In 1999, legendary British comics writer Alan Moore created his own imprint under WildStorm Productions called America's Best Comics. where titles like Promethea, Tom Strong, and of course League of Extraordinary Gentlemen flourished.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was Moore and Kevin O'Neill's answer to the Justice League, a team of literary heroes set in Victorian England. After two volumes that deal with the era-specific literary threats of Moriarty and H.G. Wells' Marians, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier broadly expanded the scope of the series to integrate all of fiction, music, film and comics into one huge shared universe. This ambitious departure from what started out as a homage to the great adventure stories of the Victorian era is also the creative friction that caused Moore to shut down ABC and relocate the League franchise to Top Shelf Productions in 2009. Despite all the changes the one thing that hasn't changed since the League's inception is the creative team behind Moore and O'Neill joined by, Benedict Dimagmaliw on colors, and Bill Oakley and Todd Klein on the lettering.
In-universe the League has been around since the 17th Century. The original incarnation was formed by Queen Gloriana and features the Italian sorcerer Prospero and his immortal sex-changing squire Orlando. The most famous and effective line-up consisted of their leader, Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray from Bram Stoker's Dracula, Captain Nemo and the Nautilus from Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Hawley Griffin a.k.a. The Invisible Man from H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, Dr. Henry Jekyll and his violent alter-ego Edward Hyde from Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Allan Quatermain from H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.
Campion Bond, the grandfather of James Bond, hired Murray to recruit a menagerie of persons for the mysterious M of MI-5. While originally thought to be Mycroft Holmes, M turns out to be Professor James Moriarty, an undercover intelligence agent poised to deliver information about the criminal underworld back to the government. It's unsure where Moriarty's allegiance truly lies, however, and the League stops his plot to destroying a criminal rival (and most of a seedy part of London) using an airship. Mycroft Holmes does in fact become M after that and sends the League to stop a Martian invasion that lands outside London. This adventure eventually costs the lives of Griffin and Jekyll/Hyde. Nemo is outraged at the events and quits the League altogether leaving Quatermain and Murray to go their separate ways.
A decade later, Murray and Quatermain, now immortal (having bathed in the same magic pool that gave Orlando immortality), started a case that would take almost a century to complete. Starting in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century #1, a new League consisting of Murray, Quartermain, and their lover Orlando from Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography is joined by A. J. Raffles from various stories by E. W. Hornung, and Thomas Carnacki from William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. Carnacki has a prophetic dream that sets them on the trail of a dead ritualist named Oliver Haddo. As a cult leader, Haddo is attempting to bring into existence the Antichrist. Unfortunately, the League failed to stop any of the disasters that Carnacki had originally predicted and are sent off in disgrace.
Sixty years later, Murray, Quartermain, and Orlando are visited by Prospero and sent back on the trail of Haddo's cult. Their investigation reveals that Haddo is attempting a ritual to switch bodies with Terner, lead singer of rock band Purple Orchestra (which is the in-universe version of the Rolling Stones based on Mick Jagger's role in the 1970 film Performance). At a Purple Orchestra tribute concert, Murray manages to stop Haddo from completing the rite but suffers from a bad acid trip and is taken away in an ambulance. Haddo manages to escape into the body of Mina's new acquaintance, Tom, Tom Marvello Riddle.
By 2009, the League was completely broken. Murray was still admitted to a mental institution after the events in 1969. Orlando is discharged from the army as a hero but secretly admits he couldn't take the violence anymore and massacred allies, enemies, and civilians alike during a mental breakdown. Quatermain relapsed after Murray's disappearance and is now a homeless addict. Prospero returns again and sets Orlando back on Haddo's trail even though it turns out they've already missed the birth of the Antichrist. But Orlando tracks down Murray and they begin their investigation anew. despite Quatermain refusing to join them.
Orlando and Murray discover that Haddo had groomed the Antichrist through a series of childhood adventures at a magic school located just outside of London and had marked the child with the "Mark of the Beast", a scar on the forehead (ala Harry Potter). The League confronts the Antichrist but is horribly outmatched, despite Quatermain showing up to help out in the fight. Thankfully Prospero provided reinforcement in the form of an extremely powerful Mary Poppins (heavily implied to be God) who turns the Antichrist into chalk that washes away in the rain, but not before Quatermain succumbs to his injuries.
Murray and Orlando would bury their lover in the fake grave he had made in Africa almost 150 years earlier. Though Murray and Orlando would continue their journey together, they are all that's left of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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