The major motion picture took only the premise, and threw in Dorian Gray and a time-warped Tom Sawyer. The original teams up Mina Murray, the Invisible Man, Alan Quatermain (depicted as a recovering opium addict), Captain Nemo, and Jekyll/Hyde in an often surreal, steampunk 1890s. The plot involves Rohmer's Fu Manchu, Doyle's Moriarty, and Wells' gravity-defying Cavorite. References are made to Susan Coolidge, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, and many other writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. We even pay a visit to a Girls' School out of Victorian porn, with depictions which must have jarred a few kids (and their parents!) who bought the graphic novel after watching the film. The sequels grew even more complex and adult-oriented. The Black Dossier is brilliant, but many readers found it inaccessible.

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