| V for Vendetta | |
|---|---|
 V for Vendetta collected edition cover art byDavid Lloyd | |
| Publisher | United Kingdom Quality Communications United States Vertigo (DC Comics)France Delcourt Brazil Abril Jovem Panini Comics |
| Creative team | |
| Writer | Alan Moore |
| Artists | |
| Letterer | Steve Craddock |
| Colourist | Steve Whitaker Siobhan Dodds David Lloyd |
| Editors |
|
| Original publication | |
| Issues | 10 |
| Date of publication | March 1982 – May 1989 |
| ISBN | 0-930289-52-8 |
V for Vendetta is a Britishgraphic novel written byAlan Moore and illustrated byDavid Lloyd (with additional art byTony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoingserial in the BritishanthologyWarrior, its serialisation was completed in 1988–89 in a ten-issue colour limited series published byDC Comics in the United States. Subsequentcollected editions were typically published under DC's specialised imprint,Vertigo, until that label was shut down in 2018. Since then it has been transferred toDC Black Label. The story depicts adystopian andpost-apocalyptic near-future history version of the United Kingdom in the 1990s, preceded by anuclear war in the 1980s that devastated most of the rest of the world. TheNordic supremacist,[1]neo-fascist,[2][3][4][5] outwardlyChristofascistic, andhomophobic fictionalNorsefire political party has exterminated its opponents inconcentration camps, and it now rules the country as apolice state.
Thecomics follow the story's title character and protagonist,V, ananarchist revolutionary wearing aGuy Fawkes mask, as he begins an elaborate and theatricalrevolutionist campaign to kill his former captors and torturers, bring down thefascist state, and convince the people to abandon fascism in favour ofanarchy, while inspiring a young woman,Evey Hammond, to be his protégée.
DC Comics had sold more than 500,000 copies of the graphic novel in the United States by 2006.[6]Warner Bros. releaseda film adaptation of the same name, written and co-produced bythe Wachowskis,[a] in 2005. Following thefirst andsecond season premieres ofGotham prequel television seriesPennyworth in 2019 and 2020, showrunnersDanny Cannon andBruno Heller confirmed the series would also serve as a prequel toV for Vendetta,[7] with the series'British Civil War eventually giving way to theNorsefire government and rise of V,[8][9][10] and thethird season featuring predecessors to V wearingGuy Fawkes masks.[11]
| Book | Chapter | Warrior | DC[b] |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:Europe After the Reign | 1: The Villain | #1 Mar 1982 | #1 Sep 1988 |
| 2: The Voice | #2 Apr 1982 | ||
| 3: Victims | #3 Jul 1982 | ||
| 4: Vaudeville | #4 Jul 1982 | ||
| 5: Versions | #5[c] Sep 1982 | #2 Oct 1988 | |
| 6: The Vision | #6 Oct 1982 | ||
| 7: Virtue Victorious | #7 Nov 1982 | ||
| 8: The Valley | #8 Dec 1982 | ||
| 9: Violence | #9 Jan 1983 | #3 Nov 1988 | |
| 10: Venom | #10 Apr 1983 | ||
| 11: The Vortex | #11 Jul 1983 | ||
| 2:This Vicious Cabaret | Prelude | #12 Aug 1983 | #4 Dec 1988 |
| 1: The Vanishing | #13 Sep 1983 | ||
| 2: The Veil | #14 Oct 1983 | ||
| 3: Video | #15 Nov 1983 | ||
| 4: A Vocational Viewpoint | #16 Dec 1983 | #5 Dec 1988 | |
| 5: The Vacation | #18[d] Apr 1984 | ||
| 6: Variety | #19 Jun 1984 | ||
| 7: Visitors | #21[e] Aug 1984 | ||
| 8: Vengeance | #22 Sep 1984 | #6 Dec 1988 | |
| 9: Vicissitude | #23 Oct 1984 | ||
| 10: Vermin | #24 Nov 1984 | ||
| 11: Valerie | #25 Dec 1984 | ||
| 12: The Verdict | #26 Feb 1985 | #7[f] Jan 1989 | |
| 13: Values | #27 (unpublished) | ||
| 14: Vignettes | #28 (unpublished) | ||
| 3:The Land of Do-As-You-Please | Prologue | — | #8 Feb 1989 |
| 1: Vox Populi | |||
| 2: Verwirrung | |||
| 3: Various Valentines | |||
| 4: Vestiges | #9 Mar 1989 | ||
| V: The Valediction | |||
| 6: Vectors | |||
| 7: Vindication | |||
| 8: Vultures | #10 May 1989 | ||
| 9: The Vigil | |||
| 10: The Volcano | |||
| 11: Valhalla | |||
Notes
| |||
The first episodes ofV for Vendetta appeared in black-and-white between 1982 and 1985 inWarrior, a British anthology comic published byQuality Communications. Editor/publisherDez Skinn, fearing about the appeal of the strip remarked, "If I'd have given each character their own title, the failures would have certainly outweighed the successes, with the uncompromising 'V for Vendetta' probably being an early casualty. But with five or six strips an issue, regular [readers] only needed two or three favorites to justify their buying the title."[12]
When the publishers cancelledWarrior in 1985 (with two completed issues unpublished due to the cancellation), several companies attempted to convince Moore and Lloyd to let them publish and complete the story. In 1988, DC Comics published a ten-issue series that reprinted theWarrior stories in colour, then continued the series to completion. The first new material appeared in issue No. 7, which included the unpublished episodes that would have appeared inWarrior No. 27 and No. 28.Tony Weare drew one chapter ("Vincent") and contributed additional art to two others ("Valerie" and "The Vacation");Steve Whitaker and Siobhan Dodds worked ascolourists on the entire series.
The series has appearedcollected in paperback (ISBN 0-446-39190-5) and hardback (ISBN 1-4012-0792-8) form, including Moore's "Behind the Painted Smile" essay and two "interludes" outside the central continuity. Later collections include reissued paperbacks, published in the US by DC'sVertigo imprint (ISBN 0-930289-52-8) and in the UK byTitan Books (ISBN 1-85286-291-2). A new hardback edition was published in 2005 featuring improved printing and colouring.[13] In August 2009, DC published a slipcasedAbsolute Edition (ISBN 1-4012-2361-3), which included newly coloured "silent art" pages (full-page panels containing no dialogue) from the series' original run, which had not previously appeared in any previous collected edition.[13]
David Lloyd's paintings forV for Vendetta inWarrior first appeared in black and white.[14] In writingV for Vendetta, Moore drew upon a comic strip idea submission that theDC Thomson scriptwriting competition rejected in 1975: "The Doll", which involved a transgender terrorist in white face makeup, who fought a totalitarian state during the 1980s.[15]
Years later, Skinn reportedly invited Moore to create a dark mystery strip with artist David Lloyd.[16]V for Vendetta was intended to recreate something similar to their popularMarvel UKNight Raven strip in a 1930snoir.[17] They chose against doing historical research and instead set the story in the near future rather than the recent past.[18]
ThenV for Vendetta emerged, putting the emphasis on "V" rather than "Vendetta". David Lloyd developed the idea of dressing V asGuy Fawkes[19] after previous designs followed the conventionalsuperhero look. During the preparation of the story, Moore made a list of what he wanted to bring into the plot, which he reproduced in "Behind the Painted Smile":
Orwell.Huxley.Thomas Disch.Judge Dredd.Harlan Ellison's"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman,Catman andThe Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World by the same author.Vincent Price'sDr. Phibes andTheatre of Blood.David Bowie.The Shadow.Night Raven.Batman.Fahrenheit 451. The writings of theNew Worlds school of science fiction.Max Ernst's painting "Europe After the Rain".Thomas Pynchon. The atmosphere ofBritish Second World War films.The Prisoner.Robin Hood.Dick Turpin...[20]
The influence of such a wide number of references has been thoroughly demonstrated in academic studies,[21] above which dystopian elements stand out, especially the similarity with George Orwell'sNineteen Eighty-Four in several stages of the plot.[22]
The political climate of Britain in the early 1980s also influenced the work,[23] with Moore positing thatMargaret Thatcher's Conservative government would "obviously lose the1983 elections", and that an incomingMichael Foot-ledLabour government, committed tocomplete nuclear disarmament, would allow the United Kingdom to escape relatively unscathed after a limitednuclear war. However, Moore felt that fascists would quickly subvert a post-nuclear holocaust Britain.[20] V, an anarchist, initially tortures and murders members of the fascist government, but as the story develops, Moore deliberately made V's actions "very, very morally ambiguous" with the aim that "I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think."[17] TheGuy Fawkes analogy was deliberate, with Moore pointing out in a 2012 interview that Britain has a history of "making heroes out of criminals or people who in other centuries might have been regarded as terrorists", desiring a similar ambiguity for a protagonist reviled as a villain by the Britain of his fictional 1990s.[24]
Moore's scenario remains untested. Addressing historical developments when DC reissued the work, he noted:
Naïveté can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge Britain towards fascism... The simple fact that much of the historical background of the story proceeds from a predicted Conservative defeat in the 1983 General Election should tell you how reliable we were in our roles asCassandras.[25]
OnGuy Fawkes Night in London in 1997, a financially desperate 16-year-old, Evey Hammond, sexually solicits men who are actually members of the state secret police called "The Finger". Preparing to rape and kill her, the Fingermen are dispatched byV, a cloakedanarchist wearing a mask, who later remotely detonates explosives at thePalace of Westminster before bringing Evey to hiscontraband-filled underground lair, the "Shadow Gallery." Evey tells V her life story, which reveals her own past and England's recent history. During a dispute overPoland in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States, under thepresidency ofTed Kennedy, entered a globalnuclear war which left continental Europe and Africa uninhabitable. Although Britain itself was not bombed due to theLabour government's decision to removeAmerican nuclear missiles, it faced environmental devastation and famine due to thenuclear winter. After a period of lawlessness in which Evey's mother died, the remaining corporations and fascist groups took over Britain and formed a new totalitarian government,Norsefire. Evey's father, a former socialist, was arrested by the regime.
Meanwhile, Eric Finch, a veteran detective in charge of the regular police force ("The Nose"), begins investigating V's terrorist activities. Finch often communicates with the other top government officials, collectively known as "The Head." These individuals include Derek Almond, who supervises the Finger (and who is both emotionally and physically abusive to his wife), and Adam Susan, the reclusive Leader of Norsefire, who obsessively oversees the government'sFate computer system. Finch's case thickens when V kidnaps Lewis Prothero, a propaganda-broadcasting radio personality, and drives him into amental breakdown by forcing him to relive his actions as the commander of a"resettlement" camp nearLarkhill with his treasured doll collection as inmates. Evey agrees to help V with the next part of his plan (not knowing that it will be an assassination) by disguising herself as achild prostitute to help V infiltrate the residence of Bishop Anthony Lilliman, a paedophile priest, whom V forces to commit suicide by eating a poisonedcommunion wafer. He prepares to murder Dr. Delia Surridge, a medical researcher who once had a relationship with Finch. Finch suddenly discovers the connection among V's three targets: they all used to work at Larkhill, and warns Almond. That night after confronting Surridge in her bedroom, V kills her with a painless poison; when Almond appears as V is leaving and tries to shoot him (with what turns out to be an unloaded gun), V kills him too. Surridge leaves a diary revealing that V—a former inmate and victim of Surridge's cruel medical experiments—destroyed and fled the camp and is now eliminating the camp's former personnel for what they did. Finch reports these findings to Susan, and suspects that this vendetta may actually be a cover for V, who, he worries, may be plotting an even bigger terrorist attack.
Four months later, V breaks into Jordan Tower, the home of Norsefire's propaganda department, "the Mouth"—led by Roger Dascombe—to broadcast a recorded speech that calls on the people to resist the government. V escapes using an elaborate diversion that results in Dascombe's death. Finch is soon introduced to Peter Creedy, the Finger's new head, who provokes Finch to strike him and thus get sent on forced leave. Evey, who has been returned by V to the outside world, takes shelter at the house of a man named Gordon, who found her on the street. While originally platonic, they eventually build a romantic relationship. Evey and Gordon unknowingly cross paths with Rose Almond, the widow of the recently killed Derek. After Derek's death, Rose had reluctantly begun a relationship with Dascombe. With her husband and lover dead, she is cut off from government benefits and has been forced to get a job performing demoralising burlesque work, increasing her hatred of the unsupportive government.
When a Scottish gangster named Ally Harper murders Gordon, a vengeful Evey tracks Harper to a meeting between him and Creedy, who is buying the support of Harper's thugs in preparation for acoup d'état. From a nearby alley, Evey attempts to shoot Harper but is suddenly abducted and later awakens to find herself in a prison cell. Amidst interrogation, humiliation andtorture, Evey finds an old letter hidden in her cell by an inmate named Valerie Page, a film actress who was imprisoned for being a lesbian and subjected to medical experimentation, and who had documented herlife story in the letter.
Evey's interrogator eventually gives her a final choice: collaboration or death; inspired by Valerie's letter, Evey refuses to collaborate and, expecting to be executed, is instead told that she is free. Stunned, Evey learns that her supposed imprisonment has in reality been an elaborate charade constructed by V so that she could experience an ordeal similar to the one that shaped him at Larkhill. He reveals that the letter is not a fake and that Valerie really existed, that she was a Larkhill prisoner who had died in the cell next to his. Evey forgives V, who reveals he had long ago hacked into the government'sFate computer system and begun emotionally manipulating Adam Susan withmind games. Consequently, Susan, who has formed a bizarre romantic attachment to the computer, begins to descend into madness.
The following 5 November (1998), V blows up both thePost Office Tower and Jordan Tower, killing "the Ear" leader Brian Etheridge and effectively shutting down three government agencies: the Eye, the Ear, and the Mouth. Creedy's men and Harper's associated street gangs violently suppress the subsequent wave of revolutionary fervor from the public. V notes to Evey that he has not yet achieved what he calls the "Land of Do-as-You-Please," meaning a functionalanarchistic society, and considers the currentchaotic situation an interim period of "Land of Take-What-You-Want." Finch has been mysteriously absent, and his young assistant, Dominic Stone, one day realises that V has been influencing theFate computer all along, which explained V's consistent foresight. In the meantime, Finch travels to the abandoned site of Larkhill nearSalisbury Plain, where he takesLSD to conjure up memories of his own devastating past and to put his mind in the role of a prisoner of Larkhill, like V, to help give him an intuitive understanding of V's experiences. Returning to London, Finch suddenly deduces that V's lair is inside the abandonedVictoria Station, which he enters.
V takes Finch by surprise, resulting in a scuffle that sees Finch shoot V and V wounding Finch with a knife. V claims that he cannot be killed since he is only an idea and that "ideas are bulletproof"; regardless, V is indeed mortally wounded and returns to the Shadow Gallery deeper within, dying in Evey's arms. Evey considers unmasking V but decides not to, realising that V is not an identity but a symbol. She then assumes V's identity, donning one of his spare costumes and masks. Finch sees the large amount of blood that V has left in his wake and deduces that he has mortally wounded V. Occurring concurrently to this, Creedy has been pressuring Susan to appear in public, hoping to leave him exposed. Sure enough, as Susan stops to shake hands with Rose during a parade, she shoots him in the head in vengeance for the death of her husband and the life she has had to lead since then. Following Rose's arrest, Creedy assumes emergency leadership of the country, and Finch emerges from the subway proclaiming V's death.
Due to his LSD-induced epiphany, Finch leaves his position within "the Nose." The power struggle between the remaining leaders results in all of their deaths: Harper betrays and kills Creedy at the behest of Helen Heyer (wife of "the Eye" leader Conrad Heyer and who had outbid Creedy for Harper's loyalty), and Harper and Conrad Heyer kill each other during a fight precipitated by Heyer's discovery (via a videotape sent by V) that his wife Helen had had an affair with Harper.
With the fate of the top government officials unknown to the public, Stone acts as leader of the police forces deployed to ensure that the riots are contained should V remain alive and make his promised public announcement. Evey, dressed as V, appears on a rooftop to a crowd, announcing the destruction of10 Downing Street the following day and telling the crowd they must"...choose what comes next. Lives of your own, or a return to chains", whereupon a generalinsurrection begins. Evey destroys 10 Downing Street[26] by blowing up anUnderground train containing V's body in the style of an explosiveViking funeral. During the chaos in the streets, she abducts an injured Stone and brings him to the Shadow Gallery, apparently to train him as her successor to make sure people like Susan will never hold power ever again. The comic ends with Finch quietly observing the chaos raging in the city, spurning Helen Heyer's proposal to become her partner and seize power, and walking down an abandoned motorway whose lights have all gone out.
The highest-level officials in the Norsefire government form a council known as "The Head." The five individual departments are named after sensory organs or appendages that reference their functions.
| Branch | Head | Eye | Ear | Nose | Finger | Mouth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Function | Leadership | Video Surveillance | Audio Surveillance | Investigative (New Scotland Yard) | Executive (Secret Police) | Propaganda[a] |
| Leader | Adam James Susan[b] | Conrad Heyer[c] | Brian 'Bunny' Etheridge[d] | Eric Finch[e] | Derek Almond[f] | Roger Dascombe[g] |
| Peter Creedy[h][i] | ||||||
| Partner | Fate[j] | Helen Heyer[k] | Mrs. Etheridge | Delia Anne Surridge[l] | Rosemary Almond | —[m] |
| Dies | Bk 3 Ch 7[b] | Bk 3 Ch 10[c] | Bk 3 Prologue[d] | — | (Almond) Bk 1 Ch 10[f] | Bk 2 Ch 4[g] |
| (Creedy) Bk 3 Ch 8[i] |
The two conflicting political viewpoints ofanarchism andfascism dominate the story.[27] Moore stated in an interview that V is designed as an enigma, as Moore "didn't want to tell people what to think" but wanted them to consider some extreme events that have recurred throughout history.[17]
In December 2005 Warner Bros. released a feature-film adaptation ofV for Vendetta, directed byJames McTeigue from a screenplay bythe Wachowskis, withNatalie Portman starring as Evey Hammond andHugo Weaving appearing as V.[28] Moore distanced himself from the film, as he has with otherscreen adaptations of his works. He ended co-operation with his publisher, DC Comics, after its corporate parent,Warner Bros., failed to retract statements about Moore's supposed endorsement of the movie.[29] After reading the script, Moore remarked:
[The movie] has been turned into aBush-era parable by people too timid to set apolitical satire in their own country. ... It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run byneoconservatives – which is not what the comicV for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England.[30]
He later added that if the Wachowskis had wanted to protest about what was going on in the United States, then they should have used a political narrative that directly addressed such issues, similar to what Moore had done before with Britain. The film arguably changes the original message by having removed any reference to actualanarchism in the revolutionary actions of V. An interview with producerJoel Silver reveals that he identifies the V of the comics as a clear-cut "superhero... a masked avenger who pretty much saves the world", a simplification that goes against Moore's own statements about V's role in the story.[31] Co-author and illustrator David Lloyd, by contrast, embraced the adaptation.[32] In an interview withNewsarama, he states:
It's a terrific film. The most extraordinary thing about it for me was seeing scenes that I'd worked on and crafted for maximum effect in the book translated to film with the same degree of care and effect. The "transformation" scene between Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving is just great. If you happen to be one of those people who admires the original so much that changes to it will automatically turn you off, then you may dislike the film—but if you enjoyed the original and can accept an adaptation that is different to its source material but equally as powerful, then you'll be as impressed as I was with it.[33]
Steve Moore (no relation to Alan Moore) wrote anovelisation of the film's screenplay, published in 2006.[34]
On 4 October 2017, it was announced thatChannel 4 was developing a television series based on theV for Vendetta comic book, which ultimately entereddevelopment hell.[35] On 29 July 2019, the day following theseries premiere ofPennyworth, previously presented ostensibly as solely a directprequel toFox seriesGotham (2014–2019),[36][37] series co-showrunnerDanny Cannon confirmed thatPennyworth would also serve as a looseprequel toV for Vendetta, with theBritish Civil War depicted in the series'first season eventually leading to the formation of theNorsefire government ofV for Vendetta,[7] a sentiment echoed by co-showrunnerBruno Heller on 11 December 2020, on the day of thesecond season premiere,[8][9] and again on 5 February 2021, in the lead-up to themid-season premiere.[10] Characters wearingV'sGuy Fawkes mask were later introduced in the series' 2022third season, set five years after the first two seasons.[38] In November 2025, a television series adaptation of the graphic novel was revealed to be in development forHBO, withPete Jackson writing andDC Studios co-chiefsJames Gunn andPeter Safran producing.[39]
The February 1999 issue ofThe Comics Journal ran a poll on "The Top 100 (English-Language) Comics of the Century":V for Vendetta reached 83rd place.[40] On 5 November 2019, theBBC News listedV for Vendetta on its list of the100 most influential novels.[41]
Since the film adaptation, hundreds of thousands ofGuy Fawkes masks from the books and film have been sold every year since the film's release in 2005.[42]Time Warner owns the rights to the image and is paid a fee with the sale of each official mask.[43][44]
Anonymous, an online group associated withcomputer hacking, popularised the mask as a symbol for rebellion by wearing it at protests against governments. It prominently featured in the 2008Project Chanology protests against theChurch of Scientology.[45][46] Moore described being pleased by the Fawkes mask's appearance at the protests.[47] According toTime in 2011, the protesters' adoption of the mask led to it becoming the top-selling mask onAmazon, selling hundreds of thousands a year.[48] The film allegedly inspired some of the Egyptian youth before and during the2011 Egyptian revolution.[49][50][51][52]
On 23 May 2009, protesters dressed up as V and set off a fake barrel of gunpowder outside Parliament while protesting over theissue of British MPs' expenses.[53] During theOccupy Wall Street and otherOccupy protests, the mask appeared internationally[54] as a symbol of popular revolution. Artist David Lloyd stated: "The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny—and I'm happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way."[55]
On 17 November 2012, police officials in Dubai warned against wearing Guy Fawkes masks painted with the colours of theUAE flag during any celebration associated with theUAE National Day (2 December), declaring such use an illegal act after masks went on sale in online shops for 50DHS.[56] Guy Fawkes masks also made an appearance in the2014 Hong Kong protests,[57] andalso in 2019.[58]
[Norsefire's] goal is to lead the country that I love out of the Twentieth century. I believe in survival. In the destiny of the Nordic race.
V for Vendetta offers a clever, insightful look at the rise of fascism. The fascist 'Norsefire' party takes advantage of the power vacuum which occurs as the liberal British state collapses in the aftermath of the nuclear war.
Britain, however, survives under the cold, watchful eye of the Norsefire government, a fascist regime that took control amidst the chaos and confusion after the war.
...make Britain great again....This is typically "nationalistic" sentiment.... It was this sentiment, taken to its extremes, that drove Hitler's Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Workers' Party to try to rid Germany of "non-Germans".
My name is Adam Susan. I am the leader. Leader of the lost, ruler of the ruins. I am a man, like any other man... I am not loved, I know that. Not in soul or body. I have never known the soft whisper of endearment. Never known the peace that lies between the thighs of woman. But I am respected. I am feared. And that will suffice. Because I love. I, who am not loved in return. I have a love that is far deeper than the empty gasps and convulsions of brutish coupling. Shall I speak of her? Shall I speak of my bride? She has no eyes to flirt or promise. But she sees all. Sees and understands with a wisdom that is Godlike in its scale. I stand at the gates of her intellect and I am blinded by the light within. How stupid I must seem to her. How childlike and uncomprehending. Her soul is clean, untainted by the snares and ambiguities of emotion. She does not hate. She does not yearn. She is untouched by joy or sorrow. I worship her though I am not worthy. I cherish the purity of her disdain. She does not respect me. She does not fear me. She does not love me. They think she is hard and cold, those who do not know her. They think she is lifeless and without passion. They do not know her. She has not touched them. She touches me, and I am touched by God, by Destiny. The whole of existence courses through her. I worship her. I am her slave.
"The arcing story this season is about a civil war that is brewing, and that came from a conversation from myself andBruno[Heller] where we were considering doingV for Vendetta, we were like "that is much a very 80s 90s kind of show, what would it be in the 60s?' What kind of world would be have to create, like inGotham there would eventually be Batman in this there would eventually beV for Vendetta[Norsefire andV]. So we took that brewing civil war as a stepping stone". –Danny Cannon
TheV For Vendetta world conceptually – it's [like] where this world may or may not end up. What [V for Vendetta creatorsAlan Moore, David Lloyd andTony Weare] did so well was to create a[Fascist] version of England that felt like England. It wasn'tNazi Germany imposed on that world. It was very much the parochial, familiar world of England transformed into something dark. That's what we've tried to do, and what [Cannon] did so brilliantly with the visuals, particularly in this season. It's England with this shadow across its face." –Bruno Heller
One of the few stories that have been told in this kind of world isV For Vendetta [and] conceptually, this[civil war is a]prequel toV For Vendetta. God, I wouldn't hold us up againstAlan Moore, but with comic books you have to find a throughline, and that's very political [forPennyworth].QuotingBruno Heller.
The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
| Adaptations | |
|---|---|
| Characters |
|
| Related | |
| Early British works | |
|---|---|
| DC Comics | |
| Image Comics / Awesome Comics | |
| America's Best Comics | |
| Avatar Press | |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Comics based on Moore's prose | |
| Books | |
| Spoken word CDs | |
| Other | |
| Related people | |
