V for Vendetta book review: Moore's Anarchic Masterpiece

Watchmen. From Hell. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Alan Moore has been in the business of comic books for over 35 years, and over the sprawling course of his legendary career he's created some of the greatest and most popular works the medium has ever seen. And then there's V for Vendetta, a terrifying tale of a fascist future England controlled by an Orwellian Totalitarian Government, considered by many to be among the greatest comics, even among the greatest books ever written. And time has taken no shine from this nightmarish story, or the ideas behind its greatness.

Originally published in magazine form between 1982 and 1989, V for Vendetta follows the exploits of the masked revolutionary codenamed V in his efforts to bring down the police state in control of Britain and create and anarchist system in its place. Wearing the now iconic Guy Fawkes mask designed by artist David Lloyd , V's story is told through the eyes of the people he encounters on his quest, each of their lives being irreversibly changed in the process.

Moore and Lloyd spawned a brilliantly compelling and violently psychotic character in V, whose disguise and habit of speaking in quotes and riddles only adds to his eerie mystery (a titanic online debate on who V actually is continues to this day on the internet). Moore's superb writing gives the character his voice, while David Lloyd's shady art style giving V the intense, unforgettable look he commands throughout the book's three parts.

Of course, there's more to V for Vendetta than a character born from genius and stunning art. Like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, the book aims high in it's efforts to warn against the dangers of an all controlling government and the power an individual has to make a difference. More than Nineteen Eighty Four however, V spreads the idea of his own political system: anarchy. A system with no leaders certainly taps into Moore's own political psyche, but whether you agree with the idea or not it's hard not to be impressed by the case V makes for it, especially when the alternative is considered.

V for Vendetta is a story about evil and good. About censorship and freedom. About violence and peace, oppression and rebellion and freedom and love. Above all, it's a book with ideas, and as V will tell you: "ideas are bulletproof".

10/10