Chivalry is one more step down the grave as the curtains come down on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
San Diego Comicon has for the longest time been the stage for the most influential news in genre culture, and SDCC 2017 is no different. One such influential news piece comes from Top Shelf Productions (US) and Knockabout (UK), concerning Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’ League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The good news is that we will get another volume in the comic series. The bad news is that the next volume (the fourth) will also be the last.
Not only that, but it will also mark the end of its creators’ careers. Yes, Kevin O’Neill (Marshal Law, 2000 AD) and Alan Moore (Swamp Thing, Watchmen, From Hell and many others) will retire after their heroes’ last run. All those familiar with those names understand that this is a very big deal. If this turns out to be some kind of a publicity stunt, I don’t know what I’ll more – angry or relieved.
According to the announcement, the fourth and last volume will tie up all loose ends, and constitute its creators exiting bow:
Tying up the slenderest of plot threads and allusions from the three preceding volumes, The Black Dossier, and the Nemo trilogy into a dazzling and ingenious bow, the world’s most accomplished and bad-tempered artist-writer team will use their most stylistically adventurous outing yet to display the glories of the medium they are leaving; to demonstrate the excitement that attracted them to the field in the first place; and to analyze, critically and entertainingly, the reasons for their departure.
The last volume will consist of 6 issues, the first of which is scheduled to appear in June 2018. In an evocative, if not very subtle reference to William Shakespeare’s last play, it will be called The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Tempest.
