This week, available to you in all the right places, the latest entry into the world of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is released in the form of “Nemo: Heart of Ice,” a graphic novel focused on the daughter of the famous Captain Nemo, introduced during “Century.”
Oh, and Lovecraft. Lots and lots of Lovecraft.
As a note, this review is spoiler-free.
Written by Alan Moore
Illustrated by Kevin O’NeillAN ALL-NEW LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN ADVENTURE!
Co-Published by Top Shelf Productions & Knockabout.
In the grim cold of February surfaces a thrilling new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book: NEMO: HEART OF ICE, a full-color 56-page adventure in the classic pulp tradition by the inestimable Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill.
It’s 1925, fifteen long years since Janni Dakkar first tried to escape the legacy of her dying science-pirate father, only to accept her destiny as the new Nemo, captain of the legendary Nautilus. Now, tired of her unending spree of plunder and destruction, Janni launches a grand expedition to surpass her father’s greatest failure: the exploration of Antarctica. Hot on her frozen trail are a trio of genius inventors, hired by an influential publishing tycoon to retrieve the plundered valuables of an African queen. It’s a deadly race to the bottom of the world — an uncharted land of wonder and horror where time is broken and the mountains bring madness. Jules Verne meets H.P. Lovecraft in the unforgettable final showdown, lost in the living, beating and appallingly inhuman HEART OF ICE.
A 56-page full-color hardcover graphic novel!
It’s always exciting to get a new “League” book. While Moore’s output is comparatively diminished from the days of yesteryear, the passion he repeatedly brings to “League” is always exciting, and the puzzle he and O’Neill have decided with this literary onslaught makes for a rather engrossing read over time. The last volume of “League,” entitled ‘Century,’ made for quite a stunning opus that gave us one of the biggest finales in comics last year. If there ever was an exciting time to be a long-time reader of the series, it was then.
Now as February draws to a close, we get to kick off our year with the all new graphic novel “Nemo: Heart of Ice,” dealing with Janni, the previous Nemo’s daughters, who had to embrace her destiny in the pages of ‘Century’ in quite an emotional little scene. It’s an interesting deviation from what we’ve typically understood about the “League” world, in that no one character has ever gotten such a specific focus. These books have typically dealt with the menagerie of it all, the various incarnations of the League and the literary characters that they run into accordingly. While there’s certainly a bevy of literary appearances here, that all changes as the League becomes a non-entity and we follow Nemo on an adventure all of her own.
Or, well, sort of. It’s true that this book deals with Nemo’s adventures, but it actually deals very little with Nemo herself. Nemo herself is more of a tool through which we follow the action, a central focus for everything to revolve around rather than a character for us to see the action through the eyes of. What could’ve been interesting is if the book really dealt with the new Nemo and the legacy behind her; that, after all, does appear to be the central impetus of the book – in fact what leads our heroine to Antarctica in the first place. Her identity, though, the things that make her tick and how she feels to the need to live up to and challenge her father, is essentially a background aspect to the main story here (not taking into consideration the prose back-up). It seems like a large missed opportunity to not do too much with her as a character and focus mainly on the action of the story, since this isn’t a character we got to spend much time with in ‘Century’ due to her non-involvement with the League.
Mind you, this aspect was explored in ‘Century,’ and was the whole focal point behind Janni becoming Nemo. However, since she has taken on the role, we know very little about her overall, at least in comparison to the main members of the League. You’d imagine that for a side character to get a spin-off title, more time would be spent exploring that personality and why she would deserve a spin-off in the first place.
Continued belowThe main reason why “Nemo: Heart of Ice” is a bit of a letdown, though, is because more than anything, this book is just another example of Moore’s obsession with exploring the worlds Lovecraft left behind. To an extent, that seems like a really silly statement; in a book described as “Jules Verne meets Lovecraft,” it featuring a large focus on Lovecraft seems to be the most obvious choice of operation. Yet, when looking at Moore’s larger body of work, nothing ostensibly new is said about Lovecraft’s work here than anywhere else. The works of HP Lovecraft here essentially just serve a basic storytelling purpose in that Moore ostensibly wanted to explore a more literal interpretation of Lovecraft’s work rather than a thematic one (although that’s prevalent as well). Nothing about the use of Lovecraft is particularly exciting or enlightening, however; it’s nothing new for Moore nor the world of “League” in general, and after the powerhouse finale of ‘Century,’ taking this deviation isn’t particularly the most eventful return to this world.
Granted, part of the frustration also just comes from the infrequency of “League” books that we get. The expectations for the big are rather high,
the long wait between stories leaving us anxious and with perhaps unrealistic expectations. There’s nothing about the book that is inherently bad, it’s just not any more appealing than any other volume. “Nemo” is the kind of read that very much serves a purpose and fits well within the series, but it doesn’t go beyond that too much. That makes the book neither particularly good or bad, just something that will appeal to “League” fans and little more – and the validity of that, whether it’s “good” or “bad” to make something specifically for fans of a series and few elsem is certainly debatable. (I’d lean on the side of good, though.)
There’s still plenty to like about “Nemo,” much of it relying on the obvious strength of the creative team. The book is somewhat like a Lovecraftian (there’s that name again) version of the Thing with its arctic isolationist attitude, which is somewhat of a lazy comparison as well as a nod to the more cinematic nature of this book (which, honestly, was a bit of a shock). That’s the biggest surprise of “Nemo,” truthfully; most “League” books have revolved around the exploration of a shared fictional narrative but have never been particularly action-heavy, only where relevant to the text that Moore and O’Neill were referencing. This volume is full of more action and adventure than seems typical to the series, however, part of which seems to fit in well with the Vernian nature of the book.
Moore and O’Neill also both play up the horror portion of the book to a rather intriguing extent. “League” has never particularly explored the realm of horror specifically, but with the obvious influences at play here it’s definitely a prime focus within the book. The team manufactures a great deal of tension within the graphic novel that helps make the book quite engrossing in a few locations, and while Moore has spent a good deal of time giving us his version of Lovecraft in other books, this particular one – specifically with regards to the literal rendition of the Mountains of Madness – offers up a potent narrative device that is wonderfully exploited. If anything, that’s perhaps the one thing the Lovecraftian influence has offered up the book, and seeing Moore and O’Neill play with the disorientation that comes with exploring the desolate landscape of the book is definitely the most exciting aspect of the book once the third act kicks off.
While Moore’s “League” scripts have always been clever and entertaining, it’s O’Neill who really sells the book. Seeing O’Neill render so many of these impossible nightmares onto the page is the book’s biggest triumph, and it’s impossible not to be drawn into the world of League once more. O’Neill’s mastery of the artform has only grown more intense with every volume of the series, and “Nemo” sees a much more open and inventive style than we’ve seen from O’Neill. Since a great deal of the book is spent on bringing to life visual impossibilities that only exist when you close your eyes, O’Neill finds different and exciting ways to bring various Lovecraftian machinations to life in a variety of styles, from gorgeous splash pages to the densest of panels full to the prim with horror. There’s also a general departure from the grid-like nature of previous “League” books, and with so many large set pieces and action-filled sequences, this is definitely a new side of O’Neill that we haven’t quite seen before.
Continued belowFor fans of the overall League world, “Nemo” is very much a piece of the overall tapestry, in the same way that “Black Dossier” helped expand on the ideas held in Moore and O’Neill’s series as well as pushing the characters in a new direction, out of the past and into ‘Century.’ However, unlike “Black Dossier,” there’s nothing ostensibly essential about “Nemo”; it’s a good one-off story about a character who could’ve used more elaboration, but unfortunately not enough time is given to truly allow that character to shine. This isn’t so much about Nemo as it is the Heart of Ice, in so many words, and that makes the book feel like a bit of a missed opportunity. However, if you’ve enjoyed Moore’s exploration of Lovecraft’s mythology, then there’s plenty to enjoy here.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – Buy
And, of course, the book is full of tiny little easter eggs that can give you quite a good few hours of research and dissection. But that sort of thing is left to much smarter folks than I.
