Read for the Graphic Novels Challenge
This graphic novel was written in the 80s, and was set in a dystopian near future in the 90s, where there’d been a terrible war, and a fascist government has taken over Great Britain. The only person standing against this government is a shadowy figure codenamed V, who turns out to be a victim of the government’s concentration camps. He sets out to destroy everyone involved in the concentration camp, while also taking a girl named Evey under his wing after he rescues her one night from a group of cops that were about to rape her.
There are a number of things going on in this story, Evey’s journey to understand exactly who V is, the back stories of people that ran the concentration camps and have moved on to higher government posts, and the interesting undertones of a society under the thumb of a small group of people.
I’ve heard a number of times when running across mention of this book in the past, that it’s a particularly British story, and I can agree with that. There is no superhero in this book, however much V may have been changed by what was done to him in the concentration camps. Other than that, there is that slight flavor of difference that I get when watching British tv shows, or reading a book by a British author. We are very similar, but it’s interesting to see how we’re different. I’m not sure an American author could have envisioned an American version of this book that would have been at all the same.
A last note: like any story set in a near future that is now the past, it’s a bit funny to see dates that have now happened, and clearly not in the way portrayed in the story, and yet, it’s interesting to wonder how things might actually not be that different.