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By Alan Moore & David Lloyd with Steve Whitaker & Siobhan Dodds (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-182-0
With a movie adaptation finally upon us, DC/Vertigo re-issued this dystopian classic in a snazzy hard-cover edition. The serial was begun in 1982 in the legendary Warrior magazine and deals with the resistance campaign of a mysterious anarchist against a fascistic British government that fell into power after a nuclear exchange destroyed all the bigger countries.
Or is it? This is just as much a tale of intellectual and political awakening as the story unravels through the experiences of Evey Hammond, a pathetic little nobody rescued, almost as an afterthought, by V during his first public exploit. The subtle shadings of the large cast and the device of telling this from the point of view of the villains as much as the protagonists adds vast shades of meaning to this classic.
I haven’t seen the film. I don’t know if will. I would strongly suggest though, that before you do you should the experience the work in its most uncompromising form. Moore and Lloyd made a magnificent beast and it should be first met in all its glory.
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