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timgrubbs's review
5.0
A messy ending to a wonderful ride…
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Tempest by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill is the fourth official volume and the last story in this literary world…
While it’s set immediately after Volume III Century, it has more spiritual connection to the Black Dossier.
It doesn’t help that many of the references are deeply tired to the back matter and deep lore of the world. If someone were only reading the main stories, it would be almost impossible to understand what was going on.
Still…it’s fun.
The surviving heroes of the League are confronted by one of their few surviving enemies, the attempted destruction of the magical world, and the return of troublesome superheroes…
It really jumps around and features lots of flashbacks, side cartoons connected to unrelated characters, and of course ads from the world.
If you’ve stuck with the series this long, then I hope you understood and enjoyed most of it…
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Tempest by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill is the fourth official volume and the last story in this literary world…
While it’s set immediately after Volume III Century, it has more spiritual connection to the Black Dossier.
It doesn’t help that many of the references are deeply tired to the back matter and deep lore of the world. If someone were only reading the main stories, it would be almost impossible to understand what was going on.
Still…it’s fun.
The surviving heroes of the League are confronted by one of their few surviving enemies, the attempted destruction of the magical world, and the return of troublesome superheroes…
It really jumps around and features lots of flashbacks, side cartoons connected to unrelated characters, and of course ads from the world.
If you’ve stuck with the series this long, then I hope you understood and enjoyed most of it…
bdavisshannon's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
offworldcolony's review
4.0
A gratefully received finale long-time coming from Moore and O'Neill. A great commentary on the reception of the prior entries, a real madcap multiverse adventure that feels as if it shares more in common with Fables but it's better for it. A throw everything at the wall adventure and a fitting evolution and end.
vitaminbillwebb's review
adventurous
dark
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
mabusecast's review
5.0
Honestly despite my issues with Alan Moore as a whole, and some of my issues I have with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen after the first two volumes of it, it is worth putting up Moore's "old man yells at a cloud" attitude which shows throughout pretty much the every bit of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen post volume 2, if for nothing else then to read this his swan song to comics!
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 4: The Tempest is frankly pretty amazing once it gets going and reading all the other league comics preceding it (including the nemo trilogy and the black dossier!) makes this hit so much harder!
This is one of those books/pieces of media, more then any other I've read that has a sense of finality to it, both in the sense that it is Moore's last work in comics and that it quite frankly lives up to its opening words as "story to end all stories"!
I may not agree 100 percent with Moore's thesis that works of fiction will be the end of the human race as we know it etc etc, but I can at least respect the level of craft he and artist Kevin O'Neill put into this final bit of fiction from them!
Honestly might be my favorite thing I've read/piece of media I've experienced this year so far!
I wasn't expecting a comic written by Alan "from joker to trump" Moore to be the best thing I've experienced this year but here we are I guess!
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 4: The Tempest is frankly pretty amazing once it gets going and reading all the other league comics preceding it (including the nemo trilogy and the black dossier!) makes this hit so much harder!
This is one of those books/pieces of media, more then any other I've read that has a sense of finality to it, both in the sense that it is Moore's last work in comics and that it quite frankly lives up to its opening words as "story to end all stories"!
I may not agree 100 percent with Moore's thesis that works of fiction will be the end of the human race as we know it etc etc, but I can at least respect the level of craft he and artist Kevin O'Neill put into this final bit of fiction from them!
Honestly might be my favorite thing I've read/piece of media I've experienced this year so far!
I wasn't expecting a comic written by Alan "from joker to trump" Moore to be the best thing I've experienced this year but here we are I guess!
dantastic's review
4.0
Not my favorite League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume but still good. The leader of MI5 drinks from Ayesha's pool and all hell breaks loose. The end of the world comes to pass, after a fashion, and all the toys are properly put away.
Alan Moore continues to rely on the reader to shoulder the burden, making for a rewarding experience for those who've done their reading but frustrating for casual readers. I'd give myself a C+ on this but that's what rereads are for and the League merits a reread along with Promethea sometime down the road. He made some valid criticisms about super heroes and super hero comics that I'm sure pissed people off at the time this came out.
At the beginning of this journey, I didn't think Kevin O'Neil's art fit the tone. In this volume, he drew in five or six different styles and really proved himself to me, as if he needed to. Oddly enough, I liked Alan and Kevin trying to sneak into the wedding at the end and dismantling all the LOEG sets in the epilogue.
Four out of five stars.
Alan Moore continues to rely on the reader to shoulder the burden, making for a rewarding experience for those who've done their reading but frustrating for casual readers. I'd give myself a C+ on this but that's what rereads are for and the League merits a reread along with Promethea sometime down the road. He made some valid criticisms about super heroes and super hero comics that I'm sure pissed people off at the time this came out.
At the beginning of this journey, I didn't think Kevin O'Neil's art fit the tone. In this volume, he drew in five or six different styles and really proved himself to me, as if he needed to. Oddly enough, I liked Alan and Kevin trying to sneak into the wedding at the end and dismantling all the LOEG sets in the epilogue.
Four out of five stars.
adamskiboy528491's review
5.0
"Careful the spell you cast
Not just on children
Sometimes the spell may last
Past what you can see
And turn against you." - Stephen Sondheim, “Into The Woods”
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume IV: The Tempest by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill is the purported grand finale of the entire series. A six-issue series was released in 2018 and finally completed in July 2019. A multi-century arc ties together all the plotlines from the earlier stories and settings, mixed with Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We. It is the last comic Alan Moore will ever write (at least so far, according to him). A LOT IS GOING ON IN THIS VOLUME! It's so experimental, but somehow it's so beautiful to look at, thanks to the fantastic artwork by O'Neill. It felt like a Thomas Pynchon work in a comic book form. Reminder, Moore has a distinct style when laying out a comic page (e.g. in Watchmen, every panel, except for panels in crucial plot moments, is evenly spaced), so in this LoEG volume, he experiments with this. He expands on the pastiche and style of UK reprints of American comics…pretty much English reactions to American cultural hegemony in the late 20th century.
Tempest focuses on Mina's time in a super-team called the Seven Stars and shows what the surviving members are doing in the modern-day. Tempest is full of jabs against modern pop culture's obsession with superheroes. It begins by featuring a retirement home for elderly supers, and among them is Captain America…with a Swastika tattoo on the back of his head, likely meant to be a jab at the infamous 2016 storyline in which he became a Nazi in all but name as a brainwashed agent of HYDRA. The volume has all its issues beginning with spotlights on relatively unknown but otherwise highly influential comic creators called "Cheated Champions of Your Childhood". All of these generally discuss the lives and careers of these creators...and how they are often victims of the comic industry fucking them over, much like how Moore himself was. Still, some never managed to gain fame like Moore and disappeared into obscurity despite how much they had contributed to the medium.
The series hilariously ends with Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill themselves showing up in the comic only to be tossed out the airlock by Hugo. They also get some jabs at themselves in for good measure - it turned out that O'Neill was under the impression that he and Moore created some of the more obscure literary characters they used for the story. As well as, Moore admitted that his whole "ceremonial magician" schtick was just a gimmick he made up. Moore's immaterial concept of the "idea space" crops up as a significant plot point in Tempest. In Moore's perception, we as a human society have let our fiction control and transform us into the cultural decline mentioned above. This is portrayed in-universe with Prospero unleashing fiction back on Earth and making more references to real-life inside of the fictitious world of the League. I believe that Moore uses this as a metaphor for having all the works of fiction being humanity's downfall, which is a brilliant idea…yet, depressing when you think about it…
How could a world containing all of fiction be anything else?
Not just on children
Sometimes the spell may last
Past what you can see
And turn against you." - Stephen Sondheim, “Into The Woods”
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume IV: The Tempest by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill is the purported grand finale of the entire series. A six-issue series was released in 2018 and finally completed in July 2019. A multi-century arc ties together all the plotlines from the earlier stories and settings, mixed with Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We. It is the last comic Alan Moore will ever write (at least so far, according to him). A LOT IS GOING ON IN THIS VOLUME! It's so experimental, but somehow it's so beautiful to look at, thanks to the fantastic artwork by O'Neill. It felt like a Thomas Pynchon work in a comic book form. Reminder, Moore has a distinct style when laying out a comic page (e.g. in Watchmen, every panel, except for panels in crucial plot moments, is evenly spaced), so in this LoEG volume, he experiments with this. He expands on the pastiche and style of UK reprints of American comics…pretty much English reactions to American cultural hegemony in the late 20th century.
Tempest focuses on Mina's time in a super-team called the Seven Stars and shows what the surviving members are doing in the modern-day. Tempest is full of jabs against modern pop culture's obsession with superheroes. It begins by featuring a retirement home for elderly supers, and among them is Captain America…with a Swastika tattoo on the back of his head, likely meant to be a jab at the infamous 2016 storyline in which he became a Nazi in all but name as a brainwashed agent of HYDRA. The volume has all its issues beginning with spotlights on relatively unknown but otherwise highly influential comic creators called "Cheated Champions of Your Childhood". All of these generally discuss the lives and careers of these creators...and how they are often victims of the comic industry fucking them over, much like how Moore himself was. Still, some never managed to gain fame like Moore and disappeared into obscurity despite how much they had contributed to the medium.
The series hilariously ends with Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill themselves showing up in the comic only to be tossed out the airlock by Hugo. They also get some jabs at themselves in for good measure - it turned out that O'Neill was under the impression that he and Moore created some of the more obscure literary characters they used for the story. As well as, Moore admitted that his whole "ceremonial magician" schtick was just a gimmick he made up. Moore's immaterial concept of the "idea space" crops up as a significant plot point in Tempest. In Moore's perception, we as a human society have let our fiction control and transform us into the cultural decline mentioned above. This is portrayed in-universe with Prospero unleashing fiction back on Earth and making more references to real-life inside of the fictitious world of the League. I believe that Moore uses this as a metaphor for having all the works of fiction being humanity's downfall, which is a brilliant idea…yet, depressing when you think about it…
How could a world containing all of fiction be anything else?
latterature's review against another edition
4.0
After the underwhelming ‘Nemo’ trilogy, the series is back to its best, concluding both League’s multi-generational exploration of contemporary fiction and Moore and O’Neill’s comic book careers. Funny, inspired and biting, ‘Tempest’ conveys Moore’s feelings on how our fiction can effect reality and the over saturation of comic-book media through O’Neill’s typically vibrant and reference-laden illustration.