We... We cannot know what feelings our enemies have... But we may be certain at least, that Hyde taught them terror. 
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume 2) #6 is an issue of the series League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volume 2) with a cover date of November, 2003.
Synopsis for "You Should See Me Dance the Polka.."
Allan Quatermain, Wilhelmina Murray and Dr. Alphonse Moreau are waiting at a train station. When the train arrives it will carry Mina, Quatermain and a hybrid experiment of Dr. Moreau's, H-142, that is expected to defeat the Martians. Allan and Mina return to London and the experiment is removed from the train by gas-masked intelligence agents. The two are awaited by Campion Bond who tells them that all bridges apart from London Bridge have been made impassable in a bid to impede the invaders, and that H-142 must be delivered. They arrive to London Bridge, reuniting with the League, where they see that the Martians have managed to destroy the last of the city's defenses and have gathered all their forces on the other side for their final push into the capital.
It is learned that they need to distract the attacking Martians until Military Intelligence can arrange to deliver the H-142. Hyde tells Minda that he killed Griffin and tells her that it was quick, to spare her feelings. He then agrees to supply the distraction needed against the Martians. Before he does so, he asks Mina for a kiss, which she graciously supplies. Hyde dances out onto the frontline, singing a polka and is hit with the heat ray from one of the Martians. Miraculously, he survives the blast. Hyde attacks the legs of the tripod, staying beneath it, where the heat ray cannot reach him. He destroys the legs, toppling the tripod, tears it open and begins to eat the alien inside. The aliens compatriots all fire heat rays at Hyde, incinerating him.
Military Intelligence fires a cannon, delivering H-142 to the Martians. It is then that Campion Bond tells the remaining members of the League that the hybrid is in fact a combination of anthrax and streptococcus, a biological weapon. Nemo is outraged and resigns from the League. The aliens all die of disease and Quatermain mentions that England is considering changing the name of Serpentine Park to honor the fallen Hyde. Mina tells Quatermain that recent events have left her unsettled and that she must go on a sabbatical to leave for Coradine, a ladies' commune in Scotland, until she is certain of her feelings. Quatermain finds himself seated on a park bench, alone.
Appearing in "You Should See Me Dance the Polka.."
Featured Characters:
- Murray Group
- Wilhelmina Murray
- Allan Quatermain
- Edward Hyde (Final appearance; dies)
- Captain Nemo (Final appearance) (Quits team)
Supporting Characters:
- Campion Bond (Final appearance)
- Dr. Alphonse Moreau
Antagonists:
- Martians (Final appearance)
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
- H-142
- Heat-Ray
Vehicles:
- Martian tripods
- Train
- The Nautilus (Final appearance)
Notes
- The secret to the Martians' language is to read it in the mirror. Hyde is saying to the Martian: "Can you hear me in there?"
Trivia
- Hyde is singing See Me Dance the Polka, in which it was also sung in to the 1941 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which Ingrid Bergman sings this song and Dr. Jekyll hums it before he transforms into Mr. Hyde.
- Coradine is from W.H. Hudson's A Crystal Age and is a utopia set in northern Scotland.
- The parting scene between Mina and Allan has a heavy emphasis on autumn leaves. Jeff Wayne's 1976 rock opera War of the Worlds had, on its soundtrack, a love song called Forever Autumn with the refrain, "Now you're not here."
- Dr. Moreau's statement of hiring a gypsy woman to "placate" H-9 (Rupert Bear) is a reference to the Oz trial of 1970. Oz was a British underground magazine publish from 1967 to 1973. In May 1970, ran a cartoon montage put together by 15-year old Vivian Berger. The montage superimposed a Rupert Bear cartoon on an R. Crumb cartoon, so that one panel showed Rupert having sex with an unconscious "Gypsy Granny." As a result of this cartoon, the editors of Oz were put on trial in 1971 for conspiring to "corrupt the morals of young children and other young persons."
- The black trains of MI5 is presumably the equivalent of modern black helicopters: the craft by which the agents of the conspiracy (in this case, the Freemasons) travel the country. The train with "007" on its side is a reference to the Rudyard Kipling story .007, which is about the life and times of a train engine, and is speculated to be one of many possible inspirations for 007, the code number of Ian Fleming's James Bond.
- Moreau's nephew who "paints [his] chimerae," is a reference to the French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) and his portrait Chimeras.
- The "Food Stores Crisis" on the placard, shown at the train station, is a reference to the starving state of Londoners before the complete evacuation of London during The War of the Worlds.
- Hyde's comment of a "useless, wheezing blancmange" is possibly a reference to the Monty Python's Flying Circus skit "Blancmanges Playing Tennis", in which Earth is invaded by alien blancmanges whose ultimate goal is to win Wimbledon. At the end of that skit, the aliens are defeated by being eaten, which mirrors to Hyde later devouring a Martian.
See Also
- Cover gallery for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series
- Images from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 2 6
Recommended Reading
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 1