Finally after nearly a year another Alan Moore comic, let’s review it. I reviewed League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009 last year and loved it, possibly one of the best comics I have read yet. It was funny, energetic, and makes complete use of the medium. Along with Breaking Bad, Nikita, My Little Pony, South Park, Dark Knight Rises, Flight, and Wreck-it Ralph, I thought media last year was a sign of hope in revitalize our declining culture. So how does the new League live up to its predecessor?

I remember being interested in Nemo: Heart of Ice as it was part of what Alan Moore calls a literary game. In response to accusations of just appropriating other creator’s characters for his own means, Moore claimed that this was part of a larger literary game played by creators for centuries. An example he loves to cite is of Jules Verne continuing Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym with An Antarctic Mystery, with HP Lovecraft further continuing this “literary game” with the Mountains of Madness, all trying to build off of the previous works each time adding something new to the narrative. Nemo is Moore’s attempt in continuing that tradition.

Century 2009 was my favorite comic work so Nemo had a high order to measure up to. How do I feel about it? I am not sure. Nemo really paints a 20’s world beautifully, with Edisonade characters and art deco designs in similar vein of the Victorian feel of the earlier Leagues. This was a simple straight forward action chase story. I loved the references to works of that era including Popeye and Charles Foster Kane (though Citizen Kane was however made in 1941). I was expecting a reference to Great Gatsby and King Kong but sad not to find any. However unlike the previous volume this was not the Moore version of Where’s Waldo but goes back to the roots of the original two volumes.

One complaint I heard from other reviewers was there was not enough character development, I felt this was true as well. Characters die without reason before the reader has time to bond with them so there was no emotional resonance with their deaths. I was not too concerned, as I realize comics are not the medium for emotional character development, save those stories for Japanese visual novels, prose novels, and television shows. I felt Moore choose the right type of story plot for a short 56 page comic, creating a story fit for the medium not trying to limit a medium for the story. However, the main protagonist of this comic is Jenni Nemo. Nemo had been through a lot in Century 1910 including horrific rape scene. I was hoping to gain some more insight to how this affected her character fifteen years later. I did not get this, she acted like a typical second generation child trying to leave the shadow of her father and she is no Captain Nemo.

Speaking of which, a little Alan Moore typical self-reflective, meta-commentary was inserted towards the end commenting how the generation of her father and his commentaries are gone and how the Edisonade adventurers perusing her are the dim remains of this tradition. Moore seems to really not like these American adventurers. None of them get a happy ending or are portrayed in good light. Even Tom Swift gets the same treatment Moore gave James Bond in Black Dossier. Odd considering Tom Swift not only inspired generations of authors like Isaac Asimov, he served as inspiration of Moore’s science hero, Tom Strong. Swift, here called Swyfte, is portrayed as a naïve, racist, cocky playboy adventurer. Basically a parody of how I assume the outside world sees Americans. Swift is basically stereotypical personified America from that insufferable Hetalia. While I have not read Tom Swift, I do not know why Moore portrays him as bad as the chauvinist James Bond. I am assuming this has to do with representing the culture of the times, though why Moore does this to Swift while he portrays the imperialist, racist Allan Quatermain and other characters from bigoted, white supremacist, eugenics supporting authors in such a positive light does seem counterproductive. Along with Swift, Reade and Wright get theirs as well. However, I might agree with Moore that the Edisonade adventurers do seem like slightly duller versions of rehash of the Victorian adventurers.

I loved the last volume of League for its use of the comic medium, however I was slightly let down at one part in this comic that I thought could have been done better. Slight spoilers, Nemo’s crew enter a land of temporal distortion and O’Neill has jumbled, repetitive panels to try to create this visual experience. Japanese visual novels are really the only medium that plays with visual timeloops and mixed perceptive effectively. The Endless Eight arc of Haruhi Suzumiya does this well with television. I felt similar narrative could have worked in comics form, I have seen interesting use of panels in Stumptown and a drugged inducted scene in Batman. However, the normally groundbreaking Moore fails to do this with the comics form.

Overall it was an interesting piece, must better than most of media I have seen in 2013 so far, but that is not saying much in a world where Friendship is Magic basically appears to be the pinnacle of present culture. Some of the cultural references did however seem to be inserted with no purpose in the plot. A two page spread with a world of backwards speaking French animals was beautifully drawn by Kevin O’Neill, but had no reason in the story. Yet, there is so many Jazz Age-Lost Generation characters Moore could have referenced but failed too. And while this was a minor issue, that fact Tom Swift was written as Tom Swyfte was slightly annoying. I am not sure if there were copyright issues using that name but if they could reference Voldemort I am sure they could have mentioned Swift without any problem.