V (comics)
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V is a fictional character from comic book series V for Vendetta, created by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. He is a mysterious anarchist vigilante and terrorist, easily recognizable by his Guy Fawkes mask and dark clothing. According to Moore, he was designed to be both a protagonist and antagonist, so that readers could decide for themselves whether he was a hero fighting for a cause, or simply insane. [1]
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Origin
V's background and his identity are largely unknown. He was an inmate at the infamous "Larkhill Resettlement Camp", which was actually one of many concentration camps where political prisoners, homosexuals, Jews, black people, Pakistanis, Muslims and probably all non-Europeans were exterminated by Britain's new fascist regime, Norsefire. While there, he was part of a group of prisoners who were subjected to horrific medical experiments conducted by Dr. Delia Surridge, which involved artificially designed hormone experiments (possibly research into creating super-soldiers). A pedophile priest, Lilliman, was at the camp to lend "spiritual support". The dozens of prisoners injected with the serum all died horribly, all except for one man: the man in room five ("V" in Roman numerals). Physically, there was nothing wrong with him, but Surridge felt that his mind had been warped by the experimentation. Still, his actions seemed to maintain a twisted logic to them. The experiments actually yielded some beneficial results: he developed Olympic-level reflexes, increased strength, and incredibly expanded mental capacity (as demonstrated consistently throughout the novel, V is a genius in the fields of explosives, martial arts, philosophy, literature, politics, computer hacking, chemistry and many more).
Over time, the man is allowed to grow roses (scarlet carsons) and is discovered to be a gardening expert and ends up raising crops for camp officials, i.e. Prothero. The man eventually started taking surplus ammonia-based fertilizer back to his cell, arranged it in bizarre, intricate patterns on the floor, and soon after a large amount of grease solvent from the gardens also went missing. In secret, the man was using the fertilizer and solvent to make mustard gas and napalm. On a stormy night (Nov. 5th), he detonated his homemade bomb and escaped his cell. Much of the camp was set ablaze, and many of the guards that rushed in to see what happened were killed by the mustard gas. The camp was evacuated and closed down. He adopted the new identity, "V", and donned a Guy Fawkes mask and costume. V then spent the next five years (twenty in the film adaptation) planning his revenge on the Norsefire government, building his secret base, which he called the "Shadow Gallery", and killing off most of the over 40 surviving personnel from Larkhill, making each killing look like an accident. However, he saved Prothero, Surridge, and Lilliman for last, showing only Surridge a bit of mercy by using a painless poison.
[edit] Identity
V's true identity is a mystery, and he publicly takes off his mask only once during the entire story (at Surridge's request), at which point his back is to the reader. Near the end of the story, Evey imagines what the face behind the mask looks like, one of the imaginings being her own father.
He doesn't even consider "V" his "name", saying "I do not have a name. You can call me V." The only explanation given regarding V's past is Surridge's diary, which V leaves out in the open for the "Finger" (an agency much like the FBI or CID) to find after he kills her. Inspector Finch, the head of London's police department and one of Norsefire's most powerful officials, reads through the diary, but points out that V wanted them to read it. V also tore out many pages, which possibly left clues to his true identity before arriving at the camp. Finch further speculates that V fabricated the version of Surridge's diary which he left with her body, just to confuse the police. It does seem to be confirmed that V was actually at Larkhill, but anything the police found out about it from the diary is what V wanted them to know.
In the book Delia Surridge states in the diary "Physically, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him. No cellular anomalies, nothing", something that would dispel the notion that V was disfigured. His confidante Evey Hammond speculated in the comic that V might be her own father, who was arrested years ago as a political prisoner, though he denies it. Indeed, Moore has confirmed that V is not Evey's father. [2] There is also some speculation that V could actually be Valerie, the prisoner in the cell next to his whose autobiographical letter inspired V not to give up (and which he later passed on to Evey). Conceivably, V might actually be a woman whose appearance has been so drastically altered by the hormone experiments (not unlike the real-life effects of large doses of anabolic steroids or testosterone on women) that it is impossible to tell while wearing the Guy Fawkes disguise.[2] However, Prothero and Surridge both describe V as the "man" from room five, which would seem to dispel this theory.
This particular theory, however, would seemingly explain V's abnormal strength, his need to constantly wear a mask, his fascination with roses (Valerie, in her letter, speaks abundantly about roses) and to a certain extent, his very name, and is further backed by the knowledge that Alan Moore's first draft for V for Vendetta, entitled Behind the Painted Smile, was initially rejected by DC Thomson because they didn't like the idea of a "transsexual terrorist"(see main article, V for Vendetta).
V's true identity is never revealed. As Finch comments on the pages V tore from Surridge's diary, "What was on the missing pages, eh? His name? His age? Whether he was Jewish, or homosexual, or black or white?". He later describes himself to Finch as "an idea". That Evey genuinely takes over the persona upon the death of her predecessor suggests V is something transcending the individual physically donning the mask, akin to Doctor Mabuse. Late in the story, Evey, having taken over V's mission, also appears to consider herself anarchy incarnate. In effect, V is an Everyman: potentially, anyone oppressed by their government could become a revolutionary avenger.
[edit] The villain
Four years after his escape from Larkhill, V begins his vendetta against the government by blowing up Parliament on November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. V then kidnapped Prothero, who was now the "Voice of Fate" on the government's propaganda radio, and drove him insane by destroying his prize doll collection in a satire of the exterminations that occurred at Larkhill. V killed now-Bishop Lilliman by forcing him to eat a communion wafer laced with a lethal dose of cyanide. Norsefire had infused a perversion of religion into their rhetoric, saying that those who were exterminated were not pure in the eyes of God, and V's black joke was in forcing Lilliman to put some of his religious rhetoric to the test of transubstantiation. V then killed Surridge, the one Larkhill official who felt remorse for her actions, by injecting her with a poison which painlessly killed her. Having thus leveled the playing field, V moved his plans forward.
V staged an attack on the government's propaganda broadcasting station, strapping himself with explosives and forcing the staff to follow his orders under threat of detonating them. V then broadcast a message to the people, telling them to take responsibility for themselves and rise up against their government. Finally, V destroyed the government's CCTV surveillance buildings, eroding its control over British citizens. However, V was mortally wounded when he was shot by Finch, and he staggered back to the Shadow Gallery, where he died in Evey's arms. Evey then laid him in state, surrounded by scarlet carsons and gelignite, in a subway train which stopped at a blockage along the tracks right under 10 Downing Street, where the explosives-laden cab detonated, giving V a viking funeral in the process. Evey then took on the mantle of "V".
[edit] Portrayal in the 2006 film
The 2006 film adaptation of the graphic novel starred Hugo Weaving as V. In the film, V is portrayed as a romantic freedom fighter rather than as an anarchist terrorist. He is also portrayed as much more human and personable than his comic book counterpart, and more willing to spare the lives of those collaborating with the government. Also, near the climax of the film, the character admits to having fallen in love with Evey. Although it is never specified, it appears to be a platonic love rather than romantic love. There are strong elements from the Count of Monte Cristo and Phantom of the Opera in this interpretation of V that are not as pronounced in the original story. V's history is also very different from that given in the graphic novel; his powers are no longer the result of a super-soldier hormonal experiment, but an end result of a biological weapons experiment. He is only described as having increased kinesthetic reflexes, rather than superior strength or intellect (though it is still apparent he possesses these traits).
Another addition to the character's biography is that, prior to his escape from Larkhill, he claims to have forgotten his past in its entirety, including his name, transforming him totally into the "everyman" persona he adopts in both the original story and in the film. When the doctor's journal is found, no torn pages are seen or described. This means that there was no clue to V's past identity in it, or that he had lied about forgetting. If there was a description of his past identity, the people who analyzed the book don't seem to have matched up the person in room 5 with V.
This aspect is further exploited during a short sequence in which V ventures outside to meet Inspector Finch without his mask, and thus is easily recognisable as actor Hugo Weaving, which is later followed by a quick flash of a discarded "Hugo Weaving-like" latex mask hanging inside V's lair, suggesting that even the actor's traits are not what's really under the Guy Fawkes mask.
Unlike the graphic novel, where he kills dozens, if not hundreds of government workers indiscriminately, the V of the film kills only to fulfill his vendetta and those who are an immediate threat to his plans. He fails to bomb Jordan Tower, and given V's proximity to the explosives and his stated plans for the future, it can only be assumed that the bomb was not rigged to explode anyway.
V is revealed to have undergone severe burn damage, whereas in the novel, he is assumed to have been unscarred by his escape from Larkhill. The briefly exposed skin of his hands, despite severe burn scarring, indicates he is probably Caucasian. In the doctor's description of him as a patient she mentions that there was something different with his eyes. A kind of blindness could be an explanation for his enhanced kinesthetic reflexes, similar to the Marvel hero Daredevil.
The inclusion of this burn-scarring and his reluctance to show his face to Evey suggests that his face may have been burned as well, suggesting a more likely reason to not reveal himself to Evey, detracting from the above-mentioned interpretation some have of V being a masculinized woman in the comic. In the film if one was to pause the movie on the part when Evey was captured, one can clearly see the agent has a burned face. As Valerie Page was shown being put into a mass grave, it would be impossible for her to be V in the movie. Such scarring would make it necessary to cover his face at all times to blend in. Having shown a skill with flesh masks, he may have used them to interact with the public, whereas in the comic, presumably unscarred, could have gone undisguised when running errands.
Additionally, at the climax of the film when the people in costumes gather to witness the explosion of Parliament, many figures and characters who died in the film, due to Norsefire's social cleansing, appear, removing their masks to witness the grand fireworks. In this group is Hugo Weaving, suggesting that V was also among the others who had died. This suggests that Weaving not only played V, but that V shared his resemblance prior to his burning.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Warrior
- Warrior #1 - 16, 18 - 23, with an Alan Moore V for Vendetta feature in #17
[edit] DC
- V for Vendetta
- Vol. I of X V for Vendetta September 1988
- Vol. II of X V for Vendetta October 1988
- Vol. III of X V for Vendetta November 1988
- Vol. IV of X V for Vendetta December 1988
- Vol. V of X V for Vendetta December 1988
- Vol. VI of X V for Vendetta December 1988
- Vol. VII of X V for Vendetta January 1989
- Vol. VIII of X V for Vendetta February 1989
- Vol. IX of X V for Vendetta March 1989
- Vol. X of X V for Vendetta May 1989
[edit] Graphic novel
[edit] Notes
- ^ A FOR ALAN, Pt. 1: The Alan Moore interview. GIANT Magazine. Retrieved on March 31, 2007.
- ^ a b shadowgalaxy.net. Who is V?. Retrieved on March 29, 2007.
[edit] External links
- Warrior publishing records on qualitycommunications.co.uk
- V for Vendetta publishing records on milehighcomics.com
- V for Vendetta Shrine fan site
| V for Vendetta | |
|---|---|
| Main Characters | V | Evey Hammond | Eric Finch | Adam Susan |
| Related | 2006 Film | Novel | Alan Moore | Norsefire | Storm Saxon | This Vicious Cabaret |
Categories: V for Vendetta characters | DC Comics martial artists | Fictional anarchists | Fictional assassins | Fictional activists | Fictional English people | DC Comics characters with superhuman strength | Fictional hackers | Fictional terrorists | Fictional vigilantes | 1982 introductions | Fictional torture victims
