A secret organization of powerful figures is called into play to defend nineteenth-century England. The League, restored by Miss Wilhelmina Murray, includes such diverse figures as Captain Nemo, The Invisible Man, Allan Quatermain, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and Mr. Edward Hyde. All of literature combines as the group races to save London from The Doctor, and a menace closer to home.

Basically, it’s a modern comic series using every book ever written as a back-issue. It’s high adventure, it’s loaded with high-brow references, and it’s written and drawn with immense care and skill.
Violence: Oh, absolute scads. Shootings, stabbings, fatal beatings, and eviscerations abound. People are partially devoured, thrown from great heights. burned alive, poisoned, drowned, and blown up.

Sexualized violence: In the first volume, Mina is attacked (and nearly raped) in Egypt. The Invisible Man rapes a school-age girl and impregnates several off-panel. In the second volume, one of the team members (a man) is raped and murdered as retaliation for an attack.

Gender: Mina, the heroine, is an absolutely awesome character. She leads a group of sexist, violent men and doesn’t give an inch. Her pluck and determination saves the day repeatedly, and she enters into a relationship leading all the way.

Bechdel’s law:  Just barely. Mina has a brief chat with another woman while undercover.

Racism/transphobia/homophobia/ableism/other discrimination? Since the book is set in 1898, there are a lot of racist attitudes towards many characters, including Captain Nemo himself, who is Sikh. Dozens of Asian henchmen are killed in combat.  The racism is clearly intended as historically accurate, and implicitly contradicted by the text.

Any other possible squick factors or triggers? There’s a graphic sex scene between a young woman and an aged man. Childhood characters like Rupert the Bear are portrayed as hybrid monstrosities. There’s an extensive Traveller’s Almanac at the end of each issue of the second volume, and that amount of reading seems to put people off.

–Recomended by forum user Kelly Tindall

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