V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta
Publication information
Publisher	Quality Comics (UK) Vertigo (USA)
Publication date	1982-1988
Main character(s)	V Evey Hammond Eric Finch
Creative team
Written by	Alan Moore
Artist(s)	David Lloyd
Colorist(s)	Steve Whitaker, Siobhan Dodds, David Lloyd

This article is about the comic book series. For the film, see V for Vendetta (film).

V for Vendetta is a comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom. A mysterious anarchist named V works to destroy the fascist government and profoundly affects the people he encounters.

The series is set in a near-future Britain when, after a limited nuclear war that left much of the world destroyed, an extreme fascist party has arisen called Norsefire. "V" — an anarchist revolutionary dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask begins an elaborate, violent, and theatrical campaign to bring down the government.

There is an emphasis on technology, especially closed-circuit television monitoring in the mode of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Background

The first episodes of V for Vendetta were originally published in black-and-white between 1982 and 1985, in Warrior, a British anthology comic published by Quality Comics. The strip was one of the most popular in the title and featured on several covers during the 26 issues of Warrior.

Cover of Warrior #19, highlighting the comic's conflict between anarchist and fascist philosophies

In writing V for Vendetta, Moore drew upon an idea for a strip called "The Doll" he had submitted to DC Thomson when he was 22. In "Behind the Painted Smile," Moore revealed that the idea was rejected as DC Thompson balked at the idea of a "transsexual terrorist." Years later, Warrior editor Dez Skinn invited Moore to create a dark mystery strip with artist David Lloyd. Lloyd and Moore went through several proposals, including one in which the story was called 'Vendetta' and set in 1930s America. The setting developed through their discussions, moving from 1930s America to near-future Britain. As the setting progressed, so did the character; once conceived as a "realistic" gangster-age American, he became first a policeman rebelling against a totalitarian state before becoming an anarchist anti-hero.

Moore and Lloyd conceived the series as a dark adventure strip influenced by British comic characters of the 1960s, as well as Night Raven, a Marvel UK strip which Lloyd had previously worked on with writer Steve Parkhouse. Editors Dez Skinn and Graham Marsh came up with the name V for Vendetta. David Lloyd developed the idea of dressing V as Guy Fawkes after previous designs followed the conventional superhero 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 Mask":

Orwell. Huxley. Thomas Disch. Judge Dredd. Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, Catman and Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World by the same author. Vincent Price's Dr. Phibes and Theatre of Blood. David Bowie. The Shadow. Night Raven. Batman. Fahrenheit 451. The writings of the New Worlds school of science fiction. Max Ernst's painting "Europe After the Rain". Thomas Pynchon. The atmosphere of British Second World War films. The Prisoner. Robin Hood. Dick Turpin...

The political climate of Britain in the early 1980s has also been cited as an influence on the work, with Moore positing that Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government would "obviously lose the 1983 elections", and that the Michael Foot-led Labour government that replaced it, being committed to complete nuclear disarmament, would allow the United Kingdom to escape relatively unscathed after a limited nuclear war. However, Moore felt a post-holocaust Britain quickly would be subverted by fascists. Moore's political views were proven incorrect, and, addressing this when DC reissued the work, noted:

Naivete can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge England towards fascism.... The simple fact that much of the historical background of the story proceeds from a predicted Conservative defeat in the 1982 General Election should tell you how reliable we were in our roles as Cassandras.

When Warrior was cancelled in 1985 (with one completed episode 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 the Warrior stories in colour, then continued the series to completion. The first new material appeared in issue #7, which included the unpublished episode that would have appeared in Warrior #27. Tony Weare drew one chapter ("Vincent") and contributed additional art to two others ("Valerie", "The Vacation"); Steve Whitaker and Siobhan Dodds worked as colourists on the entire series. The series, including Moore's "Behind the Painted Smile" essay and two "interludes" outside the central continuity, was then collected as a graphic novel, published in the US by DC's Vertigo imprint (ISBN 0930289528) and in the UK by Titan Books (ISBN 1852862912).

Plot

Template:Spoilers November 5, 1997, London. V rescues a young woman, Evey Hammond, from a gang of police agents - known as "Fingermen" - who are about to rape and kill her as punishment for her attempts to solicit them. After blowing up the Houses of Parliament, V takes Evey to his secret lair, which he calls "The Shadow Gallery." Evey tells V her life story, describing the nuclear war of the late 1980s and the fascist coup in which her father became a political prisoner.

The investigation into the bombing is assigned to Eric Finch, an experienced investigator who serves the government out of a love of order rather than political conviction. Through him we meet other figures in the Party, including the Leader, Adam James Susan, a recluse who is fixated on the police state's computer system, "Fate."

V next blows up The Old Bailey, and confronts three Party figures to accuse them of past crimes: Lewis Prothero, the propaganda broadcaster who serves as the "voice of Fate"; Bishop Lilliman, a pedophile who represents the Party in the clergy; and Delia Surridge, a seemingly apolitical doctor who had a personal relationship with Finch. V attacks each of them in an ironic fashion, derived from previous encounters. V drives Prothero to insanity by destroying his collection of priceless dolls in a reproduced death camp oven; he kills Lilliman by forcing him to consume a cyanide-laced communion wafer; and Dr. Surridge is killed with a lethal injection.

Finch begins his research upon his discovery of Dr. Surridge's diary. It reveals that all three victims were officers at the Larkhill Resettlement Camp, and that over the previous several years, every other staff member from the camp has died, apparently killed by V - the vendetta of the title. Finch later discovers that this "vendetta" actually served as a diversion from the true cause of action. V, the only prisoner to have survived the death camp, chose to eliminate its surviving officers to prevent the Fingers from discovering his true identity. Without existing records of his real name or personage, V can operate covertly. Now, all that is known is that he was subjected to medical experiments involving hormonal injections of a substance called "Batch 5", which apparently caused V's transformation into a brilliant and obsessive avenger.

Six months later, V breaks into Jordan Tower, the broadcast centre for the Party, to broadcast an anarchist speech that calls on the people to take charge of their own lives. He escapes by tying up Dascombe, the broadcaster in charge of normal operations, and placing a copy of his own costume and mask on him, standing him up in the control room, where he is shot by police who storm the room. Eric Finch, in going over the crime scene, punches a superior for a personal remark related to Delia Surridge (with whom he was romantically involved), and is sent on a forced vacation.

Evey has developed a strong attachment to V, but also begun to challenge her morality. After a confrontation in the Shadow Gallery, she finds herself abandoned on a street, unable to find V. She is taken in by Gordon, a petty criminal, and they cross paths unknowingly with Rose Almond, the widow of a policeman killed by V; Rose has been forced to work as a burlesque dancer and has consequently developed a strong hatred for the Party. Creedy, a petty criminal-turned-leader of the secret police, begins organizing a private militia, hoping to use V's destabilization of the Party to mount a coup against the Leader. V, maintaining surveillance on all of these various factions, appears to be manipulating them against each other.

When Gordon is murdered by a gangster in Creedy's employ, Evey attempts revenge but is arrested, detained, and tortured. In her cell, Evey finds a letter from a former inmate, Valerie, an actress who was imprisoned for being a lesbian. Evey's interrogator gives her a choice of collaboration or death; inspired by Valerie's defiance, she refuses to give in, and is told she is free. To her shock, Evey learns that her imprisonment was a hoax constructed by V, to put her through an ordeal like the one that shaped him. He reveals that Valerie was another Larkhill prisoner, who died in the cell next to his; the letter that Evey read is exactly the same one that V read. Evey's anger gives way to acceptance of her identity and freedom.

November 1998. V destroys the Party's communication and surveillance centre (housed in Post Office Tower), spurring a wave of wanton violence and hedonism which is violently suppressed by Creedy's street gangs. Meanwhile, V notes that this is not The Land of Do-As-You Please end result he wants, but rather it's mere chaos in The Land of Take What You Want—an interim period which he intends to follow up with the establishment of true anarchy, a voluntarily orderly society. Finch's assistant Dominic realises that V has had access to the Fate computer since the very beginning, explaining his seeming foresight; this news accelerates the mental collapse of the Leader.

Finch travels to the abandoned site of Larkhill, on the Wiltshire Downs, where he takes LSD. His hallucinations lead him to an intuitive understanding of V, and returning to London, he discovers that the Shadow Gallery is hidden in Victoria Station, part of the abandoned London Underground. Finch enters the underground. V, who knows his time is finished, meets him and allows Finch to shoot the fatal bullet. The crippled V flees and dies in Evey's arms. Evey considers unmasking V, but decides not to learn his identity; instead, she assumes it, donning one of his spare costumes. Meanwhile, Rose Almond's private vendetta has led her to assassinate the Leader. In the ensuing chaos, Creedy's own men kill him, while Finch reports the news that V is dead. When Evey appears to the crowd as V, a general insurrection begins.

Evey completes V's final terrorist act. As requested by V, she performs the destruction of 10 Downing Street, by giving her mentor a "viking funeral" with an explosive-laden Underground carriage containing his body set to detonate at the desired location. She rescues Dominic from the mob and takes him back to the Shadow Gallery, implying that she intends to train him as her successor, having vowed to help the people to create the society the original V dreamed of creating. Having removed the totalitarian old regime, there's no longer a need for destruction. Finch observes the chaos raging in the city before heading to the countryside. All forms of authority in Britain are now gone; its future is left uncertain. Thus V has created chaos and the audience is left to assume that Evey will create anarchy. Template:Endspoilers

Characters

Major characters

• V: - The main character of the story. He is a romantic, anarchist revolutionary, well-versed in the arts of explosives, subterfuge, computer hacking, and others; also has a vast literary, cultural and philosophical intelligence. Throughout the novel, V always wears his trademark Guy Fawkes mask.

• Evey Hammond: A teenage girl who is saved by V from the "Fingermen". She is taken under V's wing, learns of his past, his current battle against the government, and eventually becomes his successor.

• Eric Finch: The lead detective assigned to V's case, Finch is an idealist who sides with the government because he would rather serve in a world of order than one of chaos.

Minor characters

• Adam James Susan: Also known as "The Leader" whose title serves purpose; he is the controlling body of the fascist party that now rules England. He is solely devoted to upholding order and romanticizes his reasons for having murdered countless people in concentration camps. Susan is in love with the Fate computer system, and prefers its companionship to that of women, having been a virgin all his life. His social-ineptedness leads to his downfall.

• Gordon Dietrich: A petty criminal who is at one point Evey's lover. He is murdered by Alistair Harper, a ruthless, career-minded gangster.

• Lewis Prothero: Was a leader at "Larkhill", the concentration camp that once held V. Afterwards he was given employment as "The Voice of Fate", the government's radio broadcaster who daily transmitted information the public.

• Bishop Lilliman: As the voice of the Party in the Church, Lilliman is a corrupt churchman given to peadophillia (and perhaps other vices). Like Prothero, he worked at Larkhill before being given a higher employment by the state.

• Delia Surridge: Repentant Larkhill camp doctor whom V nevertheless kills by lethal injection.

• Rose Almond: The abused wife of Derek Almond, another detective that hunted for V following the destruction of the Houses of Parliament, and the murder of Bishop Lilliman. When he too is murdered, Rose becomes incredibly depressed and turns to Roger Dascombe (the broadcaster) for company. She is forced to become a showgirl dancer as a means of supporting herself after Dascombe's death at the hands of V. Out of desperation and anger, she kills the Leader near the end of the novel.

• Helen Heyer: The ruthless, scheming wife of Conrad Heyer. She uses sex and her superior intellect to keep Heyer in line, and to further her own goals.

• Peter Creedy: A self-centered, ambitious and weak man who replaces Derek Almond after the latter's death. Due to Mrs. Heyer's plot, he is killed shortly after seizing power.

• Conrad Heyer: In charge of the "Eye", the agency that controls the country's CCTV system.

• Dominic: Inspector Finch's assistant who helps him track V's history at Larkhill. Although he rarely says anything, Dominic is at the end recruited by Evey to be her apprentice - much as she was V's.

• Valerie: A lesbian who was imprisoned at Larkhill. Her tragic fate at the hands of the regime motivated V to become a freedom fighter and revolutionary.

• Roger Dascombe: The technical supervisor for The Party's media division. During V's elaborate attack on the NTV Broadcasting Center, he is set up as a dummy "V" whilst the real V makes his escape, and killed by the police.

Themes

The series was Moore's first use of the densely detailed narrative and multiple plot lines that would feature heavily in Watchmen. Panel backgrounds are often crammed with clues and red herrings; literary allusions and wordplay are prominent in the chapter titles and in V's speech (which almost always takes the form of iambic pentameter, a poetic meter reliant on five pairs of syllables, the second syllable of each pair being more stressed than the first).

The structure of the book has several direct parallels with Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera: the Shadow Gallery doubles for the Phantom's Lair, and Evey's abduction and re-education mirrors Christine Daae's. V reads Evey to sleep with The Magic Faraway Tree. This series is the source of "The Land of Do-As-You-Please" and "The Land of Take-What-You-Want" alluded to throughout the novel.

Anarchism versus fascism

The two confronting political viewpoints of anarchism and fascism permeate the story. The Norsefire regime share every facet of fascist ideology: it rules by fear and authority and worships strong leadership (i.e. the führerprinzip). The regime has however been put in place by democratic means, just like the regime in Nazi Germany. Like in most fascist regimes there are several different forms of police and military police that engage in power-struggle with each other yet obey the same leader.

The fascist regime embrace total corporatism. An important aspect of corporatism is to think of society as a body where the different institutions are organs. This is reflected by institutions named after parts of the body: the police (The New Scotland Yard) is called The Nose, the surveillance organization is known as The Ears and The Eye, and the secret police is called The Finger (and its servants are called Fingermen) and the state controlled media is known as The Mouth.

In order to keep this "body" healthy, fascist ideology generally prescribe that it be cleansed off "unhealthy elements", as exemplified by the motto strength through purity, thus the totalitarianism and concentration camps. In issue #5 Delia Surridge recaps the Milgram experiment as an explanation as to why ordinary people like herself can engage in such obedience. The connection to anglican christianity and purity through faith is a more untypical feature of fascism, and possibly more of a form taken specifically in England. The organized religion resembles Positive Christianity.

The anarchism proposed by V is very classic and built specifically around the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, who is often associated with the idea that the old society has to be torn down before a new one can be built upon its ruins. In issue #2 V has a fictional dialogue with Madam Justice and concludes that anarchy has taught him that "justice is meaningless without freedom", a phrase which closely parallells similar statements by Bakunin.

Several anarchist or similar traits encountered are related to the 1960s counterculture. V's tactic to humilate and make fun of the fasicst regime to destabilize it is similar to the ideas of the situationist movement. In issue #8 the phase between fascism and anarchy is called Verwirrung, a German word meaning "confusion" but used here probably as a reference to The Illuminatus! Trilogy where book one of the first part of the trilogy has this title. An aspect of the 1960s counterculture was the idea that domestic partnerships and its legal forms can constitute a power imbalance between two people where one controls and dominates the other. This is exemplified by the relationships of Mr. and Mrs. Almond as well as Mr. and Mrs. Heyer, but this aspect is not developed theoretically. When Mr. Finch eventually use LSD to clear his mind and uncover V's hideout, this is probably a reference to Timothy Leary who repeatedly claimed that this particular drug could be used for loosening stiff thinking in general.

Identity

V himself is something of an enigma, whose history is only hinted at; it is strongly suggested that he is physically disfigured. The bulk of the story is told from the viewpoints of other characters: V's admirer and apprentice Evey, a sixteen-year-old munitions factory worker; Eric Finch, a world-weary and pragmatic policeman who is hunting V; and several contenders for power within the fascist party. V's destructive acts are morally ambiguous, and a central theme of the series is the rationalisation of atrocities in the name of a higher goal, whether it is stability or freedom. The character is a mixture of an actual advocate of anarchism and the traditional stereotype of the anarchist as a terrorist.

Moore stated in an interview:

...the central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think, and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history.

Moore has never clarified who V supposedly was, beyond stating that V is not Evey's father; he does point out that V's identity is never revealed in the book. The ambiguity of the V character is a running theme through the work; it is left for the reader to determine for himself whether V is sane or psychotic, hero or villain. Before donning the Guy Fawkes mask herself, Evey comes to the conclusion that V's identity is unimportant compared to the role he plays.

File:Vforvendettapanel.JPG

V and Evey from Warrior#1

The number 5

There are numerous references throughout V for Vendetta to the letter V and number 5, which is itself "V" in Roman numerals. The character V is seen reading and quoting from Thomas Pynchon's novel, V. and listening to Beethoven's fifth symphony (the first four notes of which can be represented as the letter V in Morse code and were used as a call sign by the BBC during World War II -- hinting towards Winston Churchill's victory sign.) V introduces himself to Evey with a five-syllable phrase: "You can call me V." A large part of V's speech is in iambic pentameter, which is comprised of five iambs. The phrase "Remember, remember, the fifth of November" is also referenced; it is the first line of a nursery rhyme detailing the exploits of Guy Fawkes. The name of every chapter begins with the letter V. Another link to that letter comes from his identification as the "Prisoner of Room Five", as later revealed in the series (since V is Latin for 5). (In addition, "5" converted to binary numerals is "101", so "Room 5" is "Room 101", which is reminiscent of the infamous torture chamber in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.) V is also a guinea pig to the hormone Batch 5, which transforms him into the being we see in V for Vendetta. Finally, V's hideout is accessed from the closed Victoria Park tube station, the damaged sign of which resembles a sideways V when Finch locates it.

Adaptations

Music

David J of the band Bauhaus, who has collaborated with Moore on other projects, recorded a version of V's song This Vicious Cabaret and other music inspired by the book, which appeared on an EP titled V for Vendetta. According to David, Moore proposed the idea for him to compose music for a set of lyrics that made up an entire chapter of the novel. Within an hour of receiving the lyrics, David had composed the music for the entire chapter. The band Jocasta used Moore's dialogue in their song The Land of Do-As-You-Please.

Theatre

The Swedish production company Stockholms Blodbad staged a live theatrical adaptation of the graphic novel in 2000 under the title Landet där man gör som man vill, which translates as The Land of Do-As-You-Please. This contained pre-recorded video clips of scenes from the graphic novel, such as the bombing of the Houses of Parliament, a scene from the racist sci-fi TV show Storm Saxon, scenes of torture at Larkhill, and Finch's revelation at the camp.

Film

Main article: V for Vendetta (film)

File:Vprofile.jpg

Hugo Weaving as V in the 2006 film adaptation

A film adaptation was released on March 17, 2006, directed by James McTeigue (first assistant director on The Matrix films) from a screenplay by the Wachowski brothers. Natalie Portman stars as Evey and Hugo Weaving as V alongside Stephen Rea, John Hurt, and Stephen Fry. Originally slated for a 5 November, 2005 release, to coincide with Guy Fawkes Night and the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, it was postponed until March, possibly due to the 7 July 2005 London bombings, although producers denied this was the reason.

Alan Moore, however, distanced himself from the film sight unseen, as he has with every screen adaptation of his works to date. He ended cooperation with his publisher, DC Comics, after its corporate parent, Warner Bros., failed to retract statements about Moore's supposed endorsement of the movie. After reading the script, Moore remarked that his comic had been "turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country.... [This film] is a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives — which is not what [the comic] 'V for Vendetta' was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]." He later adds that if the Wachowskis had wanted to protest what was going on in America, then they should have used a political narrative that spoke directly at America's issues, similar to what Moore had done before with Britain. The film changes the original message by arguably having changed "V" into a freedom fighter instead of an anarchist. An interview with producer Joel Silver suggests that the change may not have been conscious; he identifies the V of the graphic novel 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.

Co-author and illustrator David Lloyd, by contrast, embraced the adaptation. In an interview at Newsarama.com he says this:

"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."

A novelization of the film's screenplay was created by comic writer Steve Moore.

Notes and references

• Moore, Alan and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. New York: DC Comics, 1990

External links

• DC Comics
• V For Vendetta Shrine
• Timeline of Events in V for Vendetta
• V For Vendetta Annotations
• V for Vendetta: Comic vs. Film
• A For Anarchy - A site exploring anarchist themes in V for Vendetta