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This is the Alan Moore equivalent of a big, dumb, CGI action movie. I don't mean that it is literally one of those, since it's not exactly dumb (literary references abound, Moore's prose is authoritative as ever), it's not that big (it is, after all, just a li'l comic), and O'Neill's visuals are approachable and lovely. But the whole thing adds up jerkingly to a total mess. The story is ludicrous and disjointed; the constant allusions and intellectual puns distracting and pointless; the art often impressive in service of no real effect. Like much of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it's hard to say that this book is about anything. ( )

No rapes! That's a good sign. ( )

Although set in the world of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, these are a spin-off, and feature not the original Nemo, but his daughter, Janni Dakkar, who is now the captain of the Nautilus. In Heart of Ice, she makes an enemy of Ayesha, who is determined to get her revenge and so, bankrolled by Charles Foster Kane, sends a trio of penny dreadful inventor-heroes after Nemo… Who is following a trail left by her father to Antarctica, where she finds a city straight out of Lovecraft. It all comes to a bad end for the villains. And that’s pretty much the appeal of this trilogy: you’re playing spot the references all the time. While some are blindingly obscure – those penny dreadful characters, for example – others are all too obvious. I know Moore has played around in the Cthulhu mythos before, but seriously, who still thinks a Lovecraft mashup is clever? ( )

Nemo is the pulp adventure counterpart to the temporal wackiness that the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has mutated into. This installment has Janni Nemo going into Lovecraft territory: At The Mountains of Madness is clearly more than an inspiration for this tale. For all that it's still quite good (the original tale has some power*).

* See also INJ Culbard's adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness for a better graphic novel of this classic short story. ( )