Rating: 
Summary: Moore's Genre-Bending Masterpiece
Review: V sits perfectly on my shelf next to Brave New World & 1984. Comics-Noir meets Ayn Rand. The chilling surrealist story is perfectly complimented by the dramatic visual presentation. It's a gripping as a Stanley Kubrik movie. 5 stars are simply not enough for this monumental testament.
Rating:
Summary: England Prevails
Review: Collected from the cult early eighties British comic, 'Warrior', Moore and Lloyd's chilling V for Vendetta portrays a chilling alternate Britain which has succumbed to fascism after a nuclear altercation has destroyed most of the world. In a bleak and violent society, only the strangely Jacobean vigilante 'V' seems to act as a force for good.As with Orwell's 1984, Moore and Lloyd's 1982 vision of Britain in '1997' is no less potent now that the year itself has been and gone. Darkly brilliant stuff. Lloyd's art has never been better and after this, The Watchmen and 2000AD's greatest ever story, The Ballad of Halo Jones, can there be any doubt that Alan Moore is the greatest writer in British comics today?
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Orwellian-Batman-esque grim elseworld's tale
Review: If you like Batman and an avid observer of politics (especially if you are on the opposition side), this book is definitely your choice. It's a must for free spirited people whose liberated minds are too outburst to be contained by the laws and rules of their governments. Then again, it's still just fantasy, though.
Rating:
Summary: The Mask of Revolution
Review: Moore has created one of the most riveting comic books (ahem, excuse me graphic novels) I have ever read. As I began the book, I thought to myself, "Oh look another Batman rip off." Boy, was I wrong. V is not so much a character in this extremely complex narrative, but the spirit of vengence itself, a spirit that is passed from individual to individual. Through this very characterlessness of V does the spirit of revolution actually find a face. It is only by wearing a mask that revolution can unmask the fascism of the state and bring about the freedom of the people. All too often, superheroes find themselves the champions of the status-quo. This issue finds a brilliant exposition in Frank Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_ with the character of Superman, someone who has actually bowed to the oppressive regime and now merely carries out their orders. Moore's comic illustrates that in an oppressive government where violence is sanctioned by political power, where the people must listen to a bland voice telling them what to do, where freedom is only a memory, justice, revolution, vendetta must wear a perpetual mask. The revolutionary, V, has no personality; he has no identity. This way, the government has no ability to subject him into a particular role. Likewise, the reader himself cannot subject the character of V, for we never really know who exactly he is. Ironically, though, in the very absence of V's personality, we find the heart of humanity, we find an unstoppable advocate of the people. It seems Justice must not only wear a mask, but must also seem hollow beneath that mask. Anyone who is interested in comics, dystopic literature, or the politics of revolution should read this book. It has the ability to make us question the boundaries of the social masks wear in order to fit within our society. It also forces us to see the fascism hiding within our own social structures, structures that may only be exposed if they are laid bare by someone whose identity remains disclosed. _V for Vendetta_ is, like other critics have said before me, a comic that does things comics shouldn't do. It questions, it threatens the status quo, it makes us look at the ways we treat other human beings, as masks, as people without souls. It makes us see the revolutionary inside all of us, even as we realize, with both horror and glee, that V does not simply exist on the printed page, but he exists inside every one of us, inside the smirks and passionate excesses that always threaten to dissolve the supposedly concrete power structures framing our society in oppression.
Rating:
Summary: Alan Moore's best to me
Review: I expected a lot of this Graphic Novel, but it was even better. This one really blew me of my socks. What we get to see is an alternative timeline in which Germany actually won World War II and where England has turned into a fascist state. People live very cautious and affraid because everything they say or do is being monitored, and they've been overly restricted by their own government. Then oneday a mystic figure appears and he rocks the city. He murders people of importance, he blows up government buildings, and nobody knows a single thing of who he is or why he does the things he does, except that he's codenamed himself V. Meanwhile V takes a little girl under his wing who he teaches things about his history, about herself and about what is happening. But over time the government is getting closer too. Along the story more and more is explained about who V is, about what moves V, about the real consequences the war has cost and about the value of a free will. All this is illustrated very appropriatly by David Lloyd in a bit of a cinematic style. This makes the flow of the story even better. For me personally this is the best Alan Moore Graphic Novel I've read so far and I would easily recommend it to everyone who is looking for something more than superheroes. Even when you're normally not that much into comicbooks this could very possibly still be one heck of a ride for you ...
Rating:
Summary: First is Best
Review: I found From Hell, long boring conveluted and dull. I found Watchmen so-so, obviously important but not so enjoyable these days. I found V for Vendetta brilliant. It's simplicity is it's key. The simplicity of it's tale, the power of it's message. Even one heavy handed Deus Ex Machina element of the plot didn't spoil it for me. A must buy of comic readers every where.
Rating:
Summary: England Triumphs!
Review: Althought not the most famous one, V for Vendetta written by Alan Moore and drawn by David Lloyd deserves the title of one of the best graphic novels ever made. The themes of the story, the loss of citizenship, of both individual and colective freedom, how society lets itself blindly be taken into the abyss of the totalitaralism is as strinckingly actual today as it was before. All begins in England in the year 1998. It's been six years since the end of a catastrophical world war that led to the ascension of a fascist group called the "Norseflame". The country is now a slave nation under the chains of fascism and intolerance. The main character of our drama is V, a misterious terrorist whose face is hidden by a mask of Guy Fawkes a catholic radical who tried to blow of the parliament in 1605. V manages to succeed where Fawkes failed and with that struck, he takes away the government simbol of authority. He takes a girl called Evey Hammond of the street and turns her into his protegé having future plans for her. We later on discover that V was a prisioner in a government concentracion camp submited to unspeakeable medical experiments that augmented both his phisical and intelectual capabilities. He begins to kill one by one, three of his captors, the regime main radialist Lewis Prothero, the bishop Lilliman and a medic called Delia Portridge responsable for the medical experiments conduct on V. From there V begins his true crusade, that is, taking down the english fascist state. One of the best things of V for Vendetta is that all the characters are developing during the story. V steals the show being a mixture of Batman, Phanton of the Opera, and intelectual. His lectures to Eve teaching her all he knows are some of the best parts of the novel. Althought hopely the predictions made by Moore did not hapenned let us not be fooled dear readers. All it takes is a scratch in the shining surface of globalization with it's talking heads and pink colored news and the nightmare of V for Vendetta is there, open claws, with the sinister hailing "England triumphs".
Rating:
Summary: The Magus of Oz
Review: Alan Moore is a great literary figure who happens to write comic books, graphic novels and lyrics for rock bands. He is a hidden jewel of a writer who has produced, over the last two decades, provocative and important work that draws together popular culture, art, magick and the occult, philosophy, fairy tales and mythology, psychology, surrealism, science fiction, pulp fiction and cosmic prophecy into one harmonious whole that is flavored by that Holy Grail of every writer: an original voice. V FOR VENDETTA has a long and painful history (it's initial run in England was aborted before all ten issues could be produced) but I first heard of it in 1987 when it started to be printed by D.C. Comics. I hadn't gone near comic books in over fifteen years and I was afraid of starting all up again, but someone had lent me a copy of SWAMP THING with the demand that I read it. "But it's SWAMP THING!" I protested, feeling uneasy about spending my time reading about a radioactive sludge monster who fights villians. Yet, it was a SWAMP TIHNG written by Alan Moore, and it was full of sublime prose, elegant ideas, sensuality, psychedelic revelations and gnosticism. I was blown away, so when the first issue of VENDETTA came out, I snapped it up. For 10 glorious months I read each installment as it came out and by the time number 10 had come, I was reshaping all my thoughts about literature, about story telling, about politics, society, culture, magick. Part Orwell's 1984, part Phantom of the Opera, part Batman in Dark Knight mode, V FOR VENDETTA tells the story of an England under the rule of a fascist government and the journey of a young girl from street prostitute to rebel leader. V. himself is a poetic twist on the Beast from Beauty & the Beast, or Eric from Phantom of the Opera, a masked anarchist who moves about the fascist reign of terror with the ease of a neutrino unaffected by gravity. Possible the result of a bizarre medical experiment in a concentration camp, V. is now determined to bring down the government and free the minds and bodies of the masses suffering under its own psychological oppression. Fusing ideas from Wilhelm Reich, Aleister Crowley, George Orwell and even the Batman comic book, Moore has created his own Dark Knight, a far more mysterious and morally problematic one. He carries upon his shoulders the weight of the world, attempting to bring light and hope to the darkness prisons where men and women are beaten and tortured for being homosexual, to the medical labs of the prison camps where Mengele-like doctors are operating without inhibition on dehumanized prisoners. V FOR VENDETTA raises the bar on the literary value of comic books, taking the genre of Batman and Spider-man and elevating it above the level of fist-fights, action sequences and costumed villians into the realm of a modern-day political and magickal myth. And towards the end when Evey the heroine watches the crowds in the street riot and destroy each other, she says, "Is this your anarchy, V?" and V replies, "No, this is Chaos"...in that one little moment, V. has made a distinction that is too subtle for most writers, far less the writers of comic books.
Rating:
Summary: The Mask of Anarchy
Review: The original ten part mini-series compiled in this book was completed ten years ago, and fortunately, most of Moore's dire predictions about its now outdated setting of 1998 London have not come to pass (like the limited nuclear war that obliterated most of the other world powers). Still, this Orwellian vision of a fundamentalist Christian, anti-Semitic, homophobic, fascist regime may hit frighteningly close to home for many Americans. Its architects could just as easily have been Pat Buchanan or Rush Limbaugh, except that Alan Moore offers his readers a cure for the type of social disease spread by these right-wing demagogues. It is the tale of the mysterious V, who haunts the pages of this book masquerading as the English folk villain and failed Parliamentary bomber, Guy Fawkes. Using extraordinary physical and mental abilities accidentally gained through experiments performed on him while in a government concentration camp, V almost single-handedly brings the State to its knees. But while most comic books teach a lesson in learned helplessness where humanity can only be saved through the divine intervention of super-powered beings, V constantly places the blame for his nation's troubles on the voters who are so eager to put their lives in the hands of others. V acts as a Robin Hood for the new millennium, redistributing the only wealth of importance in the Information Age: Knowledge is not only power, it is freedom. As people become self-aware, they become self-reliant, and soon they become unwilling to prostrate themselves before the trappings of authority. While this is one of the single greatest works of graphic literature ever, V's battle to free the people from their elected masters may also be the most eloquent, moving, and gripping endorsement of anarchism you will ever encounter in comics or anywhere else.
Rating:
Summary: A soliloquising vigilante
Review: "V for Vendetta" is a cleverly paced and brutally realistic tale set in a nightmare future. The elusive protagonist, a mask-clad vigilante who goes by the initial "V", sets himself as an adversary to the repressive regime of "Norsefire", the Fascist organisation that assumed power. The plot abounds in a number of exciting episodes, in which the hero outwits and overpowers his enemies using an array of lethal gadgets and skills in the deadliest martial arts. The story is redeemed by its sense of irony and sarcasm, especially during the soliloquies of the masked avenger, (the parallel with Batman cannot be ignored) in which he denounces the ruling elite with anarchistic phrases and anti-Establishment maledictions, as in the scene in which he scandalously addresses the blinfolded statue of Justice, prior to annihilating it with a bomb disguised as a rose. The "piece du resistance", however, is his poisoning a corrupt priest with a communion wafer spiked with cyanide... Lashings of humour, of so dark a hue are seldom found. The cinematic conception of the plot, (with "intercutting" between different scenes) the beautiful illustration and the psychological realism in the characterisation attest to the high gifts of Lloyd and Moore in the genre of the graphic novel and I look forward to their other works.
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