: these stories are a good way to shed the topheaviness of the main series, but still hard to really care, feels like a series wrung of its last drop - River of Ghosts: has all of loeg been this bad re: whole pages of pointless name-dropping references to old fiction? but also: loeg is great, this climax and epilogue: great!
Kevin O’Neill’s stark style of illustration is very distinctive, and I think that it suits the stories really well, as does the bright sharp colouring. I was delighted with all the stories and illustrations and devoured them very greedily. I now plan to revisit and take more time savouring the details, and ponder making miniatures of some of the key players, especially Princess Janni herself of course.
I feel like this series is Moore's attempt to redeem himself for not having any good female characters in his earlier works. Captain Nemo II is everything I've wanted from a female Moore character as well as the dark, fantastic, Lovecraftian adventures, themes, and adventures I expect from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series.
I'm writing this a year after reading the story. Not sure why I didn't write a review then. I enjoyed the plot a lot actually (Probably as much as I like the plot in League of Extraordinary Gentleman 1 and 2) I liked a lot of the characters
Flipping through the art was well done for the story
Kapitán Nemo byl pro mě jednou z nejzajímavějších postav z Ligy výjimečných a ani tady pokračování jeho rodu nezklamalo. Ostatně ten příběh napsal Alan Moore, to je prostě záruka kvality.
These three stories are quick and fun. I'm glad we get more adventures with the Nemo crew. I'm unfamiliar with the bad guy of this series but I like the exploration of the French and German League.
La liga de los hombres extraordinarios es, posiblemente, mi obra preferida de Alan Moore. Este spin-off sobre las aventuras de la hija de Nemo tiene la misma calidad que el resto de la serie. Imprescindible. Nota: Si pueden leer las anotaciones en alguna web bien informada disfrutarán el doble.