Dale Martin

Caveat Emptor: Several plot spoilers occur in the ensuing abbreviated synopsis.  It also contains rather mature content.  Read at your own risk.  Don’t let this spoil you for reading the real thing.  It’s even better.

V for Vendetta is a brilliant book written by Alan Moore.  The setting for the book is a post-nuclear war in the early nineties.  The book presents the reader with an ever-changing plot that ends in the perfect way for this type of book.  V for Vendetta is one of the greatest works of post-apocalyptic comics that has ever come from Britain.

The book starts with a woman who is not yet name getting dressed in rather provocative clothing.  She is listening to propaganda by the ruling government.  The government at this time is called Norsefire.  They have weeded out any potential resistance and have full control of the country.  Norsefire controls people through five branches.  The Eyes see everything that goes on in the city of London.  The Ears listen to all communication throughout the city.  The Nose and the Mouth regulate the air waves.  The Fingers are the enforcers of the other branches.  They truly do the work of the rest of the branches.  They all follow the leader who relies on “Fate,” a computer that tells him how to rule the country.  Another person is preparing to go out as well as the woman.  The woman walks out onto a street known for prostitutes.  She finds a man sitting there waiting and she proceeds to ask him if he wants to have sex.  Now the law at this time forbids prostitution and the punishment was death (and whatever the Fingers did to you before they killed you).  The woman unknowingly had asked one of the Fingers to comply with prostitution.  He proceeds to let her know her mistake and calls over his friends for some pre-judgment fun with the woman.  To the woman’s delight a man with a mask jumps and kills three of the Fingers and saves the woman.  She passes out during the excitement and awakes to the man standing near her, making sure she is all right.  He is still wearing the mask and welcomes her into his home.

The man calls himself V and is in the process of overthrowing the government.  He has started with the abduction of the main voice of the Mouth.  We learn this man once worked at a resettlement camp, which is equal to the Nazi German concentration camps.  We also find V was at one of these camps and was a victim of this man’s ill treatment of the residents at the camp.  We also discover a clue to V’s name: he was in a test room labeled number five in Roman numerals.  V begins to mentally torture the man by making him recall the past, and to culminate the torture he burns the man’s precious collection of dolls in front of his face.  Later we find the man is mentally unstable and is practically useless to the government.  The woman, who by now we know is named Evey, begs V to allow her to help in his work.  V unwillingly allows her to help him. She is to become a play toy to the bishop of the church in England.  She does this and is nearly raped, when she makes a move on the bishop and runs away.  Then comes V to the rescue and takes the bishop to another room to have a talk.  Just before this incident occurs the greatest quotation in the book is said concerning the bishop and his “midnight snacks.”  The butler to the bishop states “The unrighteousness may not have peace but the righteous can get a piece whenever they want too.”  Of course, this not true but this almost makes sense of what the bishop is doing.  He claims to be a teacher of God, yet does the things he wants.  Now the bishop’s punishment administered to him by V is death by a communion wafer poisoned with cyanide.  Evey is distraught to find she was an aide to a murder.  V states she wanted to help despite his warnings.  Evey has an argument with V that ends with V dumping her off on some random street.  She is picked up by a kind man who takes care of her for a while.  They have a relationship, but he was in some shady business and is killed.  Evey, angry at this outcome, attempts to murder the man who killed him.  She is stopped.

During V’s little vacation of sorts we find V has killed a woman who was ultimately the cause for his insanity.  As a result, her lover who works with the government, decides to hunt him down for this.  We also find V has killed every single person who worked at the resettlement camp that were previously thought to be accidents.  We then find Evey about to commit a murder but is stopped by a masked man.  Evey awakes in a jail cell charged with attempted murder, which is true except she is charged as an accomplice of V, which is false.  She is tortured and tortured until finally she would rather have death than to have life through a lie.  Then she is set free.  She finds out V had constructed this to free her from the confinement of happiness.  V, now having finished his theatrical performance of the destruction of the government, has set in place everything and begins to tell Evey things that seem random at the time but come together at the end.  We see the lover of the doctor previously killed has caught up to V and is high on LSD.  To his amazement he succeeds in mortally wounding V.  Now V passes the rights to Evey and asks of her to give him a Viking burial.  This consists of a train packed full of explosives.  The government, which is now in ruins tries to recover now knowing that V is dead, or so they thought, when they see another V continuing the legacy.  The new V in the process of the confusion saves another person and so the story begins again with a new V and a new student.