By Jerry Frissen, Peter Snejbjerg & Delphine Rieu, translated by Edward Gauvin (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-112-9
European comics have long been a bastion of big concept, high octane science fiction comics and in recent years have also taken on many of the faster-paced, viscerally emotional spectacles typifying modern movie blockbusters. A splendid new example of that marriage of thought and action can be seen in the English-language translation of World War X: Helius.
Belgian born Jerry/Thierry Frissen generally hangs out in Los Angeles writing comicbooks for Europe (Meurtres, Tequila, Les Tikitis, Luuna) and America (Luche Libre, The Zombies That Ate the World) or designing cool toys, whilst Danish illustrator Peter Snejbjerg (Tarzan, Hypernauten, Den Skjulte Protokol) is now a bona fide star of the US comicbook industry with impressive stints on a broad variety of classics like Abe Sapien, The Mighty, Starman, The Light Brigade, Books of Magic and many more.
Here they mash-up a number of genre styles to relate an astounding secret history of the world – and usher in its likely end – in a fast and vast tale which reassuringly mines familiar plot territory and fantasy memes to craft an engaging and addictive Armageddon thriller.
It dawns on the moon on February 17th 2017 where a team of scientists from Ralph Milne Farley Lunar Base are cautiously retrieving an oddly inscribed box. It looks like a coffin and when an accident causes it to fall open death is indeed inside…
The release of the thing inside awakens a most unique individual in Oregon, whilst a covert military archaeological dig in Papua, New Guinea goes into overdrive at news of the moon colony suddenly going off air.
Adesh Khan has no time to worry; he’s still working on the box uncovered at the bottom of a deep pit in these fetid jungles. Translator Antoine has made a breakthrough and thinks the hieroglyphics covering the Sarcophagi are warnings. He strenuously advises that every box be buried again and forgotten…
The remarkable individual in Oregon calls himself Helius and, as his team of heavily-armed and well-equipped enforcers efficiently ferry him by jet to another black site in Florida, they brief him on things you and I would consider common knowledge…
Adesh is arguing with the American President but PotUS isn’t listening. Project IX promises inexhaustible energy for the planet and he’s thinking about his legacy…
In Portugal, on November 1st 1755 the city of Lisbon was devastated and thousands of lives lost in what history records as a monumental earthquake. It wasn’t, but the hideous travesty that actually destroyed the metropolis looks awfully like the thing that came out of the box on the moon…
In the Everglades Tara Austin receives a frantic message from her colleague and ex-husband Adesh to stop working and get out of the state immediately. He can’t say much more because that’s when he’s arrested.
As Tara realises the Sarcophagus her team’s been working on is opening and rocking the entire area, in nearby Jackson, Helius and his minders are being quizzed by a pushy reporter who asks the strangest questions. Dodging her, the squad head to the Everglades but the base there seems totally devoid of life…
Deep within Columbus Airforce Base, Mississippi Adesh is being interrogated. He is still being cagy about what he now thinks the scattered Sarcophagi might be and responds badly when Lt. Erica McLyman lets slip that all contact has been lost with the Everglades due to a huge earthquake…
It’s not long before Adesh busts out of his cell, sneaks off base and heads for Florida…
In France in the Year of Our Lord 1248, a terrible upheaval shattered Mont Granier, releasing a monstrous devil which slaughtered peasants and a troop of knights. One of the noble survivors was severely maimed. He looked a lot like Helius…
In Greenville, Florida a reporter named Jen bums a ride with Adesh as he closes in on the Everglades site. They’re a rather conspicuous couple. Everybody else is headed in the opposite direction, spurred on by terror and enforced evacuation by the army. His destination is a raging battlefield, but a news blackout prevents anybody from learning who the army are fighting…
On the periphery of the furious struggle Helius and his unit are slowly closing in…
Adesh is a prisoner again. Jen has him chained to a steering wheel as he cautiously negotiates the road to the battle. She’s also pumping him at gunpoint for information on Project IX and doesn’t seem surprised by anything he reveals about the collection of 4-billion-year-old boxes his team had found deposited deep in the Earth.
At that antediluvian time all nine oddly-inscribed high-energy artefacts were placed equidistantly, but passing eons, geological upheaval and continental drift gradually shifted them. The troubles only really began after he convinced international authorities to move them back into their original positions…
At Everglades Ground Zero the army are losing the war against a legion of zombies. Helius explains their true enemy is the horror called Kharis, not his meat puppets, and advises his loyal squad on how best to deal with the myriad assaults of the thing.
Not far away Jen hears its call and changes her mind about killing Adesh. She does, however, reveal just how far from human she actually is…
As they observe Helius metamorphically confront Kharis, Adesh wonders if he might be the only normal creature left in Florida. That idle thought resonates as Jen suddenly joins the fight, every inch as terrifying, warped and inhuman as the original combatants…
And on February 11th 2017, in Mont Granier, Lisbon, the Azores, New Guinea and Greenland the world shakes. Horrendous beasts awake, causing incalculable death and destruction, heralding the end of the world…
To be Continued…
Snappy, fast paced and planting plenty of plot seeds for future spectacle and revelation, World War X: Helius promises to be a rousing rollercoaster ride of thrills, chill and spills. Get this and stick around for the main event. It promises to be a blast…
World War X and all contents are © Snejbjerg/Frissen/Éditions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard S.A.) 2013.
World War X: Helius will be released on April 14th 2015 and is available for pre-order now.
I need to ask you a question: Why do you have to include a detailed narration of the whole plot of every book you review? It’s really baffling.
I have a page devoted to Eurocomics and I’d like to link to your reviews but I’m very reluctant due to this quirk of yours.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for getting in touch and sorry for baffling you.
When I started doing graphic novel reviews 14 years ago for the Comics Creators Guild I opted for short punchy pieces which simply told readers what I thought about the item and why.
That made me look rather smart to dedicated fans and collectors but didn’t help parents, gift-givers or casual consumers to decide if they would like the book in question. As a (then) professional and active creator, my likes and dislikes were not and still aren’t necessarily those of everybody else and certainly not those of people outside the industry
When we began Now Read This in 2007 we opted for a fuller precis of the product on the assumption that as we were primary focused on providing a service for new or returning consumers, they would need more information to base purchasing decisions on.
NRT never gives a hostile review if we can avoid it. The comics medium is under constant pressure from other visual media (film/tv/video games) for consumers’ time and money and we try to ensure that every book we cover has some merit. We just won’t review books we think are rubbish or detrimental to the art form, and that’s as far as our personal opinions go.
Thus we’ll keep on hopefully enticing newreaders to try books we think worthy of notice, confident that although a little plot pre-selling might remove narrative tension the experience of seeing the actual artefact in full pictorial resolution will offset that.
If that spoils things too much for your readers that’s regrettable but if they’re experienced fans they probably wouldn’t enjoy our longwinded waffle anyway.
Thanks for the explanation, Win. You hit the nail right in the head in your last paragraph: I know by experience that sometimes people complain when you link to a “spoiler-ish” review, and I’m not a fan of issuing the typical “spolier alert” warnings, hence my reluctance.
Anyway, I’m going to share this one because it’s a book that really deserves all the promotion it can get.