This is the comic series that got me back into collecting comics after about a 10 year hiatus from the world of super heroes. The only bad thing about this comic series was that I could never find any comic to even compare to the greatness of what Moore and O'Neil did - about 75% of all other comics that came out around the time of this stood in its shadow.
Essentially this is just a great adventure story with a collection of late 18th century figures in literary books assembling to defeat an evil that is poised to take over England. That's it, there's not much more to the story than that. It's simplicity is something to marvel at and the the execution of that simplicity is even something more to marvel at. More to the point it's an Avengers style comic - a super hero comic - only written with more grace, wit, and intelligence than anything found in all Marvel and DC super hero comics combined.
Moore is at some of his best with this comic not just with the writing but with the panel layouts that are simply amazing. He's not afraid to have characters talking about things for pages up pages. He doesn't get caught up with the whole "there has to be an action sequence every couple of pages" or some big reveal ever couple pages. Nothing in the story feels cheap or forced everything is written with the ability of a writer who is easily in command of the comic form - there's not too many writers out there that I can even compare to what Moore is doing and has done. One thing I've always liked about Moore is how his comics have a literary feel to them that seems wholly divorced from comic books in general. His comics seem the perfect balance of comic and book. I've only found a few comics writers to even compare with him.
Then there is Kevin O'Neil whose art is perfectly married to Moore's writing, creating a beautiful world for the eye to feast on. He captures the feel of the time period of the story with an uncanny visual sense: from costumes to architecture to just how the people in the story pose - everything seems completely set in that time period. His small panels details only make the larger panel or full page lay out sparkle and assemble all better when they happen. Everything in this story is about details from the art to the writing. Unfortunately this is also the comic that started Moore's decent into the everything has to have a sexual reference or subplot going on somewhere. Here those sexual parts serve the story but after reading all the League comics I can see the seeds of those sexual scenes in this issue.
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