Those who know me know that a bit in recent years, the relationship between history (with a capital H) and fiction fascinate me especially. Evidenced also my participation in the anthology Playing with History in Pinkerton Press.
This also explains much of my interest Brigade chimeric , I'm talking about here already since the end of summer. Indeed, this comic has with history, fiction and even the history of fiction an interesting report. I will try in this post to analyze the surface of this report - as I engaged in a number of assumptions, not in the minds of authors. So beware, although I speculate foremost, it is possible that I deliver various spoilers that may be just touching. We will not know until the final three volumes will be released ...
Squad chimeric tells us the fate of Europe at the dawn of the Second World War. But not the Europe we know: In the comic, the Old Continent is dominated by a generation of superhumans born from the excesses of Super-science since the Great War of 14 to 18. Aside from that, the geopolitical situation, relations between the powers, the future looming seem quite similar to those that our history tells us. Squad chimeric is not an alternate history in the literal sense (Even if it borrows some elements), but a historical allegory: a kind of metaphor showing the real history and its issues, but played by others - until the world as we know it will resume his rights, which is announced the conclusion of the comic's own admission of its authors.
And these actors "allegorical," it is not very hard - although ... - To find their match.
The most obvious is Dr. Mabuse, master of Germany, subjugating the masses, the expansionist plans and design displayed to promote the supermen as representatives of the new mankind: it would obviously there to Adolf Hitler and his Reich millennium project led by the superior Aryan race. Among his allies, the Italian Benito Mussolini would Gog (but its status as the richest man in Europe also reminds Berlusconi wink?) And the Phalange, the infamous Franco. In Russia, Other We represent the Communist Party bureaucracy if he does not face limited administration of the Soviet dictatorship. For the Franco-English is more difficult ... The shenanigans of nyctalopia, the ambiguous side of the character and knowing that Jean de La Hire made the character a collaborator in the later novels starring could think of Marshal Petain - especially as the nyctalopic is also an "old glory" of France, before the current generation of supermen. Dr. Séverac, sheltering him in the famous Brigade, is an idealized representation of France - Republican, open, tolerant, forward-looking while anchoring itself in its past. Would that General de Gaulle and Jean Moulin? Similarly, should see the equivalent of Churchill Accelerator? Again, answers will probably be deducted from the rest of the comics ...
After the characters, events ...
Squad chimeric opens simply an allegory on the Munich Conference, in detail except that it happens in Metropolis, home of Dr. Mabuse. This announcement will its disastrous projects and helps us understand the beginning of its expansionist drive - Prague will be the next city to fall. It notes the presence of Americans, again through their supermen (consolidating the draft narrative of the comic) with a Mr. Steele, an allusion to Superman obviously presented as a power impossible to measure. There is therefore still a metaphor for the position U.S. at the time; back but already have a military industrial complex like no other.
Other elements of the work going in the direction of historical allegory. The two attacks carried out by Dr. Mabuse on Paris (via Cagliostro) and London (via robots) use a method hypnotic, materializing in a mystical or superscientifique power of Nazi propaganda - which unfortunately is echoed in many European countries. Similarly, the relationship of different backgrounds with communism - and so the alliance with us - refers to the history of this ideology in our part of Europe.
- SPOILER -
Now has been briefly reviewed the report Brigade chimeric to history, via allegory, we can deliver to various speculations on the following events narrated.
Serge Lehman was clear on the "purpose" of this comic: answer the question of the total absence of superheroes Europe after the Second World War, when they swarmed forward in the soap operas. So we know that at the end of the work, the world will return as we have in Europe, leaving the field clear for supermen-American to take possession of the sphere of popular culture. But how to spin this? For my part, I think the House will play a key role glowing on the end of this saga - I see end at Metropolis, necessarily. Indeed, one can assume that history has deviated from the moment Jean Séverac was wounded in the trenches, opening the House inadvertently burning and releasing the first chimeras in the world - the Brigade itself, but perhaps also seeds of other possibilities. This occurs at the border of the world the dream - and therefore all-powerful imagination - is probably also the item that will end the era of superscientifique Europe. One can imagine a Dr. Séverac overwhelmed by the looming conflict, seeing the announced end of the world, and deciding to close the Burning House by enclosing them all "chimeras" released worldwide - the supermen involved in this conflict the Old Continent . The reality then rewriting history so retro-active - as in a Crisis home DC, thus completing the inspiration of American comics.
Even more interesting, it means So those famous "chimeras," on-the forgotten people of our imagination, still exist in the Burning House. An author and a bit ambitious could ajar the door of it for free in our time, recreating an entire segment of our culture in a modern way, to re appropriating the history of French literature and European to move forward, through characters at once faded in our minds but devilishly familiar.
It is possible to engage in other speculations on the basis of assumptions made - including the role of any character next to his model history.
Thus, if the Vichy nyctalopic represents a certain way, we can predict his defeat and submission to Dr. Mabuse, forcing the Radium Institute and Brigade chimeric to come into resistance. It may equally reflect on the form that will take some historical events as the Nazi-Soviet pact.
course, all this also depends on how far the writers will push their BD: World War II to begin she? The work you it will end before leaving the reality reassert itself?
- SPOILER END -
So this is another of the great qualities of the Brigade chimeric than playing with history while respecting it, to push us through to interest the fiction (the latter did she never had another role to get us to contemplate the reality in an original?) and ultimately allow us to dream again based on the characters that we hope will reappear in new stories , the spin-off or upgrades.
Hoping that the House will open burning again, releasing these chimeras in which our imagination has great need.
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