steampunk in comics, part 1 League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

welcome to steampunk in comics week! what the hell is steampunk you might ask? somesort of really angry punk rocker with steam coming out of his ears. not at all. technically i would call it a sub-genre of science-fiction that is a reaction to cyberpunk, another sub-genre of science-fiction that has a setting of neo-victorian, retro-futurism. basically, what if the computer age started 100 years before the creation of the silicon transistor. there are difference engines (mechanical computers) in every office building, your next door nieghbor is an inventor of steam-powered cars and you travel across long distances in airships. and everyone wears goggles. how i got into steampunk were a few comics 5 or 6 years ago; only now am i realizing steampunk is more than just a litterary movement, but now involves an underground music scene and its own fashion. now that is out of the way, let me start at the begining. at least for me.

the league of extraordinary gentlemen by alan moore & kevin o'neill.

i love victorian literature. there is everything from the best deductive detectives, vampires, flesh golems, white rabbits, invisble men, amoral dandies, and submarines. what if they all met? had adventures? and used clockwork machine pistols? sign me up! from the first page you know this is a fantastical place. a wide shot of a bridge from dover, england to end in france. looks every bit the typical superhighway construction project of today, except these cranes are powered by steam. so we start with wilhelmina murray, last seen fighting count dracula in transylvania, set by a government agent to put together a special team to resolve a special problem. god save the queen! next stop, egypt. mina ends up in a shitty, dive opium den to find allan quartermain. man is this going to be bad. he is too old, past his prime and sucking too well on the devil's dick. however he still has that killer instict and shoots some of the crazed mob intent on raping our dear, poor mina. the outrage! the tragedy! the escape to the docks where they get re-enforcements from captain nemo. no, not the disney version. this is the sikh, british hating, science pirate. did i mention he has a nuclear powered submarine? so he takes out an automatic harpoon gun and watses the mob chasing our heros. now for a quick trip under the sea to paris. something about murders in the rue morgue. not again :(



the trio's guide here in paris is non other than auguste dupin. mina gets all tarted up and is set as bait. shame allan goes to a chemist for a bottle of laudium and when he returns, mina has vanished. yes, the dope fiend has been gulled by the murderer! after a short search, furniture starts flying thru windows. this has to be it. mina's intended cliet, one dr. henry jekyll is not himself. something is certainly wrong with him. he has changed. he is not henry anymore. but edward. edward hyde, 12 foot tall simmian mountain of rage. some quick thinking from a sober quartermain and another team member has joined. or is that two more? next step is to solve mysterious immaculate conceptions at an S&M boarding school. hate to ruin the surprise but where else would an invisible man hide after faking his own death?

now that we have our team together time to get to the heart of the matter. the only container of cavorite has been stolen by the yellow peril himself. the devil doctor. fu man chu. what on earth could he be doing with the very thing that makes air travel easy and possible? since this is some serious steampunk action going on, it could only mean one thing. airships. an armada to destroy imperial britain. he is kinda bitter about the whole opium war thing. and hong kong. and who knows what else. he is a supervillian after all. does not take much for the league to destroy his airships and most of his men ( mostly by mr hyde tearing limbs out of sockets and nemo's guns ). whee. our heros have saved the day and get a raise and some time off as per thier boss, champion bond. bond. hmm, why is that name so familar? could he related to someone? champion is a spymaster.... nah. could not be. anyways, where was i? oh yes. so bond takes the cavorite for safe keeping. except he takes it to his boss. m. head of intelligence under the crown. no, not dame judy dench, but professor morriarty. what a twist! but wait, it gets better. the invible man took the iniative to ditch the victory party and trailed bond to moriarty's office. what does the neploean of crime want with cavorite? airships. duh.  he wants to wipe out whatever is left of fu man chu, east london be damned. yup, more supervillian action. i love it. thanks to inivible man's recon, the league knows some stuff is about to go down. how do they get up in the air? nemo, the wile e. coyote of the group happens to have a spare hot air balloon inside his submarine, the nautalist. as they rise up to intercept moriarty's airship that is already bombing limehouse, fu man chu counter-attacks, with surface-to-air cannon and warriors flying on kite backpacks. it looks like one of those chinese scroll things, but with more fire. and random body parts flying. the league really comes together and lets loose on both fu man chu and moriarty's men. hyde and nemo do their tank and spank thing, while mina and quartermain track down the cavorite they get ambushed by moriarty and some goons. after a scuffle, mina smashes the cavorite engine and the canister of cavorite starts to float and moriarty leaps into the air, catches and rises up, up, and away into the ether. airships go boom and the league escapes to their balloon. yippie! the day is saved!

 

my head spins whenever i read this book. we have suped up revolvers, gattling harpoon guns, nuclear submarines, airships, edison/teslaton power companies, modern freeways to france over the channel, and goggles. lots and lots of goggles.how steamy is this? i give it 8 brass cogs out of 10.