Alan Moore is a big name in the world of comics, and deservedly so, having written Swamp Thing, Miracleman, and the classic Watchman. He also wrote the acclaimed From Hell, though I found Moore's annotations more compelling than the story itself. But with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1, Moore has either produced a lesser work, or his style is simply wearing thin.

League features a group of fictitious characters from the late 19th century (Captain Nemo, Allan Quatermain, Dr Jekyll, etc.) banding together to fight a threat to the British Empire — an empire that exists in an alternate universe where London has massive construction projects and blimps fill the sky. The use of famous characters from novels is an interesting gimmick, the most prominent hook the story has to offer. But it's still just a gimmick. Ultimately, the story is nothing more than The Dirty Dozen set in 1898: the league is put together one by one and then it goes off on its mission. But more than the basic storyline, it's in the details where League fails:

-- The way the story is written, you're obviously supposed to be surprised by some of the characters who join the League. And that may have been the case when the original issues of this graphic novel first appeared. But now, the identities of each member of the League are made clear even before you open the book.

-- Muslims and Asians are presented not necessarily in a racist manner, but in an archaic one. Moore may be harking back to the way those groups were portrayed in novels of the late 1800s, but since those portrayals weren't accurate back then, they add little to the integrity of the story now.

-- One of the characters, Hawley Griffin, is caught raping a girl in a boarding school. Not only is it unnecessary to the plot (Moore shows us what a bastard Griffin is later), it's made even more problematic by the almost nonchalant reaction of his victims. Everything about these scenes has a cheapness to it.

-- I'm a fan of Horror, as well as graphic movies like The Wild Bunch and Saving Private Ryan. Yet even I found the gore tasteless. Maybe it's because the story failed to engage me, or maybe these scenes were nothing more than sensationalism. Either way, the violence doesn't suit the tone of the story.

Some may argue that Moore is being tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not automatically given Moore the benefit of doubt just because of his reputation. It's just as easy to credit these lapses to shallow writing as it is to cleverness, especially since there's nothing in the writing to indicate any depth.

The book does have a couple of good points: generally, Kevin O'Neill's illustrations (when not being off-putting) are energetic and he avoids dull realism by employing a slight distortion to his characters and their movements. And his version of Nemo's Nautilus is particularly inspired.