THE League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Video | Brows Held High

[@MRAakaCR]

Alternative title: Kyle trying to come to terms with the fact that he's into crossover AU angsty smut fanfiction for 111 minutes

[@daikaiser9394]

Come on, who isn't?

[@beanhurst]

Kyle trying to come to terms with whatever he's about to say for 111 minutes

[@Bluecho4]

I mean, we've all read/penned at least one angsty crossover fanfic in our times, haven't we?

[@ShalathePrinny]

I've given it a lot of thought and the league of extraordinary gentlemen is not fanfiction because I said so and because I love it

[@LazarSoljaga]

"Culture is becoming more cloud-like. And Allan Moore is the old man to yell at it"... My God i missed this man.

[@googamp32]

"The Shakespeare/Lovecraft crossover nobody wanted." Speak for yourself!

[@penguinmaster16]

yeah, any way we can spin this into a musical for the trifecta?

[@kokuinomusume]

@@penguinmaster16 "The Shadow over Verona", "Much Ado about Nodens", "The Taming of the Shoggoth"... the possibilities are endless.

[@kaelang12]

Shoggoth on the Roof is a thing. Just saying

[@or_gluzman561Peace_IL_PS]

@@kaelang12 for real or are you shitting my?

[@Ganondorfdude11]

As of a month ago, you can totally legally add Winnie the Pooh to that crossover as well.

[@RexMundane]

1:00:19 We can perhaps only guess Moore's specific take on Rowling, but I remember a point Terry Pratchett had been making around the same time, that I wonder if Moore shared. How she, and her enthusiastic press coverage, didn't seem to have much regard for the actual state of Fantasy/Genre Fiction at that time, that elevating her shouldn't mean diminishing every other author to exist between herself and Tolkein. That unnatural popularity/charisma would also jibe with many popular interpretations of Antichrist figures as well, even if here it'd be more subtext than text, but again, guessing here. "Rowling says that she didn’t realise that the first Potter book was fantasy until after it was published. I’m not the world’s greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?" - Terry Pratchett

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

My guess is that the media hype was mostly centered around just how popular the books were amongst children. Most authors tend to struggle or even die in obscurity before becoming a household name, but she was one of the very few lucky ones who happened to strike gold with her first book.

[@marksalmoneussorcerersupreme]

JK Rowling's a Giant pop tart.

[@totallynotalpharius2283]

@@marksalmoneussorcerersupreme an insult to delicious frosted breakfast treats tbh

[@AMortifyingOrdeal]

I felt this way when Atwood was all "Oh, it's not scifi." about Oryx and Crate. Like, you wrote about super-internet and crazy genetic manipulation... in the FUTURE. How is that not scifi?

[@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks]

@@AMortifyingOrdeal obviously science fiction is for silly babies unlike my serious important work /s

[@snakebitcat]

Kyle: “Why does Hyde have Predator vision?” Me: “For volume two.”

[@ShoggothLord]

You could say it's...sexual predator vision.

[@VuotoPneumaNN]

​@@ShoggothLord WOH

[@guillaumechevalier3368]

Well the first ever crossover event in History set the bar pretty high already, that is the poem of the Argonauts, assembling around Jason, most notably, Heracles, his nephew Iolaos, Orpheus, Castor, Pollux, hero and god of medicine Asclepios, and even the fathers of Odysseus, Achilles and Ajax.

[@Hawkatana]

And Atlanta. Can't forget about her.

[@spencerraney4979]

Arguably, you could say that modern comics and the pulp and popular heroes that preceded them (which are Moore’s whole schtick), constitute a modern version of mythology, especially as we continually shape these characters to fit our interests and societal concerns, and are shaped by them in turn (as Prospero even points out at the end of the Black Dossier). Just look at Sherlock Holmes; he is not a legendary figure, but instead is a piece of intellectual property which began only 135 years ago, and only ended 94 years ago. And yet, this is a character which has become burned into the public imagination to the point that most of us probably could not recall actually discovering him for the first time (and have basically always known him), and to the point that there have been successful franchises based on the works but which aren’t actually based on any story in the canon, since the 1940s. Essentially, this a a character where most of their mainstream output and characterization is essentially fan-fiction.

[@spencerraney4979]

And Nestor of Pylos, and the Hyperboreans. And Theseus, depending on some accounts (but not Eurypides).

[@guillaumechevalier3368]

@@Hawkatana to be fair they didn't take Atalanta, even in Ancient Greece sailors considered women on board as a risk.

[@MCArt25]

@@spencerraney4979 The big difference is that mythology is open source (and arguably, CC) while modern superheroes are proprietary franchises. Considering, this says a lot about the world we live in.

[@Vesperitis]

Fun fact: Journey to the West is also a massive crossover with characters from multiple stories that also incorporates real world historical figures. Tripitaka is based on a real life monk, Sun Wukong (Monkey) is based on Hanuman from India, Sha Wujing (Sandy) might be an early version of a kappa from Japan, and the Buddha is portrayed as the top god.

[@lissaquon607]

So what's pigsy?

[@Strawberry92fs]

So did this Hunuman beat up everyone in heaven because they were bored? That's what Sun Wukong did right? so they dropped a mountain on him? then he hangs out with Tripitaka on his epic quest?

[@Vesperitis]

@@Strawberry92fs its not one on one, but like Wukong, Hanuman had a lot of great adventures of his own, obtaining invincibility and immortality several times over, he's a great fighter, has a lot of powers, has a disruptive, destructive nature but is ultimately not a malicious creature, and most importantly becomes a steadfast ally to the real main character, Rama. Pigsy is based on a Taoist marshal of heaven. Journey to the West basically took a character from another canon and 'sequelized' him by making him a fallen hero, where he was banished to earth after he attempted to molest a moon goddess. This is because JTTW was in part an allegory and propaganda piece to paint Buddhism as superior to Taoism (hence why Buddha is top god, Tripitaka is the noble leader of the group despite acting like an idiot asshole many times)

[@kevinb.2595]

All of my cultural knowledge of Hanuman comes from that one episode of Mighty Max where he teams up with Beowulf.

[@user-gy9th8ei8c]

Sha Wujing was actually based on a minor deity that featured in an anecdotal story in a biography of the real like monk that Tripitaka is based on. It's only in Japan (after the story was transmitted there from China) that he became interpreted as a kappa-like figure. Even now in media such as TV shows, only Japanese media portrays him with kappa characteristics whereas Chinese media (and most other mainland Asian countries) portrays him as a demon.

[@rotomfan63]

The idea that Sun Wukong as he is in Journey To The West could ever die is insane, like he did about... 4 or 5 methods of immortality unlocking before the main character of the story even EXISTS if i recall correctly

[@mattsherlock9636]

Hey I Alan Moore, Having never read Journey to The West, Am clearly an authority on all of fiction Except when It Conflicts with My Narrative. Which is Why The Criticism that I Am Clearly Ignorant Of Mina's Character from the Dracula Novel is Wrong and Mina and Adler Are Clearly just Archetypical Action Ladies!!!

[@rainspectre3153]

More over, showing one of the most legendary figures in East Asian literature as little more than a stuffed museum exhibit is downright offensive IMO. Moore mostly likely just saw "Asian monkey hero" in a textbook, and left it at that.

[@austinreed7343]

@@rainspectre3153 And he didn't use the OTHER Goku at all. Very, very little East Asian references, not even in the illustrations.

[@rainspectre3153]

@@austinreed7343 Given Moore's open distaste in the book for American pop-culture "replacing" British pop-culture, I'd say this is pretty bluntly him being an outright nationalist. He just has zero interest in any culture that isn't the one he grew up in. Willing to bet that was his true reason for the Golliwog. He grew up with the book as a child, and wanted to "justify" it after it became known as racist.

[@austinreed7343]

@@rainspectre3153 I suppose most of the non-British references are all on the illustrators.

[@Jaspertine]

Wait, the amazon women on the moon are out of sperm? You're telling me this comic made "Snu Snu" a plot point?

[@grantus_pax]

this is really recontextualizing that cute myth about the rabbit on the moon that pounds a sticky white substance into candy >.>>>

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

Reproduction was a very common mcguffin in the space-explorers-discover-a-planet-inhabited-entirely-by-beautiful-women subgenre of sci-fi from 50s and 60s movies

[@joseMgarcia0711]

"Why is God Mary Poppins." I had no idea I would ever hear such absurdity, yet only see the video dive into further madness. The only exposure to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for me was the movie and I am happier now knowing more about the original vision from Alan Moore.

[@Drilling4mana]

Okay wow, "We're rebuilding a childhood with our pop culture" has simultaneously helped me understand why I am dissatisfied with modern media in a big way *and* profoundly bummed me out. But like. In a good way. Constructively.

[@Drilling4mana]

I made it to Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine before I had to stop and take a moment to collect myself because WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

[@MattEldritchHorror]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "We're rebuilding a childhood with our pop culture". Could you please explain it to me?

[@testest12344]

@@MattEldritchHorror Probably the way the modern movie/tv industry is built on reboots and adaptations, especially of things that might incite nostalgia.

[@MattEldritchHorror]

@@testest12344 Ah, that clears things up for me. Thank you!

[@tenaciousrodent6251]

Think of anything you perceive as negative, it will inevitably be related to entropy. It's why most people hate any change.

[@PantaroParatroopa]

Me before watching: "So, it's that thing that's basically The Avengers but with classic literature? Cool." Me about 60% of the way through: "I'm glad to be a fan of things that make sense, like Kingdom Hearts and Homestuck." EDIT Me, a day later, 99.7% of the way through: 🐍

[@memequern8087]

Honestly I appriciated reading this because as a fan of Alan Moores work in general and a one piece stan on top of that. I've still always assumed Hometuck and Kingdom Hearts where too big and convoluted for me to keep up with and it's nice to know it goes both ways 😂

[@VuotoPneumaNN]

A duck? You think they're cuddly, but I think they're sinister.

[@debrachambers1304]

My mind would've compared them to the Justice League first. Because, y'know, they both have the word "League" in the name

[@vtmarik]

🐍

[@Bluecho4]

As an OG fan of Homestuck, I LOL'd. It keeps hapening.

[@csljrrt09]

When you explained where Babar the Elephant was placed I literally paused the video and had to think about it for a couple of minutes. That was probably what broke me. 🐍

[@rangerkasdorf4476]

I'm still not sure I get exactly what the implication is honestly. I suspect it's something unsavory.

[@csljrrt09]

@@rangerkasdorf4476 He is going to be turned into a hunting trophy.

[@MattEldritchHorror]

@@rangerkasdorf4476 In the Jess Nevin's annotations, I think it was as a commentary towards colonialsim and implying that Kurtz killed Babar's family.

[@ebmosier1]

"Why is Mary Poppins God?" Because...she's practically perfect in every way?

[@legomaniac213]

If you could singlehandedly wipe out a ship full of space pirates just by whistling, you'd consider yourself pretty godlike too. (I may be thinking of the wrong Mary Poppins)

[@Zenmyster]

Sure And she can fly well enough to teach Princess Leia to do it.

[@psukebariah3435]

If you read the books, she really is pretty close to God like. Oh, and she is a b**ch. Forget the Disney Poppins. I mean, I love that movie, but the Poppins of the books is a bad ass b**ch, and I love her dearly.

[@bleddynwolf8463]

if you've read the books, her being god, or at least of deity power is almost canon

[@AustinMello]

Yea, I immediately accepted that Mary Poppins would be god. It passes the smell test effortlessly. Honestly the best candidate I've heard suggested. This is my religion now.

[@morganqorishchi8181]

To answer your question/confusion on why 1984 took place in 1948: that was what the original author of 1984 wanted. Alan Moore canonizing it in his universe isn't him being weird, it's him going with the originally intended canon.

[@digitaljanus]

19:45 I once heard an interview with Jess Nevins where he hypothesized Moore's references in the later books get more and more obscure in an attempt to stump his annotations.

[@VideoGuyIdiot22]

If I remember correctly, the second annotation volume had a chapter titled "in which Alan Moore tries to kill me".

[@austinreed7343]

O’Neil throwing in some out of left field references helped.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

I think the reason why the first two volumes of the series are generally favored over the latter volumes is because you can tell where Moore’s enthusiasm lay. As dark and uncomfortable as they can get, there was still a sense of fun and interest in the story being told. But the further the series goes, it becomes less fun and more of a chore to read - like reading some negative nancy’s online diatribe on how much society has fallen compared to their youthful days. It just becomes exhausting, to the point where you ultimately stop caring. The only series that seems to avoid this trap is the Janni Nemo series. At least there, Moore wasn’t occupied with getting across some kind of meta commentary on why modern pop-culture sucks and just has some good ol’ pulpy fun with the crossover series.

[@TheOldMPClub]

Not really, The first two volumes and the Nemo trilogy still contained Moore's deconstruction points of view underneath the adventure. But if you don't know what Moore's thoughts are you are going to miss a lot of what Moore hoped to preach to you. Kyle clearly glossed over quite a number of them in this very video.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

​@@TheOldMPClub I didn't say they weren't present in the Nemo series; I merely stated that they didn't take the center stage. It's all subtle and in the characters' actions. Tom Swift casually spouting out racial slurs and Caligari's use of sleep-commandos are way more effective at getting the point across than just having the characters pointing out the author's meta commentary like in "Century" or "Tempest".

[@austinreed7343]

@@TheOldMPClub Further, Nemo still has him dismissive of non-Western culture.

[@mattytfreeman]

I'd also argue that those characters are well known enough via pop cultural osmosis, whereas it gets stuck up it's own arse by The Tempest.

[@austinreed7343]

@@mattytfreeman Yes, he did seem to run out of characters, more or less, unless he backtracked to earlier eras (he did so in part) or used more non-Western characters.

[@Branfon]

Not sure if it was an intentional joke or not, but I love how "Dorian Grey," pops up right when they say "hasn't aged well at all." I hope it was intentional because I love it.

[@whynaut1]

My favorite reference in The Sundered Veil is one of Quartermain's visons he sees a gorilla singing polka in front of a giant milk stool. This is Mr. Hyde's last moments in front of the Tripod at the end of volume 2, and the Sundered Veils was written a year or more earlier!

[@MutatedMae]

Perhaps the most baffling omission from this series? Paddington. Most likely because most of the conflicts could be resolved with a "hard stare".

[@aYT-hs6kj]

A similar omission could be Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. Or at least in my opinion.

[@ConvincingPeople]

I think Paddington does make a cameo if you're paying really close attention.

[@aYT-hs6kj]

@@ConvincingPeople I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Winnie the Pooh

[@ConvincingPeople]

@@aYT-hs6kj No, I can differentiate between fictional bears. Winnie-the-Pooh shows up much more prominently.

[@eamonndeane587]

Truly a Missed opportunity...

[@ROotHM]

Speaking as someone who noped out of The League when Pollyanna was Alan Moored, I deeply appreciate this deepest of dives into the entirety of this opus. 🐍

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

Don't ever read his other work The Lost Girls. Pollyanna got the light treatment compared to Wendy (Peter Pan), Alice (Alice in Wonderland), and Dorothy (Wizard of Oz)...

[@katherinealvarez9216]

I noped out out after the whole Not Harry Potter (haven't read Black Dossier though).

[@lewsmith9708]

NGL: Moore's anecdote about Frankenstein kidnapping one of the Little Women characters and being thwarted by Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot sounds rad af.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

It would be a bit of a complicated can of worms, seeing as how the characters lived in vastly separate decades from each other in their respective works, but I guess that’s never stopped authors before.

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

1:30:10 *the League is scaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by the capitalism [of the comic industry]: SPACE!*

[@warlockofwordschannel7901]

Hah! Very nice Tim Curry meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, something we didn't get in the series itself.

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

@@warlockofwordschannel7901 I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Dr. Frank-N-Furter cameo somewhere in the comics

[@thegayghost872]

This comic has the same vibes as those hyper-realistic Pokemon drawings where Pikachu has a lamprey mouth and eats children, if that makes sense

[@TOMNICE]

You mean fanfics that turn family-friendly media into more gory and edgy?

[@thegayghost872]

@@TOMNICE Yes

[@ToaAxiomMan]

to best describe LOEG very badly (jokingly and maybe sarcastically) Vol 1: "League Assemble!" Vol 2: "our invisible ally turns evil and we hire some guy who makes children's characters to stop some martians" Black Dossier: "James Bond is evil and Prospero lives in a blazing world" Century: "Let's Stop The Antichrist who turns out to be some body with glasses with an identifiable scar on his forehead and goes to some wizarding school with the help of Mary Poppins" The Tempest: "our world is drowning in fiction too bad! let's go to on a rocket with the remaining fictional characters to evade a Terminator and Apes apocalypse war"

[@tenkiforecast]

Honestly, my favorite story of the Comic Book Industry's grumpy old man Alan Moore's is "For the Man Who Has Everything." At least the animated adaptation doesn't have a 'then an Alan Moore happens', no angry condemnations of comics/anything similar, but an exploration of who/why Superman is Superman with something that highlights why the character persisted past the 1930s/1940s. Also led to one of the only good adaptations of an Alan Moore story in the Justice League Unlimited episode adapting the story (In some ways I like over the comic, but differences in time/length/characters present/tone, ymmv).

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

It’s also the only one Alan Moore allowed to have his name put on for the adaptation.

[@ActuallyAnanya]

I'm Indian and I've never heard of the name "Janni" being used by a South Asian. Jhanvi/Jaanvi or Jhanki/Jaanki could've been used instead. I have an aunt named Jincy. Looking it up, there's even a very rare name, "Jennet" meaning heavensent, which would've been perfect for a mishearing as Jenny.

[@Sekei..]

My girlfriend's childhood bestie is half-indian and her name is Jehanra, which is usually shortened to Janni. Her dad's family are parsis though which might explain why it's uncommon.

[@morganalabeille5004]

Jennet could've been misheard as Janet. Or heck it could've just been transliterated that way.

[@Felladin]

The last part, how fiction that is based on references forgets references outside the authors sphere is one of my issues with Ready Player One. The premise is to know everything about pop culture, but there is nothing from Soviet movies that were spread in Europe, or the French/Belgian cartoons that didn't cross the sea. And this is just my viewpoint as a Swede, which was still a very US influenced cultural childhood.

[@TheOldMPClub]

Complaining about things Moore doesn't know was one of the favorite past times when League was being made. Moore makes it even more frustrating by clearly being the type of person who thinks the readers interpretation of the story is more important than the story itself. Which left many who did know the characters that did make it in feeling Moore deconstructed them beyond any acceptable breaking point.

[@hobiefolis1597]

Projects like these CAN be used as a way to increase any work's notoriety. Put less known ones alongside better known ones. Put other country's characters in there alongside the more famous British and American ones. Rescue forgotten undersung works and include them. But that's work a lot of people aren't willing to do. And when people don't fight back, gatekeepers win.

[@walrusArmageddon]

As a Canadian I empathize, grew up with nickleodean but would be more than suprised if anybody outside Canada knows Ivan of the Yukon or Jacob Two Two or Being Ian.

[@sciencefantastic]

Ya I don’t think Ernest Cline has seen Come and See or ANYTHING by Andrey Tartakovsky.

[@austinreed7343]

@@walrusArmageddon I vaguely remember Jacob Two Two on Qubo. It sucked.

[@austinreed7343]

Presenting a warts-and-all portrayal of the Victorian era is one thing, but insinuating that said stereotypes are not only true but persist well PAST the era, and including very few positive/honest portrayals otherwise and dunking on foreign cultural icons (Godzilla never gets to be a major villain like Bond, and both Harry and the Big G are pretty one dimensional in their roles) is quite another.

[@usbmassstoragedevice]

Oh my god Moon River playing when you started discussing Fu Manchu, roasting Mickey Rooney without saying a word, just perfection

[@davidranderson1]

Is Alan Moore now Roy Thomas? Thomas developed an obsessive, nostalgic desire to create a joint chronology linking even the most obscure World War II characters -- the prime examples being Invaders and All-Star Squadron, but it carries over into his Avengers and Justice Society stories. Moore did the same thing with Victorian era stories in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It's interesting that Thomas, an American, became fixated with World War II -- the starting point of the "American Century" -- and Moore, an Englishman, is fixated with the period referred to as Britain's Imperial Century (1815 to 1914).

[@troyjardine5850]

58:40 Holy shit! I knew you couldn't make a story containing all of the United Kingdom's fantasy stories without a mention of Thomas the Tank Engine!

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

Well, he did neglect Tolkien’s work - which is surprising.

[@TrojanTeapot]

@@geoffreyrichards6079 The Tolkien estate would never let him.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

@@TrojanTeapot He could’ve gotten away with a couple stealthy references. I mean, Edward M. Erdelac got away with conflating Sauron with Nyarlathotep in his “Merkabah Rider” series.

[@rafmeinster]

@@geoffreyrichards6079 Alan Moore has gone on the record that he doesn't like the Lord of the Rings.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

@@rafmeinster He included other media he dislikes in the LoEG universe anyways.

[@AdamYJ]

I’d like to point out that not only are Squidward and Moby Dick in the same panel, it’s Moby Dick drawn to resemble the version from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor.

[@johnbarten3903]

Dude you gotta tell me which issue that is, because I’ve been trying to find it. I NEED to see this lol 🐍

[@ThaKid14]

bump this post. where is it??? haha

[@ThaKid14]

@@johnbarten3903 I found it! Its in The Tempest - So Volume IV and it's in issue 5 on page 23 panel 4 - so right near the end of the issue, the page right before the Nautilus spaceship reveal. I totally missed that on my first read through and hilarious that someone spotted it. There are so many random wtf moments and random references that I just got tired of trying to figure it all out. I just wanted to get through it all and be done with this series that at times was fun yet absolutely ridiculous. haha. Moore just tried to do way too much. Sorry Alan but come on bud.

[@johnbarten3903]

@@ThaKid14 Looked up some scans and found it as well. Thanks for taking the time to find this comment again and reply to me. I really appreciate it! Have a good week!

[@JeevesAnthrozaurUS]

This video gave me just the slightest taste of what it's like to be a Veteran of a Thousand Psychic Wars

[@morganqorishchi8181]

This whole thing feels like a fever dream in all the same ways Jenny Nicholson's THE Vampire Diaries Video does, and as in-depth. It's delightful and also had me staring at my screen in mesmerized shock. Edit: Also just like what you took inspiration from, I keep catching details upon rewatches that my brain refused to process the first time. Pitch perfect in tone and information density. Well done!

[@bryanmarco4515]

SPOILER WARNING 37:04 This subversion of "Billy Bunter to Big Brother" that Alan Moore and George Orwell thought of, reminds me of a lesser-known work by Umberto Eco: "DIARIO MINIMO, Elogio a Franti" (In Praise of Franti), referring to the italian children's novel "CUORE" (HEART: Diary of a Child), written by Edmondo De Amicis and published in 1886, 25 years after the unification of Italy. Franti's character in the novel is a negative, irreverent and disrespectful figure towards Order, while the rest of the characters ARE the model to aspire to in order to be future citizens and subjects of the Kingdom of Italy. From this base, Umberto Eco underlines how this generation of kids will grow up to give life to Fascism. In contrast to the little considered, hated Franti with his sarcastic smile is a rebellious, anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist figure.

[@penelnorman7383]

I found the connection between the boarding school adventures and the government of 1984 particularly interesting. I'm taking a class right now on George Orwell's complete works and the point we keep returning to in class is his strange position as both a representative member of British imperial institutions and as one of its major critics. He has another essay called 'Such, Such Were the Joys' where he describes his time in boarding school and how the attitudes within it, specifically they way they were systematically inflicted by abuse, enforced dominant ideas within the UK, mainly classism and insularity. I feel like that relates to the level of violence and nostalgia in these texts, as this video argues more broadly. Just mentioning this to boost the main thesis/Sondheim reference/feed the algorithm.

[@OhMyGoshItsALeg]

I was always distantly fascinated with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a concept and kept absorbing its hand-me-down bastard children in lieu of the actual thing, i.e. I've spent a lot of time reading absurd crossover fanfiction on the Internet. Fun fact: one of the longest works of single-continuity fiction in the English language is a four million word Super Smash Bros. fanfic that crosses it over with a dozen other extraneous media properties that were popular with gamer teen boys in the early 2000's, because of course that's the sort of person who wrote it. And I think that's a great encapsulation of Alan Moore and the League. It's fanfiction, but of course it's only going to really care about the stuff that Alan Moore cares about, or reference things he thinks are worth referencing. Alan Moore's relationship with modern superhero comics is obviously a strained and bitter one, but his relationship with the 'canon' of English literature seems to be more nostalgic for him. Meanwhile, there's great works of literature being created by people for whom the comics Alan Moore wrote hold the same place in their hearts that Alan Moore's influences hold in his. And I think that's both beautiful and scary. It's proof that even when culture seems to stagnate and feed back into itself, it's not the end of nuance or evolution in culture. And it's proof that the death of the author is only a useful rubric for understanding media if you're not concerned with understanding the culture that produced it, and that it produced. Edit: also here's where I'd put a snake emoji if I wasn't on a desktop... I'm sure there's a way to put an emoji here from my desktop but I don't want to learn how because it seems like an unpleasant piece of knowledge to pursue. Thanks for making this and all the other things, too, Kyle, it was a helluva ride.

[@Morbos1000]

Funny how it was claimed Watchmen was unfilmable. League seems WAY more convoluted and impossible to put to film in a way faithful to the book. The movie is evidence of this.

[@MrPjw5]

Maybe if a mad genius like Terry Gilliam or David Lynch was behind it. Or hell, maybe Zach Snyder could do it since his best known films involve copying and pasting comics written by once-fantastic authors who have now become bitter, senile old men.

[@murph0480]

I think I've never given Kyle credit for how good his comedic timing is. "That's so sweet you were just [BLEEP]ing a man to death 2 pages ago" really got me

[@Danny-qc8fv]

🐍This was great! No mere theft of a Jenny Nicholson format-this was a really fun deep dive.

[@guillaumechevalier3368]

Oh dear, I indeed stopped after the "Mars" run, since the "Black Dossier" wasn't available in Europe, and then lost track. Thank you so much for this nightmarish expedition into the hundreds of pages that I had so far eluded.🐍

[@spencerraney4979]

I’ve been a fan since ‘09, and I’m just thrilled Kyle is doing this. Perfect pre-birthday treat.

[@AllWIllFall2Me]

Just had a thought about the **SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE WHOLE VIDEO OR READ CENTURY 2009*** Mary Poppins as God question, which I think is an interesting take, but it's late and I just want to get it out before going to bed, so my gravest apologies if anyone else in the comments makes this point: maybe it's because she's the Anti-Harry Potter. Harry Potter is escapism, and seemingly stale/banal escapism to Moore: a sad boy with an abusive family is discovered to actually have great powers and secret wealth. He leaves the normal world for a magical one, where he solves most of his problems through violence, culminating in accepting violence against himself. Mary Poppins is a powerful magical entity who works in the 'normal' world to protect and empower children with imagination. She teaches them kindness, she teaches them how to work productively without it being grueling, she motivates them to invest in their communities instead of for their own gain. She brings joy and laughter, rather than a ever-more dour magical war. The ONLY person to die in the original Mary Poppins movie does so off-screen, and it is treated as acceptable because he had at least found joy before his passing. She teaches engagement, not escapism. Mary Poppins is, presumably, the kind of "superhero" that Alan Moore wants to see more of: a non-lethal protector and bringer of joy, who tells children the stories that they can work hard, enjoy life, and not be afraid of being a little silly now and again. She even solves this battle in a technically non-violent way. So if she's the anti-Harry Potter, and Harry Potter is the Anti-Christ, by the transitive property, she is Christ/God. Oh, and since I didn't have it on the first comment: 🐍

[@thekrakenexperiment280]

As much as I love Alan Moore’s writing and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in particular, I can’t help but find some of Moore’s beliefs to be hypocritical. He is very vocal about his displeasure towards writers adapting or reinterpreting his work, yet he doesn’t seem to realize that he does the same thing to other writers. I doubt that Lewis Carroll would appreciate how Alice is portrayed in Lost Girls and I’m certain Eleanor H Porter would not like Pollyanna being Alan Moored. 🐍

[@rainspectre3153]

Yeah the persistent hypocrisy is what kills the books for me. Moore feels like he has no thesis outside of the one devote to mindless complaining about a world he doesn't understand. Like, you can't critique culture without engaging in it. That's just bad faith.

[@Leiliel1]

@@John_Malka-tits Please point out where he is not.

[@dairallan]

"I doubt that Lewis Carroll would appreciate how Alice is portrayed in Lost Girls" well Ive not read Lost Girls. But how its described, I think Carroll would have loved it...

[@WereScrib]

@@dairallan Honestly, while Carroll is an odd fellow for sure, but lazy biologists who never researched into Victorian cultural constructs around children interpret, what was frankly at best slightly exaggerated generic children-as-pure-nude-form obsessions of the era with modern horniness, and also never bothered to look that he has letters that are both flirty and aggressively sexual for the era and his status with adult women, as well as the absolute falsehood that he abandoned friendship with girls who grew up beyond 14. Dodgeson as a whole is someone who has been heavily re-examined and mostly seems to have been framed in an elaborate series of 'oh look at the DRAMA!' books and articles that have accused him of hating women who weren't pure virgins and therefore being jack the ripper, being in a sex abuse cult with the Liddel family, and basically spurious and fanciful stories that have grown to expand his reputation. Frankly, it's more likely he was what he seemed to be, a normal Victorian conservative who was obsessed with mathematics and games. His books reflect his politics and social views more than they reflect any aggressive examination of young women, and other than Alice being based on Liddel, there's no real other characters that could have a similar role. Even then the transformation between Wonderland and Looking Glass is clearly about his own depression and struggle with the loss of his father than Liddel growing up, despite what many authors have stated. Frankly, I think we should more ask 'what would Carroll/Dodgeson think,' as he would certainly have been well, depressed, mostly. We should probably be concerned with turning a story about a real woman's suffused into a fantastic character to entertain her and other young girls' opinion, much like how we should probably be uncomfortable with horny adult takes on Peter Robbin.

[@winterhtech]

It's as if he *ahem* Alan Moore's these literary characters.

[@murciadoxial8056]

It would be interesting to team up a bunch of writers of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, all taking works of fiction from their places of origin and making some sort of league analog, but with all of those voices together.

[@TheOldMPClub]

Still waiting for many academic institutions to get more serious in rescuing more older works and make them readily available to the whole world rather than just their own little clubs.

[@MattEldritchHorror]

Do you think it could work in a sort of round-robin/Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers Maxi-Series kind of way?

[@MidwestMountainMan]

Could be interesting, but the advantage of using ensemble casts of previous characters is audience familiarity. You know who Batman is, you know who Spider-Man is, now they're teaming up and the writer doesn't have to explain why Peter Parker is a dork or why Batman doesn't use guns. With bringing in unfamiliar characters, you'd not only have to explain the character, but also the cultural context those characters come from, because their values and behaviors will naturally be very different to a modern Western audience. All of which is to say, it could be a cool story! It'd just be very challenging to write, especially if a broader audience is sought.

[@artfcialtv]

@@MidwestMountainMan Eh, If it was nonsense writing made in a similar fashion to old folclore and fairytales it could work. You know? Instead of having a moral or following a set structure like the hero’s journey, have it just be a succession of vaguely connected scenes in a straight timeline. Maybe adding a theme or motif to connect it all.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

In-lore (according to the LOEG: Black Dossier), a lot of countries tried to create their own LOEG with variable success, even the British failed to created LOEG 2.0 after the original team was dissolved...

[@KingOfDoma]

Minor note: I know you were mispronouncing Spider-Man for comedic effect, but Spiders-Man is a character in the Marvel universe. He's a hive mind of spiders that thinks it's Peter Parker... because they ate him. Also, introduced in a crossover event. Relevant! 🐍

[@LuisRodriguez-kz7nt]

Please...help me...I'm old and You are the seventh by now I read...WHAT DOES THE SNEK EMOJI MEAAAN??!

[@ttthecat]

Sorry to be old but what do you mean by the snake emoji?

[@ttthecat]

​@@LuisRodriguez-kz7nt I don't get it either?🤷🏾‍♀️

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

"Really depressing examinations of what is to grow older and watch your dreams die"... an accurate description of Volume 3 (and parts of the Black Dossier) if I ever heard one

[@maridan48]

I was legit invested in Allan and Mina's relationship for some reason. Damn you Harry Potter.

[@JohnOhno]

So, here's my position on why Mary Poppins is god: P. L. Travers was part of G. I. Gurdjieff's 4th way group/cult/whatever, & modeled the character of Mary Poppins partially on her take on Gurdjieff's idea of what a fully awakened/ascended human would be like. Gurdjieff's model was based on the idea that most people spend most of their time fixated on either their thoughts or their feelings & didn't pay enough attention to both the outside world and their inner experience of being embodied, & thought that through a sustained process of paying close attention, even when paying attention was difficult or painful, you could eventually develop an independent will -- which he considered the same thing as a soul. In his cosmology, while normal people's life energy went to the moon when they died, all the bits of soul that people developed over their lives would go to a second, invisible moon which, once it got big enough, would go to the sun and then become something like god. Gurdjieff himself was very good at analyzing and manipulating people, which his followers attributed to his dedication to paying attention to people, even though he was quite gruff; likewise, people attributed some supernatural powers to him, which he always brushed off as unimportant (treating people like idiots for acting as though these supernatural powers were special). These two elements are the primary characteristics of Mary Poppins in the original books (while the film tones down her harshness quite a bit and makes her sometimes quite sentimental -- which pissed Travers off). Anyway, since Mary Poppins is essentially a gender-flipped Gurdjieff with all the parts that Gurdjieff thought would make people become part of god amplified, it makes perfect sense in his framework that Mary Poppins would be god.

[@TheOldMPClub]

The Gurdjieff connection is an important one that people forget. It also makes complete sense if you understand Moore's criticism on "magic" that he weaved into Century. Gurdjieff's ideas are closer to Alan Moore's idea space concept which in League world literally is the Blazing World. Hence why she is the agent Propsero sends in to the battle wearing the Blazing world glasses to oppose Oliver Haddo (stand in for Aleister Crowley) and Harry Potter (the representation of magic as wish fulfillment literature). Moore's idea space magic easily trumps occultism magic here. Moore never seems to miss real world connections for deconstruction. Factual character details arent anywhere near as treasured.

[@greenfeverz613]

@@TheOldMPClub Remember too Moore is using Prospero as a stand in for John Dee. I would imagine anyone who has no clue what we're talking about here should do some homework into the likes of John Dee, Aleister Crowley, G. I. Gurdjieff', Austin Osman Spare and Kenneth Grant and how they compare and contrast to Moore's actual thoughts (read: not the wacky public persona he taunts comic nerds with) I'm not surprised that part of Century confuses the hell out of the general comics world though. The lack of challenge analogy point is by contrast much easier to see.

[@Fopenplop]

WHAT

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

Funny how the film adaptation tones her harshness down, because one of the criticisms my mom has with the Disney interpretation is that Mary felt too stern for her liking.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

54:41 I'm headcanonning that Tom falsely telling Mina that he teaches magic at "a school in the North" happens the summer before the winter when he actually applies for the position - as flashbacked in book 6 - and the Headmaster rejects him. Tom being the entitled piece of sh*t he is, he'd assumed that OF COURSE the position would be his for the asking and never dreamt that he would ever be denied it. Also: Trans people exist. Billionaires shouldn't. Life to not-fascism!

[@ConvincingPeople]

That was my takeaway, honestly. I also get the sense that much of the way that the Potter Antichrist episode is framed is directly drawing upon the late great Ursula K. Le Guin's wonderfully tart critiques of Rowling's lack of originality and, as she saw it (and more importantly), moral mean-spiritedness. Which, in retrospect, was very apt.

[@kokuinomusume]

@@ConvincingPeople The biggest problem back then was the viciousness of the portrayal of the, er, magic school when in the previous volume the Greyfriars subplot was deconstructed with less edgelordism and giving the characters villain roles that weren't as over the top. Nowadays I have lost the ability to care about the series with the wizard kids but when Century came out the discrepancy rankled.

[@DanielRoffle]

@@kokuinomusume I think one thing I didn't realise before moving to the UK is how much the boarding schools that Hogwarts resembles (even though it doesn't work like them) are seen as the ultimate incubators of evil, it's where the entire cultural and political ruling class get traumatized into becoming the monsters they are. So I think that especially for a working class author like Moore the very concept of a boarding school that is fun and a good thing is so rage inducing that he probably couldn't look much past that at any rate.

[@MattEldritchHorror]

@@kokuinomusume The Greyfriars subplot was also based on the real world practice of how (if at least) the British government recruited future spies.

[@Wintermute01001]

@@DanielRoffle Hatred of boarding schools seems to be rather common among older Brits. Roald Dahl and CS Lewis both put multiple Take Thats to British schools in their work.

[@user-wm1em1rg4p]

Part of why Alan Moore remains fascinating is that he seems reluctant to admit the seeds of the things he dislikes about his fanbase are in his text. They like the mask because you put V in a setting where he can be interpreted as a good guy! They like Rorschach because you gave him cool fight scenes and catchphrases! You attract fascists and bigots because you Alan Moore someone every twenty pages and make minstrel apologia! 🐍

[@UnfortunatelyTheHunger]

When will you learn that actions have consequences, indeed

[@lissaquon607]

Yea him being baffled about V becoming an icon/symbol THING - feels really hilarious. Like my dude you literally wrote him a martyr.

[@jackcinephile7554]

Not only that, but Rorschach exists in a world in which his colleagues are degenerates, a rapist, and a god with no empathy. Suddenly, a lunatic who violently murders child molesters in explosions, and does anything in his power to deliver his brand of justice on to anyone who irrevocably harms innocent people, doesn't seem so bad. Not to mention, he has such a depressing backstory that you just want to give him a hug for everything he's been through. So obviously people are going to latch on to him more than anyone else in the story!! What the fuck did you expect, Alan?

[@CT_Phipps]

@@jackcinephile7554 Rorshach is notably the only one who finds anything wrong with a plan that involved the murder of millions and lying to the public. Everyone else accepts that the people are stupid and don't deserve the truth.

[@CT_Phipps]

@@lissaquon607 I mean, V is a lunatic, but in the choice between anarchism and fascism--always choose anarchism.

[@starwars90001]

Hearing this summary made me realize that Alan Moore is the world's biggest fanfic writer. He just uses public domain characters so nobody thinks of his work that way. The plot of this story sounds like something off fan fiction net.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

To be fair, aren't all works of literature and fiction technically fanfics?

[@starwars90001]

@@geoffreyrichards6079 yes.

[@UnfortunatelyTheHunger]

@@geoffreyrichards6079 Yes, they are. IP laws are literally the only reason we need the word 'fanfic' in the first place.

[@austinreed7343]

My attempt to try and show the conflict between the apes and machines from the perspective of Earth, which keeps the logic of LOEG intact, would still feel fanfiction because it’s full of copyrighted characters mostly of Eastern origin.

[@PatheticApathetic]

@@geoffreyrichards6079 no. There are works of fiction that aren’t based on pre-existing work

[@PaintSplashProductions]

The idea of the League is really interesting and compelling. I’d watch a tv show with them. The problem is when you actually read the thing and you question is Alan Moore okay?

[@hobiefolis1597]

I think it's interesting that Orwell's argument there can easily be used for both a pro-curation argument and an anti-curation argument. What kids are reading (or not reading) or just learning do have an affect on them as they get older. Some will argue this is a reason an authority needs to make sure they are exposed to the "right" things. And some will argue this is the reason they should be taught counter ideas on everything. If they are limited they are never going to be able to understand things outside of it easily. But that's clearly not how most of academia wants it. It's not curious why so many youth today seem to have no problem questioning the authority of a government, religion or family but have very little desire to burn down their school or hospital. But why not? Are they not still authorities over your life? Are you still not enslaved to the teacher who thinks they know what is smarter for you as the priest who thinks they know what is holy for you? You don't want to be seen as someone who is superior based on race but the entire mental health industry runs on the idea you are superior to people with different brain chemistry. What's the difference? You like one more than the other? I'd think that's what every racist or sexist would say all the same. It all seems like superiority and prejudice are the real problems. And the kind of schooling that produces people just alters which forms of superiority you feel entitled to. As such the alternative is one where students are actively encouraged to challenge any authority in their life and not be treated differently because of it.

[@mrsnufflegums]

That jacket looks great on you Kyle, and i love the beard you really look like you've uh gone through the ringer while doing the Starship Troopers trilogy last year

[@tatehildyard5332]

Yeah. After pretty much every BHH video of the last few years, I end up wanting to say “Hey budddy…you doing ok? We’re a little concerned”

[@tomhudson8405]

Poor old Alan Moore. Who wouldn't get disillusioned with comics, or indeed pop culture, or indeed the world, when all his greatest works get misunderstood by vast swathes of his audience? How much heart break and anguish could he have avoided if he's been born in the age of "/s"? I truly believe that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is Alan Moore's defining work - his crowning criticism of his own culture. Criticism here meaning 'artistic analysis', not 'mean-spirited takedown'. Whether intentionally or not, the story becomes more and more esoteric and abstract, as it also becomes more personal to him. It starts as "what if the Avengers but Victorian England", and ends up as "how can I, Alan Moore, a real human being, grapple with the concept of living and creating art in a society that has existed continuously for 2000 years". With that in mind, I've never really understood the criticisms that it plays into racism, or sexism, or all the sexual assault. Because it seemed clear to me, even as a dumb teenager in the mid-2000s, that this was always intended under the heaviest blanket of satire. At no point is Moore supporting or endorsing these viewpoints, but rather taking idealised fictional characters and dropping them into the actual context of their times. It's his charicature of Britain's colonialist past, warts and all. The world of LoEG is one where all of Western fiction is real, and the biggest fiction of all is Western patriarchal white exceptionalism. But it's more than that. Because I see it as Alan Moore reaching through time to offer an olive branch to the *characters*. His actual main characters (Mina, Quatermain, Orlando, the Nemo's) seem to become emblematic of his own values, and as such are able to offer commentary on their own stories, even as they are ostensibly living through them. It's like they can see the margins of the page. They feel out of place in their own times, victims of the world yet still consciously struggling against it, railing against bigotry in all its forms. In a series otherwise obsessed with canon and continuity, the characters have distinctly 21st century attitudes to their 19th century world. I think it's very telling that, as the League, these people try to help the establishment, only to get completely taken advantage of - twice. Only after disavowing the government and going their own way do they achieve any measure of success or satisfaction. This, then, is Alan Moore's thesis statement. Yes, much (most? all?) of literature of that time was bigoted and xenophobic, but we do ourselves a disservice to pretend it wasn't. To pretend that modern British sensibilities aren't rooted in colonialist literature of the Victorian era, the public school yarns of the 40's, the cold war spy fiction of the 60's or that one wizard school from the late 90's, is to let the insidious elements of that culture go unnoticed, unremarked, unaddressed in modern society. We don't have to like them, but we also shouldn't ignore them or discard them, because ultimately these were the stories that made us. A story isn't worthless just because it contains elements that we now recognise as repugnant - that's why context is important. They are a part of us, the good and the bad. You cannot excise them without also losing part of ourselves. A culture is the stories it tells about itself, so we'd better listen. We can't change the past; all we can do is recognise where we went wrong, and try and do better next time around. I have so many more thoughts, about Hyde, and the Golliwog, and H**** P***** and M*** P******, but I'll leave it there. Good video Kyle. 🐍

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

Very good comment!

[@alisaurus4224]

I largely agree with you, but i also don’t think someone can write quite so much sexual assault unless they simply like to write about sexual assault (It’s been awhile, but i have read From Hell, Promethea, L of Ext. Gents, Watchmen, & V for Vendetta)

[@sprucespringsteen3727]

Thank you for this comment, it’s exactly how I feel about the series and it is frustrating to see it unfairly oversimplified.

[@tomhudson8405]

@@alisaurus4224 I totally get that, and it is a legitimate criticism. With that said, I never got the impression that Alan Moore *likes* writing SA. The SA scenes are almost universally ugly, despicable and without joy or passion, and they are all comitted by the worst villains. Not to mention, they are often contrasted with a similar scene of passionate eroticism between people experiencing genuine attraction (Alan and Mina, Owlman and Silk Spectre) to show the difference. I think it's more like Moore resents feeling like he has to address SA themes but feels obligated to, because he's usually making a comment about the unrealistic bowdlerisation or censorship inherent in the medium. The perpetrators are usually someone with overt power who would, in the real world, definitely use that power to r*pe (Griffin, Comedian), but in the stories we usually tell about them somehow never do (or do but it is glossed over as 'acceptable' e.g. James Bond). Whether you consider that a reasonable justification for including it is a question of personal taste, but to say that Alan Moore likes writing about SA is probably overstating it.

[@coyotedelamancha]

Elegantly stated. ♥

[@theMoporter]

After nearly two hours of analysis, what I'm learning here is that Fate/Grand Order is basically a less racist League Of Extraordinarily Gentlemen. For the background, Fate/Stay Night was an adult visual novel structured around a Battle Royale with mythic/legendary figures, which itself played with how "myth" concealed and misconstrued the truth as a minor theme. Then a bunch of spin-offs got made and one of them collected most of that and some original characters into a mobile game. Fate/Grand Order has you collect these characters and save the world by destroying pocket universes, based on our history but are ultimately doomed. Once they started depleting the number of historical figures Japanese people recognised, they started including fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes. There are far fewer characters that aren't European, Japanese, or to a lesser extent, Chinese. The ones who are may or may not be oveesexualised or whitewashed. But, you know, they do at least include obvious omissions from LOEG like Arash, the Assassins, and goddamn Gilgamesh. My other conclusion is that I'm really glad Alan Moore and Yoko Taro will never interact.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

I still do not accept what that series did to my misanthropic boi Captain Nemo. He's not a 14 year old androgynous kid with the ability to create near perfect copies of himself to man his Standard the Nautilus...

[@Klymenthis]

Some how a more rape-y version though, depending on how you play

[@redjirachi1]

Someone write a crossover fanfic

[@austinreed7343]

There is a non-insignificant number of people who think Sherlock Holmes was a real person.

[@rainspectre3153]

I mean, just recently they did add two Vietnamese Servants.

[@aYT-hs6kj]

My new favorite video on KZbin concerning The League. I live for crossovers such as this. I often thought I was a literate guy. I thought I could fathom most references and implications made in Moore’s work. I had no idea. This is as close as we will get into a definitive analysis made into a visual presentation. The only other way someone will be able to truly understand the scope of the story is by doing his own research. So much research. So many references. Both in the books themselves, and in this video. Thank you. You truly have given me a lot to think about. 🐍

[@RothAnim]

Interesting point about the era of Metaficional universes. A few things I think might feed into the zeitgeist of the era: -The success of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" bringing disparate IP into a single movie. -"Star Trek" moving beyond a TV series to several feature films and "The Next Generation" era of spinoffs. -Genres of TV outside the "Soap Opera" moving away from episodic content toward long-form storytelling. Modern corporate mergers and the ability to publish and control IP across multiple media venues has just accelerated the desire for a "stable" fictional universe. Disney declaring all of the old licensed novels and comics to be explicitly "non-canon", so they can selectively re-incorporate popular elements back into TV series or future films is a good example of the shifting attitudes towards narrative cohesion. (Oh, and praise 🐍)

[@alejandracervantes7837]

So.....this whole story is a really, really , really long fan fiction. But with really offensive characters, with smut, and lots of crossovers.

[@cthulhupthagn5771]

so......fan fiction

[@RevelationsPrimo]

​@@cthulhupthagn5771published, paid for by real money fanfiction! Like 50 Shades!

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

What does it say about me that my mind went along with everything in this until it got to Nemo sailing the Nautilus right into Berlin? While it is technically possible to reach Berlin by boat from the North Sea, Adenoid Hynkel would have had to broaden and deepen the rivers in question tremendously in order for a submarine, especially one as massive as the Nautilus, to be able to travel them. Then again, preposterous, megalomaniacal building and landscaping project WERE kind of a thing for the Nazis, see: the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Autobahn and a lot of projects that they never got to realize because the war got in the way...Oh my god, Alan Moore DOES know the score after all! My poor brain!

[@warlockofwordsreturnsrb4358]

Explained when you read the book, Janni and Jack take the much smaller nautiloid pods up the river into the docklands.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

@@warlockofwordsreturnsrb4358 Ah, okay, thanks!

[@bigredjanie]

I’ve only gotten so far, but I’m shocked Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton Family hasn’t come up - it was the original literary crossover, which Moore cited as a direct influence on LOEG. Instead of a Justice League or Avengers-style team-up, it suggests various pulp and literary characters are part of the same, massive family tree.

[@MattEldritchHorror]

Or Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series, which predates LOEG by a couple of years at the least.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

Heck, the first two volumes of LXG (along with some supplemental material from the Black Dossier) are considered canon to the expended Wold Newton crossover universe. The rest differ too much from the established continuity and are considered an AU, which is probably for the best.

[@heptonaut]

jesus christ. i was under the impression that the league of extraordinary gentlemen was just a crossover of like 4 or 5 literary characters. i had no idea it was... this. 🐍

[@gamestation2690]

So... many... IPs!!!

[@vilmundurgunnarsson3904]

You have just summed up my morbid fascination and problems with Alan Moore, both as a person and his works in one nearly-two hour video. Well done.

[@thomasderosso5625]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who needed to lean back and breathe after reading all the League books. The thesis is rather chilling, too, considering the world we live in and the fictions it was born from, as well as the world to come. 🐍

[@ralean3099]

For further reading, League is at least partially inspired by Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. It was one of the first major crossover of literary character type novels and fairly influential. It does get pretty dark, though.

[@3du76]

This is the right channel to analyze the connection between Moore, Gaiman, Sting and Robert Smith (and his creations) under Mervyn Peake's presence

[@VuotoPneumaNN]

I get Sting since Constantine was based on him, but what's the connection with Robert Smith? If you're implying Dream was based on him, you're wrong.

[@MrGlenbw]

We should appreciate Kyle's full-on determination to list up every single reference and easter egg in the entirety of the TLOEG series, from the well-known to the most obscure, even if the story gradually gets mindnumbingly insane. 👏👏👏

[@austinreed7343]

Even if he does get some of them wrong.

[@xsStudios]

🐍 'Initially started the video for a condensed telling of League; stayed for the endurance test of keeping track of the unholy amount of references; connected with the subversion and twists & turns of the internal politics of Moore's writing; and finally, am so grateful for your recording of the cover, in the end. Unlike the ultimate thesis of the League series, please, never change, and keep the fantastic content coming!

[@vampirelove75]

Halfway through this video the ultimate showdown started playing in my head, I appreciate that you used it for your end credits. Very fitting!

[@RealityCheckNews]

I liked the early episodes of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen better, when Moore seemed to be proposing a reality where all fictional characters co-exist *in our real world* - ostensibly. As the story grew nearer to modern times, it became about a world were all fictional characters exist *instead of* our reality, and that was so much less fun to imagine.

[@thejokerl1ves]

"If you want to know if Allen Moore's still bitter..." the answer is always yes.

[@cthulhupthagn5771]

in the past I have referred to him as the British version of the honeycomb monster. he's a scrawny heavily bearded and hairy person who hides out in the middle of nowhere, and then as soon as you reference him, his Works, modern pop culture, or his small neighborhood in Britain, he immediately comes running screaming down from his Hill to rant and Rave and put out a press release being a grumpy ass. I remember one movie adaptation, the Creator said he hoped that Alan Moore would eventually come across the movie, watch it, and feel that he did it justice at which point Allenmore came out of his cave to rant and Rave that the guy got his hometown wrong. my point is with him I don't know how much of it is an act and how much of it is just him being an extremely unpleasant human being. I lean towards the former, if only because he has some really lasting relationships with other authors like Grant Morrison and Neil g i a m a n, and he has done some stand-up work like refused to take any money for the Watchmen because he was angry with DC Comics, instead sending his checks to his co-creator, and that would imply to me that some of what he does is a bit of a put-on. on the other hand, there are I think some lines that if you cross them repeatedly, it becomes a bit of a truism.

[@Rocketboy1313]

Considering the example given by Moore in that opening, Frankenstein, Little Women, etc... all those books supossedly take place in a very grounded reality. The idea of them coming together is not absurd at all. It would just be strange for people with wildly different nationalities, so the scenario would feel contrived.

[@CarelessFoolFallsFlat]

Kyle developed his obsession with LOEG in 2005 and ended this video on The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Pure poetry. 🐍

[@sirtrino]

I’m not well versed in Cthulhu stuff but I find the name “Lloigor” very funny as the Welsh name for England is “Lloegr”

[@ShoggothLord]

You can thank that ol' hack August Derleth for the word itself. In the case of Moore, based off of his own Mythos fiction, he uses "Lloigor" as the Aklo word for "Great Old One"-so Cthulhu would be a Lloigor, for instance.

[@chrisdibella257]

Also according to writer and scholar Kenneth Hite, it is pronounced "LOY-gor" not the way that spanish might imply with "YOY-gor"

[@coyotedelamancha]

@@ShoggothLord So, the Great Old Ones are British Imperialism. Bles you, A.D.

[@ryanmcamis7419]

You're just gonna skip over the fact he'd ring up Warren Ellis to complain about how he'll never be able sell his house because he dug a magic cave in his backyard.

[@KatieAngelWitch]

Alan, Alan my Weird Wizard Grandpa, Alan What The Fuck? Christ hearing this whole thing just made me remember that, well, Czechoslovaks did this first. The idea of a crossover of every Public Domain Character and Story? We did it, on TV, in 1980, with the TV Show Arabela, where the premise was that next to Earth exists the World of Fairytales, split into two domains. The Fairytales for Children, and Fairytales for Adults. And I remembered this when Fantomas was mentioned, because guess who along with the characters of Edgar Rice Burroughs like Tarzan exists in the Fairytales for Adults realm? Honestly I should get my hands on the show and watch it again it has that charm that only Socialist Czechoslovakian Media has.

[@alinasidorova2196]

This is the last series I expected to see mentioned today on KZbin, but OMG, I remember that. It had a sequel with Arabella's childre, I think, transformed into old men.

[@pablom.g-m]

Yes, I think I saw that! Fantomas was in it as one of the "Adult Fairy Tales" or something right? That was a cool show. It isn't the first example of that though, the Wold Newton Universe has been around since 1972.

[@celestee2264]

Man does anyone know where to watch it? Sadly dvd wont seem to work due to regional differences

[@LixiaWinter]

Yes! Arabella slapped ass and had enough of batshit weird stuff without SA on every other page

[@Ultrabalor]

Jet Black could be a reference to the character of the same name from Cowboy Bebop.

[@TLSoulDude]

...Century is one of those comic books where you can describe the ending exactly as it happens but sound completely insane while doing so. "And so, after revealing himself as the Anti-Christ, Harry Potter kills Allan Quartermaine by shooting lightning out of his junk before being destroyed by Mary Poppins, who is God." "...You've been drinking again, haven't you?" "SHUT UP! You're not the boss of me!"

[@rachaelbao]

Ooh, I hope he mentions "The Cat Who Could Walk Through Walls" as the most direct use of meta narrative as a plot device this side of the Dark Tower.

[@Foxpawed]

The sudden sad piano cut on Thomas the Tank Engine still makes me giggle extremely loudly every time.

[@meredithcook7585]

after watching this im starting to think my idea for a crosser of great gastby and dracula isn't so far fetched.

[@MattEldritchHorror]

I don't know if you're joking or not, but If you're serious, I wish you the best of luck in making it.

[@sophieknowles4876]

I'm gonna be honest, I found this video far more enjoyable and interesting than the actual series. I just don't understand why a book that's more interested in ranting at me about its hatred of everything over telling an actual story is so liked by a bunch of people. The references become overblown, the plot makes less and less sense, and the characters don't feel like characters, just things that move the plot along from one page to the next. The use of sexual assault and all the racist crap in these books just makes me feel more certain that this just isn't my cup of tea. On the bright side, I did enjoy this video and I'm at least glad that I now know almost everything about this series. Thanks for the nearly 2 hours of entertainment, Kyle. :)

[@juanfranciscovillarroelthu6876]

I can see why Moore loves the League, he had to have so much fun.

[@XainRussell]

🐍Good stuff Kyle! Also I want Mary Poppins descending from the blood red sky to smite Harry Potter immortalized into my head space for all eternity. That was fucking amazing.

[@NotHPotter]

LXG has strong Heinleinian "all stories are reality somewhere" energy.

[@the_exegete]

Alan Moore is Heinlein but with different sexual hangups and better politics.

[@mikhaelgribkov4117]

@@the_exegete still, Alan Moore has many stories where "one dude changes the world as their own against the will of the others".

[@mattsherlock9636]

With an infinite multiverse, they kind of are. If everything is possible then a universe that looks like our fiction would exist even if by total coincidence.

[@SpectrumPulse]

One quick comment on this that I'm not sure anyone has made, specifically the parallel between "The Boys from Brazil" and "The Stepford Wives" beyond the Ira Levin connection: Alan Moore is not being subtle here in highlighting the parallel between the fascist clones and eugenics explored in "The Boys from Brazil"... and the fact that those ideologies have their roots in Americana, specifically the 1950s Red Scare small town conformity that would underscore "The Stepford Wives". American fascist tendencies begat the Nazis begat the homegrown proto-fascist sentiments that persist within the racially segregated, plastic smiling, backwards looking anti-feminist nationalism of American suburbia. History echoes, and some things never change.

[@crimsondynamo615]

Man I’m disappointed that the last Nemo isn’t Khan. That would have been perfect. It’s right there, man!

[@djgamez1412]

It is fascinating comparing this to Neil Gaiman's the Sandman, especially the way they each handle queer stuff and nonwhite cultures. Alan More chooses to use the colonizers narratives to tell their story while Gaiman looks to the stories of the people who live there. Moore doesn't seem to be interested in queer stories deemphasizing the queerness of Orlando and Dorian Grey and only understands gayness as nonconsensual violence, Gaiman approaches it much more casually and also alot more sympatheticly, gay people just exist and so does homophobia and it's not confined to humans sometimes the gods are queer or gender fluid or embodying both or neither gender as they often are in myth. Both comics are have far reaching references but vastly different approaches

[@MattEldritchHorror]

Adding to your statement, it seems Moore has a bias towards writing queer women (at least in League) than writing queer men. We don't see the male Orlando in romantic/sexual relationships with men other than Sinbad, the rest of the series is them as a female in relationships with other women.

[@HenryKathman]

My god this was an Odyssey that was a trip from start to finish. Great stuff! Also full cover of the end song when? 🐍

[@llauram3650]

'when will you learn that fictions have consequences?'. brilliant.

[@AFox739]

Side note, Century gave birth to my personal headcanon for Mary Poppins and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. I like to think that Mary is in fact Panty and Stocking's mother, and this, among other reasons, is basically why the two of them have a chance to make it back to Heaven. Also, I think that Haruko from FLCL is Mary Poppins' malevolent sister.

[@rainspectre3153]

Is that why Panty is obsessed with sex?

[@AFox739]

@@rainspectre3153 Because she was an Alan Moore character all along? Or because she's rebelling from living in her mom's basement?

[@rainspectre3153]

@@AFox739 Both.

[@AFox739]

@@rainspectre3153 Perfect sense on both counts.

[@rainspectre3153]

It always sticks out to me how people like to claim Alan Moore's dissatisfaction with The Killing Joke was in relation to Barbara's treatment and not his hatred of taking superheroes seriously. Because one look at this shows that Moore clearly has zero problem with depicting such things, even playing it for dark laughs.

[@Evagirl77]

Ending with the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate History is just...there are no words that can describe the joy it brought my cold, dead heart.

[@FBH991]

The problem I had with what he did with Harry Potter was not that Rowling doesn't deserve it, but that it doesn't quite... work... as a parody of potter. It's just kind of mean to no really good end. The correct parody of harry potter would be like, he becomes a blairite counter terror guy.

[@Peringon]

I quite enjoy this video format ❤️ but then again, I quite enjoy Kyle talking about anything ❤️

[@katharsisravynturbes]

A truly phenomenal video- those comic cameos blew my mind as someone unfamiliar with the material aside from just hearing about the movie, so I definitely wanna read it despite all the Y I K E S of it- also since your conclusion began I was hoping for that Sondheim reference and was so glad you sang it, as well as the most perfect possible ending song!!! 🐍

[@WillScarlet16]

This series actually made me start to dislike Alan Moore - it started as a clever idea, but it quickly became this overstuffed, heavy-handed allegory about time and reality and metaphysics that's almost a parody. And the more it went on the more self-indulgent and esoteric Moore's writing seemed to get - the final issues are so crammed with inside-jokes and meta references that it's almost incomprehensible. And what's worst is I think that's exactly how Moore wants it to be - he WANTS the reader to feel confused and out of breath trying to keep up with his cleverness, and he keeps tweaking the reader in ways that sometimes feel like contempt. There's a kind of condescension that I can't stand with a lot of Alan Moore's work that kills my ability to appreciate it, and even though you could legitimately call it genius on some level, it still turns me off.

[@HenryGray-sy4pu]

I agree, honestly. If really anyone without Moore's clout made this story, we'd dismiss it as "WTF material" left over from the 80s.

[@jessespringer7723]

We need more headcannons and aus of loeg with Asian and African stories making ocs