The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1

History

The series originated when Alan Moore, who had already begun developing the crossover concept after working on Lost Girls in the early 1990s, pitched it to publisher Kevin Eastman and then brought artist Kevin O'Neill on board with an outline in 1996. Moore initially titled the project 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk' before renaming it to better evoke the Victorian milieu, and Simon Bisley was originally attached as illustrator before O'Neill took the role. The editorial context was unusually complicated: Moore made his deal with WildStorm owner Jim Lee, who then sold WildStorm to DC Comics before any America's Best Comics titles reached print — DC's name did not appear on the first issue's cover or indicia, as Moore had arranged a separation from the parent company he had long disputed with over Watchmen rights. O'Neill's preparation was meticulous, including visits to actual Victorian-era locations and embedding dense literary Easter eggs throughout the backgrounds at Moore's detailed script direction.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Written by Alan Moore; art and cover by Kevin O'Neill; colored by Ben Dimagmaliw; lettered by Bill Oakley and Todd Klein. Cover date: March 1999; on-sale: January 27, 1999.
• Published under the America's Best Comics imprint of WildStorm Productions — itself acquired by DC Comics during the run — making this the flagship debut title of the ABC line.
• First comic-book appearances (in this continuity) of all six core League members: Wilhelmina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Mr. Edward Hyde, and Hawley Griffin, as well as supporting characters Campion Bond and C. Auguste Dupin.
• Issue #1's story, titled 'Empire Dreams,' opens in May 1898 with MI5 agent Campion Bond — presented as the grandfather of James Bond — recruiting the recently divorced Mina Murray to assemble a covert team; the issue ends with Hyde's first cameo appearance on the final page.
• Each issue in the six-part miniseries also contained a four-page illustrated prose chapter ('Allan and the Sundered Veil'), expanding Quatermain's backstory as a back-matter feature, along with mock-Victorian advertisements — a formal choice that deepened the world-building beyond the comic pages.
• Moore's scripts gave O'Neill panel-by-panel directions; O'Neill was also given latitude to select literary Easter eggs hidden in backgrounds, referencing dozens of Victorian fictional works beyond the named characters.
• Mina Murray's vampiric nature is foreshadowed in the very first pages: she casts no reflection in Campion Bond's cigarette-case mirror and wears a red scarf throughout to conceal the wounds left by Dracula.
• Volume I as a whole won the 1999 UK National Comics Award for Best New Comic (International) and the 2000 Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative; the series was later loosely adapted into a 2003 theatrical film starring Sean Connery, which both Moore and O'Neill publicly disowned.

Cast · 8 characters

Full credits

Variants (1)