My Timeline for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (#SFWApro)

When I decided to reread the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series this year, I opted to read based on internal chronology, much as I did with Hellboy a couple of years back. I couldn’t find a good timeline , so as with the Hellboy Chronology, I created my own. Rather than a history of the alternate timeline of LXG, I’m focusing specifically on the League’s various incarnations: Prospero’s Men, the unnamed 1700s team, the Murray Group and related organizations such as the Twilight Heroes. The timeline includes individual exploits of the characters; Janni Nemo’s graphic-novel adventures; and events referenced in various text pieces (e.g. New Traveler’s Almanac, Minions of the Moon). Question marks on the dates mean I’m guesstimating.

(All covers by Kevin O’Neill, all rights to current holders)

Mid-1600s: Queen Gloriana recruits the wizard Prospero and the immortal, sex-changing Orlando as agents of the English crown. She instructs Prospero to form the first League — Prospero’s Men — after her death, when he returns from the island where she foresees he will be imprisoned. (Black Dossier: Faerie’s Fortune Founded)

1678: Prospero recruits Caliban, Ariel and the traveler Christian to form Prospero’s Men. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1682-3: Prospero’s Men journey across the British Isles to the otherworldly archipelago known as the Blazing World. On the journey home, Christian departs for his own plane of existence. (Book II: The New Travellers Almanac)

1695: Prospero vanishes with Ariel and Caliban. The first League is no more. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1754: While taking a sea voyage, Fanny Hill meets Lemuel Gulliver and Captain Clegg. Hill then enters the subterranean realm of Horselberg, where years pass without her aging. (Black Dossier: The New Adventures of Fanny Hill)

Late 1700s: A second league, including at various periods Orlando, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his wife, Captain Clegg, Natty Bumpo and Gulliver, has multiple adventures over the years. George III’s claims to be protected by the group are taken as proof of his madness (Black Dossier: The New Adventures of Fanny Hill; The Most Popular Tall-Tale Teller in the Tavern)

1793: Fanny Hill meets the new League and leaves Horselberg with them. Between their exploits, which include a visit to the giant land of Brobdingnag, Fanny and the Blakeneys tour Europe. (Black Dossier: The New Adventures of Fanny Hill; The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1796: The League journeys into a subterranean world where they encounter lost legions of Roman soldiers and the alien Vril-Ya. (Black Dossier: The New Adventures of Fanny Hill)

1799: After Gulliver dies (while in bed with Orlando) the last members of the League — Fanny, Orlando and the Blakeneys — arrange his burial in Lilliput. They retire from service and engage in travel and sexual indulgence for the next few years. (Black Dossier: The New Adventures of Fanny Hill)

1802: Fanny leaves her friends and returns to Horselberg. (Black Dossier: The New Adventures of Fanny Hill)

1889. Allan Quatermain takes a mystical drug that plunges him beyond reality in the company of the Time Traveler, Randolph Carter and John Carter. He survives with a broken spirit and seeks relief in opium.  (Book I: Alan Beyond the Veil of Time)

1898: Acting on the orders of British intelligence’s M, Campion Bond assigns Wilhelmina Murray to recruit a new League. (Black Dossier: Shadows in the Steam).

1898: Miss Murray brings together Allan Quatermain, Dr. Jekyll, the Invisible Man and Captain Nemo to form the “Murray Group.” (Book I)

1898: The Murray Group attacks Dr. Fu Manchu’s headquarters in Limehouse to recover a stolen piece of the anti-gravity metal cavorite. They then have to thwart Professor Moriarty’s plot to attack Fu Manchu from an anti-gravity craft, at a high cost in innocent life. (Book I)

July, 1898: After battling John Carter and Gullivar Jones, a molluscan Martian race flees to Earth. (Book II)

August 1898: In the ensuing War of the Worlds, Griffin and Hyde die. Allan and Mina obtain a bacterial weapon which wipes out the Martians and part of London. Nemo quits the League in disgust; Mina leaves temporarily to sort out her feelings for Allan. (Book II)

1899: British intelligence sends Mina and Allan to investigate the supernatural horrors of Arkham, Massachusetts. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1899: Nemo and the Nautilus encounter a Yellow Submarine from the underwater realm of Pepper’s Land. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1900: Mina and Allan go to undercover to investigate a new social movement established in Avendale in west England. (Black Dossier: The Murray Group)

1900-1: The government sends Mina and Allan in search of a rumored source of immortality found at Kor in Africa. Bathing in the fires of Kor restores Allan’s youth and makes the couple ageless. Returning to England, Mina claims Allan died on the journey and passes off the rejuvenated Allan as his own son. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1901: Mina meets with Edward Bellman, the sole survivor of an expedition that passed through a dimensional gate near Oxford. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1902: Allan and Mina investigate supernatural forces in Ireland. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1904: Mina Murray visits Sherlock Holmes in Sussex and studies supernatural presences around the county. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1906: As part of a diplomatic initiative in Asia, Britain sends Allan and Mina on a trip through Russia, Mongolia and China. During the journey, they meet Orlando and bond due to their shared experience of extended life. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1906-7: The new League of Orlando, Allan and Mina return home by way of an Arctic crossing. As they approach England, they pass through the Blazing World. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1907-9: The Murray Group recruits master thief John Raffles and occult detective Carnacki as new members. (Black Dossier: The Murray Group)

1909: The German government forms a counterpart to the League, the Zweilicht-Helden or Twilight Heroes. The group includes crimelord Dr. Mabuse, mesmerist Dr. Caligari, the mad scientist Rotwang and his android creation, Maria. (Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery)

1910: The Murray Group confronts Oliver Haddo’s circle of black magicians, which is scheming to create the Antichrist. Janni Nemo flees her father to become a kitchen drudge in London, but after being gang-raped, embraces her destiny as the next Captain Nemo. (Century 1910).

1910: The Twilight Heroes organize an assault on London during the coronation of George V, only to be thwarted by the British League. (Black Dossier: The Murray Group; The Sincerest Form of Flattery)

1911: Alarmed by Germany’s creation of the Zweilicht-Helden, France drops its reluctance to employ super-criminals and recruits Robur, Arsene Lupin, Fantomas, Zenith and the Nyctalope as Les Hommes Mysterieux. (Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery).

1911: Caligari and Mabuse, learning the existence of the French Mysterious Men, use their skills to set the French and British teams against each other. (Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery).

1912: Mina Murray visits the tomb of Lancelot in Northern England. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac)

1912: Mina and Allan travel through Eastern Europe, including Dracula’s castle and a city of vampires. In England, Carnacki has visions of the League battling Les Hommes Mysterieux. Coupled with German propaganda, this convinces the British government the Mysterious Men are plotting to start a world war. (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac; Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery).

February 1913: With Mina and Allan back in England, the League launches a pre-emptive strike against the Mysterious Men. The attack on Robur’s airship fails, however.  (Book II: The New Traveller’s Almanac; Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery).

March, 1913: The League and the Mysterious Men battle again in the Paris Opera House and the caverns below it. Despite a spectacular struggle, both teams survive. The League returns to England believing it’s averted the world war, but Allan also suspects that Raffles and Mina have become lovers. (Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery).

1914-18: World War I. Robur dies at the battle of the Somme and Raffles dies at Ypres. At the end of the Great War, the Mysterious Men disband. (Black Dossier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery).

1919: Hugo Hercules kills Hugo Danner, eliminating his plans to create a new utopia (Tempest).

1920: With Danner gone, America lacks any superhumans to match the Murray Group and its European rivals. Filmmaker Nevada Smith fakes the arrival of a super-powered infant from another world to build morale. (Tempest)

1925: Janni Nemo robs Charles Foster Kane and Queen Ayesha of Kor. After the Nautilus sets sail for an Antarctic exploration, Kane recruits a trio of scientific adventurers to pursue Nemo. (Nemo: Heart of Ice)

1930: Bertie Wooster discovers his aunt’s new groundskeeper is a disciple of the Great Old Ones. Hilarity, black magic and brain transplants ensue. (Black Dossier: What Ho, Gods of the Abyss!).

1933: Janni Nemo seizes the bones of King Kong to return them for burial on Skull Island. (Nemo: Heart of Ice: A Perfect Match — And a Fuse!)

1937: The Murray Group (Orlando, Allan, Mina) are assigned to explore a subterranean region of England. The trip eventually leads them into the Blazing World. (Black Dossier: When They Sound the Last All Clear)

1938: Hira Nemo and Armand Robur tie the knot (Nemo: Heart of Ice: A Perfect Match — And a Fuse!)

1939: Orlando enlists in the Royal Air Force as a pilot. (Black Dossier: Director’s Summary)

1939-1941: Mina and Allan tackle various wartime threats, both on the home front and in Europe. (Black Dossier: When They Sound the Last All Clear)

1940: Captain Janni Nemo rescues Norway’s troll population from a Nazi extermination force. (Nemo: The Roses of Berlin: The Johnson Report)

1941: Allan and Mina blow up the cross-channel bridge. (Black Dossier: When They Sound the Last All Clear)

1941: Mina and Allan agree to travel to America and persuade the US to join the war on the Allied side. Knowing British intelligence plans to create a dictatorship after the war, the couple do not return to England. (Black Dossier: Director’s Summary)

1941: After the Axis capture Hira Nemo and Armand Robur, Janni Nemo and her husband enter the weird, futuristic city of Berlin to save them. (Nemo: The Roses of Berlin)

1944: Orlando goes AWOL from the RAF. (Black Dossier: Director’s Summary)

1945?: Orlando is magically transformed into a marmalade cat, though he eventually regains human form. (Black Dossier: Director’s Summary)

1946: The British goverment creates the Worralson Team as a duplicate of the Murray Group. Members include aviator Joan Worrallson, explorer William Samson Jr, submarine designer James Grey, invisible man Peter Brady and a robot called the Iron Warrior. (Black Dossier: The Worralson Team, 1946-47)

1947: After a single battle against the criminals James Soames and Count Zero, the government disbands the team as an inadequate substitute for its predecessor. (Black Dossier: The Worralson Team, 1946-47)

Late 1940s-early 1950s? Mina and Allan attempt to form a team of super-heroes including the Crimson Avenger, the Black Cat, Brain Boy and the Fly Man. (Black Dossier: Director’s Summary)

1950s: Janni Nemo engages in attacks on both the Communist American government and the totalitarian Big Brother government of Great Britain. She also battles various radioactive mutants and extraterrestrial monsters that appear during this decade. (Nemo: The Roses of Berlin: The Johnson Report)

1954: The Science Elders of the universe transform James Logan into Captain Universe (Tempest).

1954-6: At some point during this period, Allan and Mina have an adventure amidst San Francisco’s Bohemian counterculture.

1958: Mina and Allan return to England to learn what British Intelligence knows about them, and about the Blazing World. The mission puts them in conflict with James Bond, Bulldog Drummond and Emma Peel. (Black Dossier)

Early 1960s: Armand Robur assists France as his homeland struggles against freedom fighters in French Indochina (Nemo: The Roses of Berlin: The Johnson Report)

1964: Satin Astro travels back in time from the 30th century to avert centuries of disaster and oppression. (Tempest)

1964: Mina kills the criminal mastermind Vull the Invisible. Using his technology to disguise herself, she organizes a team of British superheroes, the Seven Stars, operating through the U.N. (Tempest)

1964: In response to the Seven Stars forming, the British government creates its own team, the Victory Vanguard. The Seven Stars humiliate them in a battle with Toby, a giant schoolboy. (Tempest)

1964: All of Britain’s superheroes go up against the government’s mutated monstrosity, the oozing Mass. (Tempest)

1964: Mina visits the Blazing World while Allan and Orlando have a romantic tryst. Prospero sends Mina into space to make peace between the warring races of the moon. (Century: Minions of the Moon)

1969: After Oliver Haddo returns to England, Mina, Allan and Orlando return too, to prevent Haddo advancing his evil plans. The Murray Group’s effort fails, leaving Mina insane and Allan a junkie. (Century 1969)

1975: Hearing rumors that Ayesha has returned to life, a dying Janni leads an expedition up the Amazon for a confrontation with the woman who killed her husband. (Nemo: River of Ghosts)

1987: Janni’s grandson becomes the new captain of the Nautilus and leader of the Nemos’ realm on Lincoln Island.

2009: A broken Orlando, Mina and Allan reunite to battle Oliver Haddo’s Antichrist with the fate of the world in the balance. (Century: 2009)

2009: James Bond uses Ayesha’s pool to regain his youth, then nukes it. (Tempest)

2010: Satin Astro returns and gathers some of the surviving superheroes for another try at averting the apocalypse (Tempest)

2010. As the new head of the Secret Service, Bond nukes the Blazing World before Jack Nemo can take Mina, Orlando and Emma Night there. Prospero, however, holds back the explosion. (Tempest)

2010: Prospero unleashes the forces of human imagination, overwhelming the Earth. The chaos spreads out and consumes the Solar System, guaranteeing Satin Astro’s future comes to pass. Jack Nemo’s rocket ship takes Mina and her friends into space. (Tempest)

2010: Jack and Mina marry. Emma Night executes Bond. (Tempest)

2164: Emma and Jack have established a home on another world, christened New Lincoln. Nemo and Orlando use it as the base for space piracy. (Tempest)