As in guillotine…

V for Vendetta, on the other hand—while similarly dated and liberally incorporating elements familiar to any fan of the vengeance seeking, flush with resources anti-hero—holds up remarkably well all these years later. It’s a flawed story, mind you, as Moore slips back and forth between compelling melodramatic fiction and hamfisted polemic (similar in some ways to Fahrenheit 911), but the overall result is that of an incredibly engaging tale—part revenge thriller, part political potboiler, part police procedural—that takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride before ending on a somber, if obliquely hopeful, note.