Comics Alternative

This week Derek and Andy discuss three recent titles, each of which is part of a larger series. First, they review the third in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's Nemo trilogy, Nemo: River of Ghosts (Top Shelf). The guys begin their discussion by looking at the series as a whole -- even placing the trilogy within the larger context of Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe -- and then exploring the accessibility of the text as a singular narrative. River of Ghosts certainly needs to stand alongside the first two Nemo volumes, Heart of Ice and The Roses of Berlin, but the intertextual demands imbedded in the story (and in the Nemo trilogy as a whole) are far fewer than they are in the League books. Indeed, the three-part story of Janni Dakkar, beginning in 1925 (in Heart of Ice) and wrapping up in 1987, where River of Ghosts concludes, reads more as an adventure tale to be enjoyed than as a literary text to be deciphered. Yet, the Nemo trilogy is still part of Moore's larger narrative tapestry, and its