Nemo: The Roses of Berlin

Janni Dakkar -- the second Captain Nemo of Jule Verne's Nautilus -- undertakes a rescue mission in Berlin during World War II when her daughter's pirate aircraft is downed by German forces. This pretext gives Alan Moore a chance to play around with characters from classic films about or produced in Germany -- The Great Dictator, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari -- as well as the usual public domain novels that inspired Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

It's all very clever and violent, even if it seems a bit shallow for Moore. But it's fun to search for all the references and Easter eggs. You'll also need to search for a translation of all the passages in German that crop up throughout the story without any spoonfeeding.

I show more have the third book of the trilogy on hand from the library, and I'm curious to see how it wraps up. show less

The Nemo spinoff of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic continues to be more engaging than the vertebral books in the Century arc. The eponymous Roses of Berlin are two female foes for the more mature Nautilus captain Janni, and Moore makes 1930s Berlin into a riff on Lang's Metropolis.

Some readers may be put off by the many pages of untranslated German dialogue. My German, though rusty, enabled me to catch a few jokes that would have been lost on a strictly monolingual audience.

Kevin O'Neill's art is in good form, and delivers a sense of dystopian epic in some sprawling panels.

This one actually had some style, and it seems like being called out has had good effects on Moore: I don't know whether he has really done some soul-searching and realized that as distinct from the repression and yearning of ... (I actually almost don't know what? Rick Wakeman solos? Peyton Place???? What the fuck did anyone think they were rebelling against with this stuff anytime after about 1968? Was this all just comics once again showing themselves a conservative medium, where the sixties didn't arrive till the eighties? I am tired and perplexed), our present collective shadow and subconscious, that which is to be fled from in the name of freedom, is the infinite cloaca that is the internet. Maybe. But he does a pretty good period show more piece with steampunk Nazis and the robot from Metropolis, which was a key piece of art for me in my own cultural burgeoning around the beginning of university (along with the postpunks, along with the works of Alan Moore, along with the internet for learning, let me not be ungrateful here) and one I remain fond of. And no rapes, huzzah, no rapes for all, though I still worry that O'Neill thinks he is making cultural commentary when he spatters Nazi brains over everything. God, writing about comic books is so often exhausting! show less

Another excursion into the alternate reality of the League of Extraordinary Gentleman. This one focuses on the new Captain Nemo and her adventures against the evil Nazi state ruled by Adenoid Hynkel. Various characters from German literature including Maria from Metropolis, Rotwang (well, in spirit) and Dr Caligari defend Berlin from Nemo's efforts to rescue her son-in-law. I liked Nemo's feistiness and ruthlessness. There were large chunks of untranslated German dialogue from the Nazis, which might have been very flavourful had I understood German. As it was, I was merely perplexed. Overalll it was quite an amusing pulp revival.

3 and a half stars. the literary-history pastiche that is Alan's League continues with the second installment of the Nemo spinoff, set mostly in 1941 Nazi Berlin. the Nemo series always feels slighter than the main-stage League, and perhaps may be more a passion of Kevin O'Neill's - certainly the illustrations are always fantastic, taking flight from the cinematic. this book incorporates design and story from the original Metropolis movie, displaying a Berlin that is a futuristic creation of its inventor Rotwang, in which the Doctors Caligari and Mabuse are backdropped by the decadent brothel nightlife of Berlin. the Immortal Ayesha, She Who Must Be Obeyed, makes a guest appearance. Nemo's daughter Janna, the second Captain Nemo, loses show more Jack and grows older (the book spans 20 years), as her daughter Hira is prepared to take her place as the third Captain in a less bloodthirsty dynasty to suit a different woman in a different world. show less

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. This second book takes place in a Berlin transformed by the science of Rotwang – including an army of Maria robots. But when Nemo’s daughter, and her boyfriend Robur, are killed when their airship is destroyed by Berlin’s forces, Nemo attacks Berlin’s “Moloch Machine”... 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.

In english an ok read but still feels quite short, the relative time involved only being a matter of hours, at least the previous entry in the Nemo saga felt like it took place over a few weeks.
However i still can't forgive Moore for leaving so much of it in untranslated german and french.