V for Vendetta #1-3

V for Vendetta #1-3

Originally released in 1988

Written by Alan Moore

Art by David Lloyd

I've only ever seen the movie adaptation of V for Vendetta, and that was years ago; I'm looking forward to reading the original comic.  Admittedly, I feel like I'll wind up missing a lot of the political satire (the story takes place in a totalitarian version of Britain; I'm assuming it's a criticism of Margaret Thatcher's government) since I'm not familiar with British politics of the 80's, but I'm guessing that won't be strictly necessary to follow the story.

A young woman, Evey Hammond, lives in this dictatorship in the distant future of 1997, and as working in the munitions factory doesn't pay well, she follows the example of some of the older workers and turns to prostitution to make ends meet.  The very first person she propositions is an undercover police officer who intends to have his way with her and then murder her, so it doesn't go well.  She's rescued by a masked vigilante who proceeds to blow up the Parliament Building while saying a poem that is why I picked this comic for today in the first place.

The vigilante is known only as V, and his goal is to bring down the tyrannical government no matter the cost.  His main flaw is that he doesn't seem to have much of a plan for what to do beyond that; he wants to bring about anarchy and hope that it all works out. (or he doesn't care if it does)

Going by Evey's recount of what happened since the late 1980s, where the United States and Russia got into a nuclear exchange over Poland, mainland Europe was (allegedly) destroyed by atomic bombings (given the nature of the government and how they control the news, this could easily be a lie on their part), and the British government proceeded to have anyone of a different race or religion killed in Nazi-esque concentration camps, anarchy doesn't seem like it would fix things.  Mind you, it couldn't make things worse, but that's not saying much.

In addition to tearing down the public's faith in the government piece by piece, V also seeks vengeance for his past.  The origin of V's vicious vendetta is only vaguely hinted at, but in the early nineties, V was experimented on in one of the concentration camps.  Known as "the man in room five" (or room V, since they used Roman numerals on the doors), V was subject to horrifying experiments that gave him superhuman strength.

V's victims give the police a pattern they can go off of, but they're almost too late - he's already killed all but one of the employees at the concentration camp where he was "created".  The last one, a woman named Delia Surridge, is the only one who he shows a sort of mercy to, injecting her with a poison while she was asleep, which gives her enough time to wake up and have a conversation with him.

One of the officers, Mr. Finch, is particularly determined to catch and kill V for Delia's death, as she was a kind woman.  She left behind a diary, which Finch reads through and reports to the leader of the fascist dictatorship, Adam Susan.

After reading it, Finch concludes that there are two possible motives here - either he's killed everyone from the camps, gotten his revenge, and he's finished with his work, or he's killed everyone who could possibly identify him and he's planning something much bigger.

The depiction of Britain fallen to tyranny is chilling, and while I wish I had more time to continue reading the issues today, I'm looking forward to finding out where this leads and how it differs from what I remember of the movie, or seeing if the movie was a straightforward adaptation.