5. The Artful Dodger And His Band Of Pickpockets (Oliver Twist)
After spending several years in a penal colony in Australia, hardened by the lash of the whip and the hot sun of the Outback, the Artful Dodger makes a daring escape and stows away aboard a ship bound for London. Shortly after arriving, he assumes control of Fagin's leaderless gang of street urchins. The Industrial Revolution comes to a screeching halt as he convinces every orphan and child laborer to go on strike. Soon, The Dodger and his grimy brats have taken control of the city, driving out all the grown-ups after one massively coordinated city-wide pickpocket heist. The League then team up with Oliver Twist, who has grown up to be an MI6 agent (obviously), and have to fight their way through an army of creepy children to get to the Dodger. But these are kids they're fighting, so it's really hard because they have to be gentle with them. So they employ the use of the Older Brother Maneuver, holding the kids back by their foreheads so their tiny fists are out of punching range. This gets Allan Quartermain into a rather curmudgeonly state because he despises children, causing tensions with Mina because her Vampirological clock is ticking. We're setting up a whole "will-they-won't-they" thing here. Twist engages the Dodger in hand to hand combat, a foolish endeavor, as the Dodger is a master in the martial art of 'Roo-Fu and can drop-kick with the force of a kangaroo. But just as he's about to perform the kick-de-gras on top of a factory smoke stack, Oliver jumps aside and the Artful Dodger plummets to his death. Leaderless again, the child laborers go back to work.