The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009

Fuck this shit. Alan Moore thinks he's--what? punk? because he takes a somewhat conservative and pat kids' story, Harry Potter, and turns it inside out to "reveal" (add) shit and death and psychosis. He's basically writing Santa Claus anally raping the Easter Bunny at this point and shaking it at

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people on the street and going "hurr, hurr" and thinking that makes him an iconoclast. He is washed up and we have moved beyond him, and as a result, seemingly, he has doubled down because it was the lazier option as opposed to listening, living the examined life for just a blessed moment. I hate to think of him lost to the side of GamerGate and 4chan, but I guess if each of us is fighting a hard battle, then some of us are bound to be casualties. Don't read this, it'll leave you either sad or bored and indifferent depending on your feelings about the source material.

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The conclusion of Alan Moore's "Century" trilogy, covering the history of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen across the 20th Century.
In the story, Orlando tries to reunite the League for a final attempt at stopping Haddo's antichrist, the "Moonchild", from destroying the world. The Moonchild's

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identity is finally revealed, which I probably should have guessed but didn't.

I liked this one better than the first two, partly because it seemed more focused on telling the story than showing off Alan Moore's insanely in-depth knowledge of old pop culture references. I thought it was interesting that most of the references, with one huge exception, were to TV shows and movies (West Wing, In the Loop, 30 Rock, Homicide, the Wire, Bond movies, etc.) rather than books. My personal favorite is the poster for "Who Dat Ninja?", starring Tracy Jordan.

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This particular artist got between me and enjoyment of the text, the women, while being the heroes of the story, are grotesque and I just couldn't really get past that to the story. Yes it's clever and twisted and you need to know your cultural tropes but I wasn't really all that caught up by it

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and could have left it behind.

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conclusion to the Century set which draws together a whole lot of plot threads from all the League books, and the Nemo book, to form a satisfying web of allusions. and we meet... no wait, i can't tell you that, but it's a positively Promethea point of view. Alan is back in top form, the book is

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full of obscure literary allusions, as befits a metafiction, he keeps drawing more and more of those endless otherverses into his cauldron, he's obviously having a lot of fun again, and him and Kevin O'Neill plan to continue writing this one until the end of the world. which hey, could be soon, better get it all while you can, it won't mean much unless you've been following the series.

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In the final entry of Century, everything has gone wrong for Prospero's band of agents. Moore continues to deliver reference after reference through all of popular culture as the apocalypse approacheth.

Here we see what Moore has been doing with his continuation of the League stories, the continual

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disillusionment of culture since the end of the Victorian age. Even a series meant to spark a child's imagination as a grand battle between good and evil isn't immune to the darkness that has slowly slipped into the world of story. The way Moore twists some of the most popular characters and franchises into what they would be in a more realistic reflection of the world in which they were formed is absolutely brilliant. The whole of Century seems to be a treatise on the disintegration of our society.

Once again, unexpected references sent me reeling with joy, and the ending was an absolute treat, especially with the implications Moore peppers into the dialogue.

If this is the final League story, it definitely goes out on an appropriate note.

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This one wasn't as bad (for me) as the others in this series but it was still saturated in references I didn't get and it was really kind of depressing. I read a synopsis of the entire 3 part series and still didn't really understand much of what was going on. This series is EXTREMELY different

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from the original graphic novel so it's important that you don't go into it thinking that it's going to be a pulpy action adventure novel. This is dark and deals with the stretching of the human soul "forced" to endure immortality.

I liked the anti-christ part a lot but the rest of it was kind of boring. The conclusion of the prose story was amazing (as were the previous installments) but as with the graphic novel I would suggest reading all of these books within close proximity to each other. Otherwise you spend half the time referencing the older books (if you have them) or catching up on the plot.

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I don't think Alan Moore is trying to say anything with this series anymore. It's just a dumping grounds for various literary references.

Wild and trippy, much better than the last one. The ending was cool too!

4 stars is pretty generous for what is actually pretty light on plot. But taken within the context of the other Century books, it works pretty well. I did enjoy the characterisations, and I still find all the little references diverting. I can understand people being totally unmoved by this, but

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personally I just wanted it to be a bit longer. I don't even mind Moore's songs as much I used to.

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