DC Database
Register
Advertisement

""Empire Dreams"": May, 1898

Quote1 The British Empire has always encountered difficulty in distinguishing between its heroes and its monsters. Quote2
Campion Bond

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1 is an issue of the series League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1999.

Synopsis for "Empire Dreams"

May, 1898
Mina Murray meets with Campion Bond at the cliffs of Dover in England. Bond wants Mina to be part of a British Secret Service task force in an effort to strike back at those would be enemies to the Empire. Bond wants her to be the caretaker of a new group of adventurers, that he intends on recruiting to his cause.

June, 1898
Mina travels to Cairo, Egypt where she finds the venerable adventurer, Allan Quatermain. Longed believed to be dead, Allan is advanced in years and a hopeless opium addict. However, he does maintain enough sobriety to save Mina from the advances of a few ill-mannered Egyptians. Mina succeeds in recruiting Allan to her cause. It is at this time that they meet their next partner, the Sikh misanthrope, Captain Nemo. Captain Nemo offers forth his custom designed futuristic submarine, the Nautilus as a temporary base of operations (Their actual headquarters, and the offices of Campion Bond are housed at the British Museum).

Later that month, Campion Bond sends them to Paris, France where they meet the aging detective Auguste Dupin. Dupin has knowledge of a bizarre rash of violence that has been occurring as of late, similar in scope to the Rue Morgue murders that he witnessed back in 1841. Mina, Allan and Dupin decide to investigate the recent criminal acts and flush out it perpetrator. Mina is the first to encounter the criminal who turns out to be none other than the mysterious Mister Edward Hyde. Hyde viciously attacks the group, grabbing Quartermain by the throat.

Appearing in "Empire Dreams"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • M (Behind the scenes)
  • Anna Coupeau (Mentioned only)
  • Nikola Tesla (name seen)
  • Thomas Edison (name seen)

Locations:

Items:

  • None

Vehicles:


Synopsis for "Allan and the Sundered Veil (Part I) – The Dead Man"

1889
Allan Quatermain travels to the dilapidated mansion of Lady Ragnall in England. He finds her maidservant Maria who escorts him to Ragnall's waiting room. Lady Ragnall is a recluse, whose life has been consumed from a psychotropic drug known as taduki. Quatermain has come to sample this rare hallucinogen. But upon experimentation, something goes horribly wrong. Marisa, the servant begins to scream.

Appearing in "Allan and the Sundered Veil (Part I) – The Dead Man"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • None

Other Characters:

  • George Curtis (Single appearance) (Behind the scenes)
  • Henry Curtis (Single appearance) (Behind the scenes)
  • Umslopogass (Single appearance) (Flashback only)

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

  • None

Notes

  • A special edition tie-in with the film adaptation was made for this issue and intended to be distributed to Circuit City stores but was pulped at the last minute. Scott Dunbier managed to keep a few copies (estimating that less than 10 survived) and auctioned off a copy in 2020.[1]
  • The French translations for this issue are provided courtesy of Jean-Marc Lofficier.
  • The Arabic translations for this issue are provided courtesy of the Bromley Language Centre.
  • The primary characters in this six-issue limited series are based upon the heroes and heroines of famous literary works of the late 19th and early 20th century.
  • Mina Murray, is actually the divorced Mina Harker, the heroine/victim of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
  • Captain Nemo is a fictional adventurer created by author Jules Verne. Also known as Prince Dakkar, Nemo pilots the Nautilus in Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Mysterious Island, as well as appearing in the play Journey Through the Impossible.
  • Allan Quatermain is a fictional adventurer created by H. Rider Haggard. He was popularized in such novels as King Solomon's Mines, She, Ayesha and Allan Quatermain. In this issue, Quatermain comments that Haggard was his biographer, who wrote exaggerated accounts of Quatermain's adventures, thus establishing that H. Rider Haggard also exists as a character in ABC continuity.
  • C. Auguste Dupin is a fictional detective created by Edgar Allan Poe. Dupin made his first appearance in the short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Dupin provides an account of the Rue Morgue murders to Mina and Quartermain in this issue.
  • Campion Bond is a wholly original character, but is obviously intended to be an ancestor of the famous Ian Fleming character, James Bond.
  • Henry Jekyll is a fictional scientist created by writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Henry's dual persona is that of the monstrous Edward Hyde. The character(s) were first seen in the 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Jekyll makes a behind-the-scenes appearance in this issue only, while Hyde makes a cameo appearance on the final page.
  • A reference to Mina Murray's ex-husband Jonathan Harker is made in this issue. Harker was one of the primary characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
  • Campion Bond refers to Mina being "ravished by a foreigner". He is referring to the vampire Dracula.
  • Auguste Dupin makes reference to a prostitute named Anna "Nana" Coupeau. Coupeau was a character featured in the 1877 novel L'Assommoir by Émile Zola.
  • Reference to notorious Whitechapel murderer Jack the Ripper is made in this issue.
  • In the same panel of Edward Hyde’s introduction, there is a circuit breaker labeled “Edison Teslaton”, although neither Edison or Tesla appear or are mentioned later on in the story.

Trivia

  • When Allan Quartermain meets Captain Nemo for the first time he commands, "Tell me who you are!", to which Nemo responds, "No one". No One is Latin for Nemo.
  • Mina Murray's vampiric nature is foreshadowed twice in this issue. On page 1, she fails to produce a reflection in the mirror on Campion Bond's cigarette case. Throughout the remainder of the issue Mina is consistently seen wearing a red scarf around her neck. On page 19, August Dupin suggests removing the scarf, to which Mina staunchly replies "Absolutely not". Her insistence on wearing the scarf is to conceal the wounds on her throat made by the vampire Dracula. In addition, it is on this same adventure that Edward Hyde attempts to attack Mina, but before he can proceed, he looks straight into her eyes as she tells him to regain his composure and he does so; suggesting possible hypnotic powers normally associated with vampires.
  • Mina Murray speculates that the group's mysterious benefactor M is actually Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft Holmes is the older (and smarter) sibling of famed Baker Street detective Sherlock Holmes.


See Also

Recommended Reading

Links and References

Advertisement