Honestly, I was expecting to be mildly underwhelmed because I found the movie mildly underwhelming. Still really good, but not quite as deep as people made it sound when I was in high school.

This is different. This graphic novel is a political thesis, directly arguing that fascism is a fundamentally broken ideology and that power structures should be derived by the people from the ground up. It discusses the ways in which fascism appeals to people, the great effort required to escape years of conditioning, how different aspects of a police state work to prop up the government, the things that we lose along with individual liberties... it covers a broad range of topics.

The most effective tool this novel uses is that of perspective. We don't spend all that much time with V and Evey, as important as they are, because to discuss fascism you have to look at the people supporting it. We follow around the leader, government officials, goon squads hired to supplement the police, even wives and widows looking in from behind the scenes. This isn't the story of a madman taking down Big Brother for a vendetta; it's the story of a system of government with so many cracks that a single unhinged anarchist could cause the whole thing to collapse.

The art isn't particularly special, but it often has a nice punch to it. The storyboarding is fantastic, though. Flow between panels is perfect, the musical score at the start of book 2 is cool, and there are occasionally clever composition choices that highlight the medium well (for example, a panel where word bubbles are running down a man's arm when he's wearing his heart on his sleeve).

Seriously one of the best graphic novels I've ever read. An absolute classic.