Friday, 31 May 2024 06:41 pm
Book Review: Metabarons
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deckardcanineMonths ago, I was hanging around a comic book store because a friend worked there. Another employee talked me into buying this immense graphic novel compilation. It cost as much as a college textbook, so I knew I'd have to get around to it eventually.
In a distant space age, a Metabaron is a nearly invincible cybernetic one-man army, serving as either a sworn imperial champion or a mercenary. The position is hereditary; there's supposed to be only one at a time. Alejandro Jodorowsky first introduced the concept in his Incal series. Here we get the broad backstory of five generations of Metabarons.
I appreciate the framing. A robot in the Metabaron's service, with a supporting role in many segments, narrates to a co-worker to pass the time. Both are absurdly emotional, primarily with the listener's excitement and the narrator's rude impatience. They provide the bulk of comic relief, largely by calling attention to their mechanical existence ("Tell me quick before I blow a diode!") and/or adding a corny prefix ("bio," "robo," "techno," "meca" [sic], and especially "paleo") to a noun. Kudos to the translator.
And we really need that comic relief, because I was thinking of Greek tragedy before it ever came up in the dialog. Each Metabaron is an antihero at best; some cross the line to blatant villainy -- not to say that many other characters are more redeemable. Traditionally, they raise their only son in a super-abusive way and then sword-fight him to the death so that only the strongest survives. It's hard to root for their loves at first sight. None of them is happy for long, and much as they learn to ignore pain, they all have their outbursts. (The detail I find most depressing is the report of no new poetry in five millennia. What happened to the human spirit?)
Juan Giménez's illustrations are skilled but far more often ugly than pretty, so I seldom stared long. In addition to plenty of gore and some ugly alien designs, we get full frontal nudity, graphic sex, and several near rapes. Misogynistic? Quite possibly, as common for the medium, but the men don't fare much if any better in fate or characterization.
All I previously knew about Jodorowsky, I learned from a documentary on his attempt to adapt Dune. Small wonder I kept seeing elements of Dune herein. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different, not just from Frank Herbert's book but from pretty much anything else I know.
It definitely squares with the prior impression I got of Jodorowsky: What he lacks in taste or mores, he might make up for in creativity. All 500+ pages offer something I didn't expect, yet each surprise feels logical enough in context. So what if the sci-fi premises are as soft as in Marvel Comics? They dampen neither the fun nor the solemnity.
I'm glad I read Metabarons for the mental stimulation, but I can't think of many people I'd recommend it to. You need a particular state of mind.
Now reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. There's a tome I won't finish within a month, let alone a week.
In a distant space age, a Metabaron is a nearly invincible cybernetic one-man army, serving as either a sworn imperial champion or a mercenary. The position is hereditary; there's supposed to be only one at a time. Alejandro Jodorowsky first introduced the concept in his Incal series. Here we get the broad backstory of five generations of Metabarons.
I appreciate the framing. A robot in the Metabaron's service, with a supporting role in many segments, narrates to a co-worker to pass the time. Both are absurdly emotional, primarily with the listener's excitement and the narrator's rude impatience. They provide the bulk of comic relief, largely by calling attention to their mechanical existence ("Tell me quick before I blow a diode!") and/or adding a corny prefix ("bio," "robo," "techno," "meca" [sic], and especially "paleo") to a noun. Kudos to the translator.
And we really need that comic relief, because I was thinking of Greek tragedy before it ever came up in the dialog. Each Metabaron is an antihero at best; some cross the line to blatant villainy -- not to say that many other characters are more redeemable. Traditionally, they raise their only son in a super-abusive way and then sword-fight him to the death so that only the strongest survives. It's hard to root for their loves at first sight. None of them is happy for long, and much as they learn to ignore pain, they all have their outbursts. (The detail I find most depressing is the report of no new poetry in five millennia. What happened to the human spirit?)
Juan Giménez's illustrations are skilled but far more often ugly than pretty, so I seldom stared long. In addition to plenty of gore and some ugly alien designs, we get full frontal nudity, graphic sex, and several near rapes. Misogynistic? Quite possibly, as common for the medium, but the men don't fare much if any better in fate or characterization.
All I previously knew about Jodorowsky, I learned from a documentary on his attempt to adapt Dune. Small wonder I kept seeing elements of Dune herein. Nevertheless, it's remarkably different, not just from Frank Herbert's book but from pretty much anything else I know.
It definitely squares with the prior impression I got of Jodorowsky: What he lacks in taste or mores, he might make up for in creativity. All 500+ pages offer something I didn't expect, yet each surprise feels logical enough in context. So what if the sci-fi premises are as soft as in Marvel Comics? They dampen neither the fun nor the solemnity.
I'm glad I read Metabarons for the mental stimulation, but I can't think of many people I'd recommend it to. You need a particular state of mind.
Now reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. There's a tome I won't finish within a month, let alone a week.