At least Fawkes inspired V

But who remembers the 1980s comic series and 2005 film V for Vendetta, in which a brutalised victim of a medical experimentation camp under a fascist regime escapes and reinvents himself as a Shakespeare-quoting Guy Fawkes-costumed freedom fighter?

With an expertise in knife combat and a view to avenging his fellow victims of the fascist oppression he aims to destroy the Houses of Parliament to show the masses that "people should never be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people!"

After adopting the name V and planning his revenge for 20 years he rescues a young orphan named Evey Hammond, whose socialist activist parents were killed by the fascist NorseFire regime - itself a play on the National Front (NF) - and recruits her.

It featured a sensitive and moving subplot about a lesbian actress called Valerie Page who ended up in the camp with V purely for being gay. This was groundbreaking in the 1980s at the height of the hysteria about Aids and homophobia propagated by the tabloids and Tory government.

I remember the comic and film as brave pieces of satire and social commentary as well as entertainment, I wonder if anything similar can be produced today?

Phil Brand

London SW17