As the Second 'Great' War commenced, the Allied forces, led mainly in the early stages by the United Kingdom, but then restructured significantly after the later addition of the United States and Soviet Union to the cause, again organised a 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' to assist in their efforts. More than anything, as it was in World War I, the presence of such a League was primarily to set examples of unity, courage and values through highly publicised, and thinly-veiled, propaganda heroes.
This group was in the works for most of the early part of the war, with leaders Winston Churchill, Albert Lebrun (although due to France's surrender to the Teutonic fascists, not for terribly long), and the prime ministers of England's commonwealth territories playing key roles in the organisation. But once the USSR joined the war under Joseph Stalin in 1941, and the USA under Franklin D. Roosevelt later that year, the increased political pressure fast-tracked the implementation of the League design.
As unveiled in February 1942, with its members enlisted and sent over the nations they respectively represented, The Second Allied League comprised:
- Matthew 'Mat' Selwood, an engineer and radio store owner who had been active as armoured vigilante 'The Flaming Avenger' since 1933, defending interwar era Dundee, Scotland, and eventually most of the northern United Kingdom, from crime and espionage. Selwood was offered the British position in The Second Allied League based on his aptitude in operating the flame-throwing bastion he used as a costume. 'The Flaming Avenger' armour was given a British Patriot redesign, red, white and blue being added to the armour, and motifs involving the Union Jack, Royal Crown and other items of traditional English iconography. These stylistic additions reflected Selwood's personality, which was reportedly that of a staunch, working class, British nationalist.
- Britt Reid, the handsome grandnephew of Second American League affiliate John Reid, and editor of the American (and globally syndicated) Daily Sentinel newspaper, which impressed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill shortly prior to the war after controversially printing anti-Hynkel material in a series of exposés. These articles evidently caused controversy amongst American isolationists, but made Reid a hero to the British, and later a key propaganda tool for the Allies after American entry. Reid was also, by night, the vigilante crime-fighter 'The Hornet', and used this persona when joining the League. As a costumed hero, Reid and his assistant, the Japanese-Filipino defector 'Keito', used their honed skills in martial arts to dispense allied justice to their Axis opponents much as they had done to racketeers in peacetime America. As an editor in his public persona however, Reid continued to use his influence to spread pro-war sentiment to his worldwide readership.
- Lt. Col. Rosa Klebb, a cunning Russian agent working for the newly founded Soviet SMERSH organisation, and proficient in her use of covert gadgets, along with other 'cloak and dagger' tactics. Klebb was ruthless in her practice, creating for herself a feared reputation amongst the German-Tomanian ranks, and guaranteeing her a place in their anti-Allied propaganda, which christened her the 'Rote Dämon' (meaning Red Demon). Klebb's sadistic streak set her apart from her idealistically capitalist teammates, perhaps out of knowledge that Lt. Col. Klebb, and other such Russian operatives, would most likely become their enemies should the war with the Axis Powers be won.
- Alana North, the Canadian Inuit mystic whose spiritual link with the Arctic spirits, worshipped by the northern tribal peoples from which she descended, gave her incredible powers and abilities, justifying her to be classified as a 'Super-heroine'. The socially progressive Ms. North used her position in the League to not only represent her Commonwealth nation, but also to champion the rights of repressed minorities such as Native Americans, being one herself after all, on the world stage. As a League member though, North acted almost as Lt. Col. Klebb's polar opposite, with her innate kindness and sensitivity lending her an unusual leniency to all people she encountered, ally or enemy, and a philosophy of forgiveness and understanding. Such an attitude was not often present, nor encouraged, within the Allied and Axis ranks at the time, so North was often told to keep her views out of public visibility, as having a Mahatmas Gandhi type figure in a military operation was foreseen as being poor for moral.
- Nestor Burma, an agent and saboteur for the Free France Forces in Occupied France, and deployed to the League by their leader Charles De Gaulle. The rugged Burma had formerly been active as an anarchist in the pre-war years, but gained the respect, and later employment of (once he became milder in his views) the French Government, after successfully infiltrating and destroying a pro-fascist group active in Paris in 1936. Burma served as private detective in Paris after this point, often being hired by the Government to perform covert operations within the city. When war came, the now heavily socialist Burma joined with the partisans under De Gaulle before his entry into The Second Allied League. In the League he served as a tactician, crack-shot, and generally a grizzled, world-weary character, but with a friendly, if cynical, sense of humour that allowed him to bond with his British, American, Russian and Canadian compatriots.
Naturally as such a high profile team, The Second Allied League became the centre of a vast range of propaganda posters, newsreels and even memorabilia, as they became utilised for moral purposes by the administration of the Allied forces. This League was one of many that operated on the Allied side during the war years, as they fought alongside the The Third American League, First All-American League, Justice Society of America, The Invaders and a handful of significant others.
As their own respective team however, The Second Allied League still managed to accomplish a series of impressive missions, despite their intended purpose as merely propaganda figures. Such adventures partaken by this team were not limited to:
- Having various run-ins with the similarly purposed Axis Leagues: 'Die Helden von Deutschland und Tomania' (The Nazi League, or directly: 'The Heroes of Germany and Tomania'), and the 'Nihon rîgu' (The First Japanese League). These encounters often involved impressive, high-stake action, but also quite often collateral damage to civilian areas that was usually covered up by both sides of the conflict at the time. These Allied cover-ups irritated North intensely, but her good friend Diana Prince, an affiliate of the Justice Society, convinced her that such 'accidents' were all for the "greater good", and that if the public found out about such events, it would cause all forms of disruptive anti-war protests that would make defeating the "forces of evil" more difficult. (1942 – 1945)
- Assassinating high-ranking Axis officials such as the Germany/Tomania-allied Freedonia's General Roberto Roland, and their puppet Governor of occupied Sylvania, Chicolini Chieti. The League also kidnapped such fascist dignitaries as one of Germany-Tomania's own puppet governors (in this case of the occupied Channel Islands) Roderick Spodes, the former head of the British Black Shorts fascist party who had escaped imprisonment in the UK at the beginning of the war. (1942 – 1944)
- Sabotaging and destroying key Axis infrastructure across Occupied Europe. Such buildings and structures destroyed included Castle Dracula in Transylvania, as being situated in Nazi aligned Romania; the ancient palace became the sight of a large-scale attempt to recruit supernatural forces to the fascist cause. The incident of the late vampire lord's fortress' destruction provided another battleground between The Second Allied League and The Nazi League. Another pivotal edifice of Hynkel's power undermined by the Allied League was the similarly archaic Ice Palace of the Snow Queen in the permafrost-blighted region of Northern Finland. As the Finnish were aligned with the Nazi forces, this recently repaired relic of a perhaps more mystical past was converted into war use against the Soviet Union. However the Allied League ended this fascist cooperation by using Nelvana's affinity with the spirits of the North, who brought about a terrifying cold storm to the frozen palace, wiping out it's militant occupants and leaving it unsuitable for any others to return safely. (1942 – 1944)
- Assisting partisans in the many resistance movements across the Axis occupied territories. The Allied League gave aid to the underground groups in France, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Sylvania, China, Ruritania, Zurowska, Marshovia, Czechoslovakia, Greece and a handful of others. In seemingly most cases, the League's help was greatly appreciated by these rebels, and obtained valuable leverage for the Allies once the original governments were restored to these nations.
By the end of the Second World War, The Second Allied League had been greatly lauded for their valiant efforts against the uniform forces of fascism under Hynkel, Napoloni, Hailstone, Tōjō and the other Axis Leaders. However, while the War in Europe drew to it's close, the Allied Forces spilled into the war-ravaged centre of Tomania, Hynkel and his closest cohorts spent their last days in their bunker, and the Soviet and American troop lines grew perhaps tensely close, the Allied League encountered perhaps their most dramatic, and perhaps terrifying scenario.
Both US and Soviet forces, their battlelines close at that stage, had noticed what appeared rockets being launched from a valley in central Tomania late at night, and reported this to the Allied commanders. The League was dispatched to follow these strange occurrences to their source, but the lauded quintet had difficulty tracing them. After a week of fruitless searching, North became aware of a strange, artificial aura radiating off the landscape within the valley floor, the Inuit mystic having an acute sense connected to natural balance. This prompted the ever-methodical Lt. Col. Klebb to search the landscape with a powerful metal detector, only to find the machine reading to its maximum capability. Burma pointed out that the most obvious connotation of these signs were that a bunker of some sort must be underground, but before the League could search for this, they were surrounded by Nazi Storm troopers in armour similar to that of Selwood's, and forced to drop their weapons and accept temporary surrender.
The 'supermen' marched their allied prisoners down into a colossal underground facility accessed through either a grand iris structure, which would open at the base's roof, or a smaller, hidden elevator, which they used in this instance to transport the League underground. This gargantuan complex was home to a concealed spaceport, where remnants of Hynkel's failed, science-fiction-esque Reich, in the form of people, technology and artifacts, were being loaded into Spacecraft of missile-like designs.
The League were taken to the two remaining Nazi League conspirators, Captain Albert Krieger, the Aryan 'super soldier' and die-hard servant of the 'fatherland', and Dr. Wichserkopf Merkwürdigliebe, an opportunist who appeared embarrassed to still serve such an abortion of a regime. Capt. Krieger explained to the captured League that he was sending off the survivors of the old regime to different parts of the world, and even beyond, in order to continue the thousand-year Reich until the double-cross could rise again. Such apparent refugees Capt. Krieger mentioned he had dispatched included the war criminal scientists Christian Szell (an ex-Nazi League cohort) and Josef Mengele to South America, and even number of unidentified fascists to the Moon in order to establish a colony there. After explaining his plan in a manner so long and over-pretentiously that it surely led to his own downfall, Capt. Krieger revealed he had created technology based around that used by the Allied heroes such as Selwood, but also of notables including Cliff Secord and Bruce Wayne, and planned to kill his current hostages with said equipment as a final message to the Allies of the undefeatable strength of the Third Reich. As the Super-soldier began to do set his troops onto the league though, the quick-reflexed Keito confused the soldiers with a series of fast, successive blows to their respective bodily pressure points, setting the fascists off-target as they began their execution. This chaos allowed the League to spring into action, as Reid joined his Filipino partner in using martial arts against the mechanized enemies, Selwood his flamethrower to roast the Tomanian supply caches, Burma and Klebb gadgets and brute force against the regular soldiers, and North her elemental powers to demolish sections of the Rotwang-influenced base. After a high impact battle, the League came out victorious, possibly due to their trust in each others abilities, which the war-weary and near to disillusioned Nazi forces lacked. Capt. Krieger fought till the end, until North fooled the Aryan patriot into flying over the nose of a primed rocket, which the quick-thinking Burma took as a subtle instruction, activating the space-vessel to launch into Krieger, crushing the Tomanian's flight-gas filled body against the roof of the facility before the rocket exploded, killing the 'superman' with his own technology.
After this feud was over, the League could barely catch a breath before a battalion of American troops stormed the underground stronghold. Sgt. Franklin John Rock led the US force into the chamber, where he quickly rounded up the surviving Nazi scientists such as the seemingly indifferent Dr. Merkwürdigliebe, and had them sent out, where apparently they would be taken by truck to the American base of operations in liberated Paris. Lt. Col. Klebb was offended by this action, not that the Americans would spare war criminals of trails and punishment based merely on the ex-Nazis utility, but that they did not leave any for the Soviets, who had helped the Americans considerably by that point in winning the war. This caused Klebb to walk out from the group and return to Moscow via the Soviet forces only half a mile from the ex-stronghold's location.
After getting over the disappointment that Klebb, who had come very close to letting her hardened exterior and allowed herself to become a friend of her colleagues, had shown no remorse in leaving them, the League rested at the American camp, before joining the collective Allied forces for the final push into the Tomanian capital of Tramplin, where Hynkel's dead body was found inside his bunker.
After the end of the war in Europe, the Allied League joined with the Justice Society, The Invaders and etcetera to march in the New York Victory parade, in their own 'Costumed Section', before being disbanded at the August 1945 Potsdam Conference in Germany by US President Mike Thingmaker, UK (then) Prime Minister Harold Wharton, and USSR Leader Joseph Stalin.
After this point, the closely nit League members said their farewells before departing toward their separate ways.
Lt. Col. Klebb became one of the most important agents of SMERSH during the Cold War before her death in the field during the British 'From Russia With Love' Operation in 1957.
Matthew Selwood became an important figure in the highly militarised United Kingdom of INGSOC and Big Brother, as his socialist views fit in well with that of the party's. Selwood helped battle 'Oceania's' enemies such as Manor Farm Chairman 'Napoleon', and the reclusive former Nazi-ally Meccania under Bludiron III. Selwood served INGSOC until 1953, when as the party was defeated, Selwood himself went into retirement, unsure how the new, anti-socialist conservative government of Britain would take to him.
Britt Reid and Keito went on battling crime in Post-War America much as they had in the pre-war United States. Although in this new USA, the seminal duo found themselves against numerous new enemies of Communist (Post-Thingmaker), Mutant and Extra-terrestrial origin. Reid's Daily Sentinel printing strong anti-communist material during this time.
Nestor Burma retuned to Paris as a Private Detective, becoming the City of Light's equivalent of figures like Los Santos' Philip Marlowe, eventually joining the Third French League in 1966.
Alana North returned to the Northern reaches of Canada, where she rested after a long war in the simplistic, but peaceful lives of the Inuit, before becoming recruited again for another League, the Canadian League, in 1948.
As for characters like Dr. Merkwürdigliebe and the Nazis deployed to the Moon. The former of which changed his name and worked heavily on the US Nuclear and Space programs during the Cold War, nearly causing the end of the world during the 'Doomsday Machine' incident of 1964. The latter of these had a troubled existence as a Moon colony, as after warring with a subspecies of the Lunar Amazonians called 'The Cat-Women' in 1946, the Fatherland refugees were discovered by the youths known as the 'Young Rocket Engineers' during their voyages on the Rocket 'Galileo', who then informed the United Nations on Earth, which prompted the colony's destruction by the UN Space fleet.
Overall the Second Allied League was substantially more useful to the Allied cause than their predecessors in a field work sense, and became widely celebrated through post-war history for their efforts, both in written recordings of the period, but also in popular entertainment like Film, such as the 1968 film 'The League of Heroes' Starring Jonathan Lord as Reid and Anne Baxter as North, and even Song, such as in Johnny Fontane's hit 1960 ballad: 'The Leaguers'.
