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Post-Modern Drunk: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Ignore the awful movie adapted from it. Alan Moore's two comic mini-series, "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," running six issues apiece, are some of the best graphic storytelling of the last, oh, 20 years or so. The series, set at the end of the 19th Century, takes a collection of characters from classic Victorian stories, assembles them together into a super-team, and throws them up against the super-villains of the time, including Fu Manchu, Dr. Moriarty, and H.G. Wells's martians. It's a huge epic story, full of Victorian in-jokes and twists on familiar characters. Not a single character in the miniseries is Moore's own creation: they're all adapted from Victorian literature.
The characters of this incarnation of the League:
- Mina Murray nee Harker, from Bram Stoker's "Dracula"
- Captain Nemo, from Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"
- Allan Quartermain, from "King Solomon's Mines"
- Dr. Jekyll (and thus, of course, Mr. Hyde) from Stevenson's eponymous novel.
- Dr. Hawley Griffin, better known as The Invisible Man.
The movie added Dorian Gray and Tom Sawyer to the mix. There are also brief indications throughout the miniseries that this is not the first incarnation of the League. Previous incarnations included the Scarlet Pimpernel, Lemuel Gulliver, Natty Bumppo, Prospero, and Caliban (both of "The Tempest"). One can't help but wonder that if the League were reformed these days, what literary characters would make up the team?
So I'll give my recommendation towards the list, but I'm open to more suggestions. The characters must be from literature (it doesn't have to be a good book, and it, of course, can be one that has been adapted into a movie), and you should take into consideration how old they'd be currently. James Bond of Ian Fleming's original novels would be much too old, for instance, for field work. Besides, by the time 2005 rolled around, he probably would have gone rogue and set up his own criminal organization.
Let your imagination go wild.
Here's my list of potential candidates:
- Carrie White, telekenetic from Stephen King's "Carrie." Hopefully older and wiser after the incident
- Hannibal Lecter, with Clarice Starling as his handler, from Thomas Harris's "Silence of the Lambs." Brilliant tactician, and a sociopath
- Hiro Protagonist, hacker and expert swordsman from Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash."
- Shadow, son of Odin, from Neil Gaiman's "American Gods."
- Gibreel Farishta, from Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses." Sure, he's crazy, but he's also an archangel
- Tyler Durden, from Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club."
- Jason Bourne, tactician and killer from "The Bourne Identity."
- Remus Lupin, werewolf, from "Harry Potter."
- The team itself is financed by money from Zooey Glass, from J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zooey."
Undoubtedly, they will encounter characters such as Raoul Duke, Pennywise the Clown, a Dementor or two, maybe Nurse Ratched or Benjamin Braddock. No word yet as to who the villain would be. I'd love Keyser Soze, but he's just from the movies.
Any further suggestions or replacements?
