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Popular Culture Review
dialogue, much of which has more or less been lifted straight out of “The Final
Problem,” and nearly all of which serves to demonstrate their all but identical
cognitive capabilities. Though emphasized throughout Moriarty’s flashback
explanation of the Reichenbach incident, this striking resemblance is understated
in the arc of the main story, which proves otherwise devoid of anything more
than wistful allusions to the, presumably, dearly departed detective. In an ironic
inversion, Moore allows James to survive when Sherlock, apparently, does not.
“It’s James. Call me James,” Moriarty states in the concluding panel of the
fourth serial installment of The League o f Extraordinary Gentlemen. He speaks
to a colleague—his close second. Campion Bond—a figure who in Moore’s
representation supplants Col. Sebastian Moran’s position in the professor’s
nefarious circle. Goldman notes that, “Within the narrative, Moore incorporates
moments of recognition into the narrative, making the intertextual contexts of
the characters essential to the plot” (146). What Goldman implicitly argues here
is that this comic relies on intertextuality as exposition; as he goes on to st