A League of Extraordinary Literary Characters...

I thought The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG) was a great movie, but many people complained when it came out about it being too complex for what it's supposedly supposed to have been - "an event movie" as one person put it - but I think that's the beauty of it and I feel ashamed that reviewers pigeonholed it because it was released in the middle of the "shallow summer", as I like to call it.

I'm also ashamed that I was the only person in my theatre audience who even understood the significance of Dorian Gray's picture, or knew who Allan Quatermain was, or, really, knew who any of the characters were aside from Mr. Hyde and maybe Mina Harker and Captain Nemo. But 3 out of 7 isn't good. Hell, some of them didn't even realize that the American League member was Tom Sawyer. Truly pitiful.

I'm not trying to talk down about the audience. I don't expect everyone to know who Dorian Gray is, but I'd expect people interested in seeing this movie to be fans of the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Niell, or at least people that would have been motivated enough to find out a bit more about the movie than the trailer lets on. Of course, everyone can't be as hardcore as me.

So, for those who are reading this, I will give you all a short lesson in who these characters actually are. Be sure to check out the links (the characters' names) for Amazon purchasing info for their literary appearances, as well as the info for the graphic novel.
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Allan Quatermain:
Created by the author H. Rider Haggard, Allan Quatermain's claim to fame was as the greatest big game hunter in South Africa. In his most famous adventure, Quatermain is hired by two men to follow the route drawn out on a map by a dying Portuguese man, which leads straight to the lost diamond mines of King Solomon (yes, the Biblical dude). For the cinematically inclined, you can catch the most well known adaptation of Quatermain's exploits in 1985's King Solomon's Mines, starring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone.

Captain Nemo:
Nemo, introduced to the world by Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, was the creator and captain of the Nautilus, which was destroying various ships under the pretense of "a monster". Nemo destroys the American warship Abraham Lincoln, which is hunting him down. He picks up three passengers who survived the attack (Arronax, Conseil, and Ned Land, but that's not important). Once again for the film watchers, Disney's version of the novel is the most standout adaptation. NOTES: Captain Nemo was not originally intended by Verne to be the huffy-puffy white dude that Disney's flick makes him out to be. LXG restores him to Verne's conception of a sikh-like character. Also, the title comes from how far they traveled while underwater, not how deep they were traveling. 60,000 miles is a long way down...

Mina Harker:
Everyone has to know who Dracula is. If you don't, you're a rahtard, plain and simple. Anyway, Mina Murray is one of the main characters of the novel by Bram Stoker. She later marries Jonathan Harker, one of the novel's other main characters. The novel has many popular film versions (1922's Nosferatu, 1931's Dracula, etc.), and in all of these adaptations Dracula's vampiric influence on Mina seems to end at his death, but LXG seems to be the only movie to get it right: Dracula infected Mina near the end of the novel, but her infection did not end, just the novel.

Rodney Skinner:
The invisible man of LXG, Rodney Skinner, is not the same one from the novel by H.G. Wells, but is in fact a thief who stole the original formula for his own use. For some reason, this is a change from the graphic novel, in which the original invisible man, Hawley Griffin, was present. Griffin wasn't a very nice man at all, and his disposition was made worse when he becomes invisible by discovering how to... uh... become invisible. You can catch Griffin's exploits in Universal's The Invisible Man (1933).

Dorian Gray:
Oscar Wilde's only true novel was The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was the story of, you guessed it, Dorian Gray. Gray was a man of unimaginable beauty, and after a portrait is painted of him, he longs to switch places with the image so he never has to lose his good looks. His wish comes true, and he never ages a day while the portrait continues to decay in looks. Under the influence of a guy named Mr. Henry, Dorian begins to commit many amoral acts, which causes the picture to age even more. He gets rid of his portrait, but realizes that in order to rid himself of it he must publicly admit to his sins. He can't risk losing face, so he refuses to do so and relegates himself to destroying the portrait. This is why he wants its return in LXG.

Tom Sawyer:
Tom is shown as an adult in LXG, but the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain covers a period during his childhood in which he was a mischievous troublemaker. He steals jam, whitewashes a fence, skips school (then lies about it to his aunt), gets in a fight, pursues young Becky Thatcher, and fakes his own death along with buddy Huck Finn. They witness a grave robbery and a murder, and after a rather chock-full plot comes to a head, both boys are left relatively rich. One can deduce that Tom later decides to become a special agent of the United States government since he IS one in LXG... Becky's father DID mention that he had some military plans for Tom's future.

Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde:
This is another character that every person should be familiar with at this point. In the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Dr. Jekyll seeks out a way to separate the good and evil personas that he feels every human inherently has. He does this not only as a scientist, but also as someone who enjoys escaping the respectable guise society has pegged him with; part of his hypocritical nature. He, of course, figures out how to do this and roams the night as the beastly Hyde, instilling fear in everyone he meets. He eventually tramples a girl to death and kills Sir Danvers Carew (a high and mighty member of English society). There are many cinematic adaptations of the novel, most notably the silent film version.

"M" / Professor James Moriarty:
Constant scourge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's protagonist Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarty is consistently referred to as "The Napoleon of Crime" by Holmes. Strangely enough, he only figures prominently in two Holmes tales ("The Final Problem" and The Valley of Fear). Moriarty is mostly known by modern audiences as a recurring character on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle"). He was briefly mentioned at the end of 2009's Sherlock Holmes as the potential villain of the sequel.

Ishmael:
Not one of the main characters, but the significance of even having a character named Ishmael can be traced back to Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. The first line of the abridged versions of the novel, and the first line spoken by LXG's Ishmael, is "Call me Ishmael."
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Now that you all have a better understanding of who these characters are, I hope you are compelled to give LXG another chance... you may actually see it in a new light. My overall hope, however, is that your interest is piqued enough that you will experience these literary works for yourself. Movies are great indeed, but nothing sparks your imagination like the written word. Give it a try sometime. You owe it to yourself.