Home :: Books :: Comics & Graphic Novels  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels

Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta

List Price: $19.95
Your Price: $13.57
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 5 6 7 8 9 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The greatest comic book ever written. Period.
Review: Can one man make a difference? Most surely yes. That is basically what I feel Moore is trying to say. How one human being who has suffered unimaginable wrongs at the hands of tyrants (under the guise of scientists) can avenge not only himself but his entire nation. The triumph of the human mind and spirit. Thank you Mr. Moore for opening my mind to a reality that otherwise may have gone unnoticed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Everything comic books weren't supposed to be.
Review: V for Vendetta is the story of an ideal. Not a man, for a man is flesh and blood, but an ideal. You can't kill an ideal.

These are the ideas presented in this very intruguing and fast-paced story. One of comic writer ALAN MOORE's greatest works, "V for Vendetta" is a story that will compell and haunt the reader.

After a devastating nuclear war in 1988, England is brought back together by the facists who have banded and formed the new government that rules with an iron fist. The concentration camps have been set up, and out of them comes a mysterious and almost insane vigilante. "To tell the truth, I do not have a name," he says. "You can call me 'V.' He cavorts about London wearing his Guy Fawkes costume with its smiling paper-mache mask. V sets about his grisly work of vengeance upon the people who wronged him and the system that killed his former self. "I am the Devil, and I come to do the Devil's work." But he has much more up his grey sleeve, as he tells the girl he rescues from police brutality.

Full of believable characters and a gripping plot, V for Vendetta is a look into the human soul, on what drives a man so far, until he pushes himself farther...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A fantastic fusion of art and story
Review: This graphic novel is truly a masterpiece in both the artistic and literary realms. The plot recalls both Dick's "The Man in the High Castle," and Orwell's "1984" in a tale of post-World War fascism, freedom, and philosophy. An item overlooked in many reviews of graphic novels is the quality of the artwork. "V" is a delight to the eyes as well as the mind as one reads through it. The visual imagery is striking, yet subtle and smooth. The authors, amazingly, use only one instance of onomatopoeia in the whole novel, and have a great sense of timing and action in their visual depictions that makes the experience in this novel less "reading" than "seeing." I found this book a fantastic reading experience.

The Thominator

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An indictment of Willing Executioners
Review: This is a dark, dark book, with a vein of hope like lightning running through it. It electrifies as it terrifies, and images and words remain burned into my mind eight years after my first encounter.

In a timeless, grey England during an infinite war between Us and Them, the concentration camps have come and gone. One man has escaped, after having been a guinea pig in Mengele-like experiments. Have they driven him mad? We never see his face. He rescues the character who unifies the story, a young woman, from brutality at the hands of police officers. He begins his vendetta against the people who tortured him, and becomes a focus for rebellion against the totalitarion regime

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Ideas Are Bulletproof..."
Review: Don't let the medium fool you. What may look like a comic book ( or "Graphic novel" to give it the oh-so-pretentious moniker that collections of comic books gained in the 1980's ) is actually one of the finest novels to come out of the 1980's. It is at once a retro-futuristic thriller, an alternate history of England in the 1990's, an homage to the likes of Orwell, Huxley and Guy Fawkes and a story of personal liberation ( and the inherent responsibilities that come with it ). The more eagle-eyed amongst you will recognise deft acknowledgements to the likes of Arthur Koestler, The Rolling Stones, The Stockholm Syndrome and even the enigmatic 60's television series, "The Prisoner". The "Valeries Letter" sequence alone is worth the price of purchase. England Prevails, as do Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Frightening and powerful
Review: In the early 1980's, Alan Moore (Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, chances are if you're reading this you know the list) began this chilling work. In an alternate world, it's 1997, and America and the Soviets have nuked each other to extinction. England is left, now under a fascist regime, and everything seems to be under control, until a mysterious terrorist, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and calling himself V, begins picking off government officials and destroying buildings and monuments. Moore's storytelling is nothing short of chilling; from the basic element of the loss of freedom to a totalitarian government to just who really fights for good (is it V or the government?), V For Vendetta is nearly unforgettable. That combined with David Lloyd's ultra eerie washed out color art make this one of the most chilling works in the world of comics you'll ever likely find. It's not as profound or as important as Moore's Watchmen or his Swamp Thing run, but this is still worth reading.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: No superheroes in a comic? Gee, what a concept. . .
Review: A vision of a totalitarian future of Britian cut off from contact with the rest of the world (which may no longer exist), this story is very indiciative of the time when Alan Moore started it, the early 1980s. It's a bleak view of the future from the British culture that gave us punk rock and Max Headroom. Compared to them, this is somewhat optimistic. However, it's also obvious that Moore didn't finish the story soon after he started it, instead returning to it years later (sometime during his work on DC's _The Watchmen_). There is a change in the outlook and a bit of a rushed feel towards the end.

There are two protagonists in this story: the vigilante, a terrorist who takes on the totalitarian government while dressed as Guy Fawkes, and the girl he saves from government thugs and then mentors. But Moore follows the lives of a number of characters, from party officials to cheap thugs, and views this world through their eyes. The characterizations of these people making their lives in an oppressive regime is realistic. The change of views is also a nice parallel to the story's all-seeing computer and camera system that the vigilante hacks into and slowly takes control of.

Moore doesn't make the vigilante, known as V, impossibly pure. In fact, V's manipulation of the somewhat innocent wife of a party official, Rose, is harsh. He justifies his cruel manipulations as necessary to create a natural outcome of anarchy. And he seems to place art above people at times -- a truly complex character.

This is not Moore's most mature work, but there is an energy and imagination here that is excellent, and the pacing works well. Others' comparissons to Orwell's work and even _Lord of the Flies_ are well earned. Although I disagree with some of the politics Moore champions, I think the internal logic of the story is sound, as are most of the characters' motives and actions. Moore presents what kind of people really make up a despotic state.

The art is also not up to modern standards, instead confined to the format of the British magazine it was originally serialed in. That's best viewed as an amusing artifact.

Without a doubt, this book shows its age -- as much as _1984_, _Animal Farm_, and other politically-oriented fables do. Times change, but futuristic stories are more about the times they're written in than the future. And this is a fable with a definite (political) moral -- despite the rest of the story's subtlety and shadings.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Alan Moore is a bizzare writer.
Review: I read this and said; "WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH."It's a recycled take on 1984 with the same charecters, ideas,story setting, and outcome. What is Moore trying to say with this book? It sounds and looks like something a seven year old kid would write and draw. Only in Moore's case, maybe it's more like Norman Bates.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A truly literate and literary graphic novel
Review: This is some of Moore's earliest published work, but I've somehow missed it until now. The setting is Britain near the end of the 20th century (as seen from a grim, antidemocratic present when Margaret Thatcher was in power), a future in which a limited nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviets has made much of the planet uninhabitable and a fascist takeover of Orwellian proportions has rid the UK of "undesirables." One man, a survivor of medical experimentation in a concentration camp, is getting even with those who shot him full of drugs and hormones. This revenge-seeker, known only as "V," is not a superhero but he's a lot more on top of things than his enemies. Sixteen-year-old Evey, who botches her first desperate attempt at prostitution, becomes a fixture in V's life, and finally his heir. The plot, though, is complex and subtle, much more dependent on the text than the art, with deeply developed characters and a good deal to say about the nature of freedom and making an excellent case for anarchy (which is not the same as chaos). It doesn't move as well as _Watchmen,_ but it's certainly worth a careful read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: More than a classic anti-hero
Review: V for Vendetta originally appeared serialized in black and white in a British comic anthology. Moore concludes V for Vendetta here in color with consistency. Having written the end years later. V for Vendetta portrays Britian as a totalitarian society with no hope for the common man. "V" is a classic anti-hero with none of the cliches which normally are associated with this genre. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoyed Frank Miller's The Dark Night Returns.


<< 1 .. 5 6 7 8 9 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates