NULL-MYTHS: THE "NEMO'S DAUGHTER" TRILOGY (2013-15)

 The basic problem with TEMPEST is that it doesn't really depict the development of pop culture icons the way the first two volumes did. Possibly no one could manage to cope with the astounding proliferation of such icons not only in comic books and strips, but also in movies and television as well. Thus Moore and O'Neill just stuck in whatever characters caught their interest, be it a version of 1904 comic-strip obscurity Hugo Hercules or Grandpa Munster. There's some fun to be had with such freewheeling association, but they didn't manage to make a myth this time. -- NEAR MYTHS: LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: TEMPEST (2018-19)

Moore and O'Neill finished the three NEMO stories in between the three-part CENTURY sequence (2012) and the big finale of TEMPEST (2018-19). These 2013-15 stories are structured just like CENTURY, where the protagonists were seen in three separate periods of their lives. In the case of NEMO, the sole protagonist is Janni Dakkar, daughter of the late Captain Nemo, who now captains the Nautilus along with a collection of fellow pirates. Janni is seen in three ages of her life-- first roughly in the early 20th century, then during a faux version of World War II, and then in her extreme age, in the 1970s.

I didn't examine the Janni character in my CENTURY review, but she was key to what I called "a long and pointless homage to Bertolt Brecht." In that section of the story, Nemo's daughter pettishly runs off from her family, takes a job in a low-class London slum, gets raped, and brings back her pirate clan to take bloody vengeance on dozens of people who did not rape her. Murray and Orlando just stand around as witnesses to the chaos, and Alan Moore comes close to suggesting that the "reality" of the Brecht world makes all the fantasy-characters look pallid and ineffectual. But the basic irresponsibility of Janni soured me on her character. I read the first of the NEMO trilogy years ago, and nothing about it changed my mind.

BLACK DOSSIER made Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain immortal by dipping into another mythos from Quatermain's creator Rider Haggard: the mythos of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. Moore changed the SHE-story to say that the immortal queen got her immortality from a mystic pool rather than from a Flame of Life, but Ayesha herself did not come onto stage until HEART OF ICE. For reasons that remain obscure, Moore conceived a hate for Ayesha, tearing down the outstanding character Rider Haggard created, and making the queen Janni's opponent (in one way or another) for all three segments of the trilogy. The character assassination of Haggard's most influential icon is worse than a similar hit job by Moore on James Bond, because at least Moore made clear his reasons for hating Bond.

Janni Dakkar entirely initiates hostilities by having the Nautilus waylay a ship which is carrying the possessions of Ayesha, currently deposed from her empire in Africa. Ayesha's only reaction to the theft is that when her consort fails to give his life to fight the pirates, Ayesha kills him by biting his throat. However, because Ayesha is the guest of magnate Charles Foster Kane, Kane hires three American scientists to track down Janni. The scientists are adult versions of three famous "boy inventors" whose stories flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not knowing of the pursuit, Janni decides to take her submarine to Antarctica to follow up on her late father's expedition there, and that's where the inventors overtake Janni and her crew. Fortunately for Janni, she's able to lure the Americans into the clutches of some leftover boogiemen from HPL's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS (with one or two touches from Poe's ARTHUR GORDON PYM).

Though the pointless disparagement of Ayesha is HEART's worst sin, Moore extends no better treatment to the former "boy inventors:" Frank Reade Jr, Jack Wright and Tom Swift-- though Moore spells the last name "Swyfte," possibly not being sure that the name was public domain. Given that Janni is a thief, the pursuers would ordinarily have the moral high ground in chasing her down-- so Moore has to imply that all three are nasty White racists. Given that the "boy inventor" stories were the first serials devoted to SF-concepts, Moore and O'Neill's misuse of them indicates their waning interest in the history of popular culture.

 ROSES OF BERLIN takes place roughly twenty years later, and although Janni Dakkar's no longer a pirate, she does prey on the German ships under the command of the dictator "Adenoid Hynkle." This leads to German forces shooting down an airship allied to the Nautilus, and the apparent abduction of Janni's daughter. Janni and her crew invade Berlin, a futuristic domain constructed by such famous fiends as Rotwang, Caligari, and Mabuse (although Mabuse for some reason is a good guy). Yet when Janni comes face to face with the evil at the heart of Nazism, the real villain is not Hynckle, but-- She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed? The third story later reveals why Ayesha became an ally of Hynkle, thanks to his mastery, through the late Rotwang, of mechanical humans. In fact, Moore implies that the original "Futura" android is still around. Janni gets to duel with Ayesha, and of course I was frustrated that my girl didn't win. At least Ayesha doesn't seem a half-wit as in the previous installment.

In RIVER OF GHOSTS, an eighty-year-old Janni voyages to a part of the Amazon which includes both Conan Doyle's Lost World and the Black Lagoon, where it's revealed that the Creature was not the last of his breed. There she finds a mammoth conspiracy of leftover Nazis, who are also, for no good reason, manufacturing robot duplicates of the late Ayesha. Moore's sentimentality for his own derivative creation is muted by his lack of feeling for the creations of others, and perhaps the biggest proof of the sheer randomness of Moore and O'Neill is that one of the Nazi scientists is--

--wait for it--

DOCTOR (blankety blank) GOLDFOOT! Maybe O'Neill just wanted to draw Vincent Price? 

The first three LEAGUE volumes are great entertainment, but from then on, the creators of this pastiche-verse lost all ability to stay on point. But now I've read the last of the LEAGUEs, and I'm glad no one's likely to revive any of the principals, least of all the irritating Janni Dakkar.