A Victorian English team-up

In the early months of the 1960's, DC Comics took quite the large step in pop culture synergy branding. They made the now obvious decision to put a handful of the most popular characters together to form a team: the Justice League. The idea was a huge success. Marvel Comics followed suit successfully with the Fantastic Four and to even greater success with The Avengers. Instead of throwing away your dime on a book with only one hero, you could easily pick a Justice League or Avengers book and read the monthly adventure of a mass superhero collective. This trend continued successfully on through the Silver and Bronze Ages. However, in 1999, writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill did a massive overhaul on the concept.
The two collaborated on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a team consisting of some of the most unlikely heroes imaginable: the protagonists of Victorian England. The characters of famous authors and works helped to create an astonishing ensemble; the characters of Jules Verne (Captain Nemo), Bram Stoker (Mina Murray), H.G. Wells (the Invisible Man), Edgar Allen Poe (Auguste Dupin), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, and James Moriarty), Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), and H. Rider Haggard (Allan Quartermain) help form the team and overall cast.
Although one might think such a crossover would have been impossible due to copyright issues, the ensembles creation is possible
thanks in part to many of the included characters existence in the public domain. The coming together of the team is not unlike such of Marvel's The Avengers. An ancestor of Moriarty's, an agent of the government named Campion Bond, sanctions Mina Murray (nee Harker) to assemble a team to take down a mad man looking to take over the world using anti-gravity technology.
Moore created an atmosphere that is time accurate. His writing is incredibly detailed and aware of its Victorian English setting,
using era-specific language and other supplemental writing. O'Neill's imagery compliments Moore's writing incredibly well. Utilizing the
nine-panel structure Moore and Dave Gibbons made famous in Watchmen, as well as an astonishing twelve-panel page layout, the art is transformative, creating a wonderful sense of the period. The wood-etching aesthetic of O'Neill's art is complimented successfully with the long and tall pseudo-realistic character designs. The collaboration of the creative team is executed with precision and the overall concept and atmosphere of the book is not entirely unique, but severely refreshing.
The story of the League continued through serialized stories up until this year, with Moore bringing the story to a close in a contemporary setting. In 2003, an incredibly loose film adaptation of the book was produced, directed by Stephen Norrington and starring Sean Connery as Allan Quartermain. Ill-received and in no way indicative of Moore and O'Neill's original work, the film left a poor taste in the mouths of many.
Having just recently discovered the work, it reads timelessly and the strength of the work is still as apparent and relevant even up to this day. It's refreshing, exciting, the characters are fully realized in the sense that the audience feels for them, regardless of the time of their creations. It is a true testament to the work of Moore and O'Neill that the book fires on all cylinders to create a fresh and unique experience.