Comic Review – “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Vol. 2”

The original comic book League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen is back, with the names spelled correctly,
and no random new characters inserted to avoid film
trademark issues.

General Information

Title: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2

Author: Alan Moore

Illustrator(s): Kevin O’Neill

Original Publication Date: 2004 collection of
material first published
from 2002-2003

ISBN: 1-4012-0118-0

Cover Price: $14.95 US, $22.95 Can

Buy from: Amazon.com
or Amazon.ca

Past comic reviews can be found here.

Premise

The League must face off against the Martians from
H.G. Wells’ The
War of the Worlds
.

High Point

Mr. Toad arrives. I haven’t even read that
particular children’s
story, but connecting it to another work by Wells
just seems pretty
darn amusing to me.

Low Point

The nature of H-142. Moreau worked in vivisection,
remember. That’s
a bloody small scalpel.

The Scores

This just doesn’t seem as original as the
first volume. A
lot of what worked in the first set was how they
initially tied all
the heroes together. This time, they’re just there.
Adding one or
two new members to the team would have helped that a
bit. This felt
more like a straight adventure story than a new
hybrid creation. I
give it 3 out of 6.

The artwork is exactly like that of the first
volume.
I give it 4
out of 6.

The story is far less convoluted this time
around. The
characters are already together, and just get thrown
in against a well
known threat. There’s not as much investigation or
exploration
required. I give it 4 out of 6.



The characterization adds next to nothing
that’s new. We get
a little bit for Mina, and some more for Edward Hyde,
but that’s it.
The rest are almost exactly as they were last time
around, and no
depth was added. I give it 4 out of 6.

The emotional response wasn’t as powerful as
the first
volume’s. I think that the biggest problem was that
they didn’t use
some known villain with a new plot, as last time, but
rather a known
villain who was defeated in a very clear way.
There’s no doubt of the
outcome in this collection, which makes it difficult
to maintain any
suspense. It had entertaining moments, but the big
picture was all
too predictable. I give it 3 out of 6.

The flow worked well. The story moved
along, with little
interruption between issues. I give it 5 out of 6.

Overall, it’s a decent collection, and
better than the film
we got, but not as good as the first collection. I
give it 3 out of 6.

In total, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol.
2
receives
27 out of 42.