chimeric Squad - Volume 6 and balance 
Well, it's been a little over a week since the last volume of chimeric Brigade is out in bookstores. The conclusion of a journey that started last year and I told you about here and speak again - probably to scare away the last three curious who read this blog.
I'll give myself as usual critique & analysis of this volume, which is more likely than ever to deceive or disappoint many readers given its up AUBOUT , its total radicalism - and its perfectly consistent with everything that 'had established authors since the beginning of the work. Indeed difficult to imagine another possible end: it is not only the best, but mostly the only possible until the entire comic tended to her.
The Head Arrives is the tenth and final episode of the saga. So that 'to Warsaw George Spad faces his destiny, Metropolis a Brigade chimeric faces finally unleashed the Gang M. The outcome of this struggle will determine the future of Europe ...
Grand Nocturne is the epilogue, the end point. He eventually reveals how the Super-science left the Old World to New, and how the European superman goes off while the abominable looming war has been brewing for years.
hard to know where to start, as this volume is rich and plentiful, has different levels of reading, took up cons
certain expectations ... Let's start with what was most expected: the final battle between the Gang Squad chimeric M. A clash of titans, featuring the most powerful beings in Europe in order to influence the destiny of it. And above all: a duel that will not run as expected ... Although more powerful, more determined, more "complete" (remember the Gang M is reduced by one member and in fact, it loses power), the Brigade will be chimerical ultimately defeated, even crushed - by the hypnotic power of Mabuse .
This is probably the first time destabilizing: those who expected a confrontation Dante on multiple pages to be their expenses, even for those who imagined that all would go to European supermen Metropolis for a final symbolic gesture ... Oh yes, it would have been out of the mouth - especially given the graphic virtuosity deployed by Gess in this volume (the full-page Baron Brown shredding a sea of skulls!). But it would have been most completely at odds with the narrative device developed by the writers since the first volume: revisit the history of this period through the prism of adventures feuilletonnesques and supermen of our Former popular culture.
The reality was this: the defeat of the Western democracies against the wild Beast was ideologically before being military. The worm was in the fruit and that's what illustrated this fight: hypnosis Mabuse, a metaphor for Nazi propaganda, divides nations and draws the inclinations less respectable against the higher values. Serum that eventually kills the Unknown Soldier - viewed as a cockroach, vermin - symbolizes more than ever the trend of civilization is devouring itself, reversion to old ways (anti-Semitism, obsession with power, size of the force ...). And the result: amputation of its leader (source of balance of the group), the Brigade chimeric withers - and that has languished in France: country conquered, occupied, collaborationist during World War II.
whole point of the scene - in addition to its symbolic level - is the resonance that it takes with all previous episodes. It is repeated several times that the chimeric Brigade, representing through John Séverac a France idealized is invincible, super-powerful. And indeed, physically she dominates the Gang M. But it is the power of ideas that determines the outcome of the conflict-torn nations - and this is also shown above: Cagliostro manipulated by pushing Mabuse Parisians' s entretuer hypnotics or robots who do the same in London (and always by means of mental manipulation, which this is propaganda from all points of view). In addition, the turnaround is brilliantly illustrated by Gess : we discover a Mabuse literally possessed by his speech, whose words fascinate totally impressionable members of the Brigade chimeric (Serum and going to war in Baron Brown). It is interesting to note that only the last box has clearly Mabuse using its power (the shining eyes of the hypnotist), as if in fact his words were hardly needed this boost superscientifique to convince ... Similarly, the speech served up in the outline that Mabuse stated in the prologue at the Metropolis Conference : relevant illustration of the way slowly through which Nazi ideology across Europe, to see the triumph.
Death of the Unknown Soldier is the last holocaust that needs Metropolis - the anti- be - to grow. Now, the Unjust is complete: the last bastion is destroyed, a nation (in this case France) was amputated itself from one of its components and is symbolically dead. Nothing will dam the German armies. The anti- be embodied from the beginning the end of civilization (Judaism and its contribution humanistic), the point of extinction of a number of European values: which is precisely the imagination, the ability to dream and his heroes to create a popular mythology. Here Metropolis swallows it all: the dream becomes a nightmare, the theme of the superman is warped by the theory supremacist Aryan race and Europe seems doomed to leave from this part of their culture now tainted, pariah . Another metaphor for this (in the final pages of the epilogue, but the link is too strong to be ignored): George Spad arrested and deported at the heart of the anti- be , the head of Grand Nocturne - nothing less than the camp of Auschwitz Spad ... George is a writer, author of popular soap operas that the Hypermonde talk directly: it is a concrete embodiment of this European imagination that goes into gas and smoke, where science ends up killing the Super-science .
Let us the epilogue. His first
pages represent a Jean Séverac s' destroying them in the Hypermonde , now lost in this dimension of ideas while echoing the voices of war (mobilization is declared, the Italy mass his troops at the border). In a movie theater, young Michael - encyclopedia of popular culture for this to die out - sees his childhood dreams shattered by the revelation of the Nazi-Soviet pact . The idealized France of yesterday falls apart and the conflict begins that it has already lost without even knowing it.
Extinction Super-science of finally pushes the supermen from Europe. In London the superscientifiques meeting about to take a boat to the United States of America. Mr Steele (simply Superman: The Superhero archetypal American , here symbolizing the new face of growing superman once transplanted in America) then turns to a being which much has been heard without see also: The Golem , the embodiment of magic / Super-science - and hence the imaginary power that have dreams and myths shape the world. The Golem , construct Jew symbolizes nothing less than the Judeo-Christian humanism Mabuse that seeks to destroy the total opposite of the anti- be now unwelcome in Europe. The departure of Golem for the USA can be interpreted in several ways: scientifically, many Jews emigrated ( Einstein for example); culturally, it is noteworthy that the majority of the creators of the first comic books were Jews (Jack Kirby / Kurtzberg, Stan Lee / Lieber, Will Eisner , Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster ...) and finally politically, the center of the world moved from Europe to America after the Second World War ...
And following the Golem, the supermen leave the old world to the USA. Even in the opposing camp, Mabuse and his gang leave room for human that 'they' permutèrent "once in Commines : a sinister character known ... Again, it was announced: the Passe-Muraille, from episode 1, do decides he not flee because of the deleterious atmosphere reigning in Paris ? When the dark continent in the war, when the Super-science becomes undesirable when popular culture has no place in a world at war then we must also leave the country and sow the seeds for rebirth. The Europeans are supermen mold their American successors: Palmyra form the Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate , Félifax generate Beast, Judex will evolve into Batman, and François Dutilleul is it the grandfather of a certain Kitty Pryde (it himself Jewish)? Attention, in no case is that the creators of comics American had knowledge of these characters and have copied: we are here at a much more symbolic - and it goes back to the Golem and this that it embodies. We get on the field theory of fiction as if Europe, after spent a half-century to s' entredéchirer , thereby losing the right to establish the dominant mythology - this right is therefore the preserve of Americans and to a lesser extent the English which the cultural industry will Perennial (2000 AD , Marvel UK where some Alan Moore made his debut ...), this that illustrated the fact that the rest accelerator in Europe. But there is movement of the imagination, the collective unconscious of a Hypermonde continent to another. And naturally arise while , in new minds, the same archetypes populate colorful booklets up to join the ranks of legends at the global scope.
But if Europe loses its supermen, it keeps / win all the same heroic figures. Thus, the turning of a page, can you see Bob Morane or Francis Blake (from Blake & Mortimer ): neither homage nor glance, this scene is to to illustrate concretely the handover in European imagination between Superman and the human hero, who now populate popular literature and comics . Other heroic archetype begin in this troubled era: the tough, which means despite its ridiculous fight every inch against fascism (it measures the importance of this type of hero in terms of the Gaullist myth in France, for example). The Partisan, "the hero without power," is docked and observes the departure of supermen in the distance - it remains to fight. And meanwhile, the last superman French, nyctalopic who personified the greatness of the country (but mainly his arrogance) sinks into madness and rehashing his past mistakes, locked in the dark.
The end of the chimeric Brigade is a dark little town - just as was the reality at that time.
However, the authors manage to instill hope for the future. The message of Golem first: "Win this war and pay your debts " left to imagine that Europe, once the conflict is resolved, will again become a strong leader - and its ability to find the dream world . The heroes who stay to fight is another glow: Europe loses its not entirely imaginary one turns, fits and Britain becomes a bridge between the Old and New Worlds. The Invisible George Spad , despite the absolute horror of the final pages, deliver a final message announcing the rebirth of Europe demiurge of modern myths. And finally, the last drawing, one that closes the work: The Burning House, lost the ring somewhere in the Austrian Alps as the tenuous promise of the return of Jean Séverac - ready to take its place as mentor a new generation of supermen of Europe? Why not ...
A prologue, ten episodes and an epilogue: in twelve numbers, Brigade chimeric has carved an important place in the comic French. Reconciling worlds particularly close without knowing it, comic book draws its references in popular culture 's European between the wars succeeds handily his bet: brown on the front of the stage heroes, stories, a state of mind, codes and provide a legacy for readers TODAY 'hui.
All work is somehow a signal to say " That's it, it has served our penalty and it is time to wake . The gods and demigods in the resurrected comic only ask that 'to be staged in every way possible (in comics, fiction, Film - Christophe Gans prepare a Fantômas currently ...) by artists booze milk of comic book U.S. and like modeling clay now their own popular culture - to recreate a Golem in Europe, eager to open the House again. This is a wonderful gift we are the authors of chimeric Brigade - and myself have been so touched that I wanted to contribute, bringing me to the building via the 'Encyclopedia and Game. Neither
intellectualizing nor pedantic, but rather humble and generous Brigade chimeric is above all a great comic and an important work - as strong and memorable than can produce artists such as Anglo-Saxon Alan Moore , Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis . A true declaration of love for popular culture and a raw material that it belongs to us now to shape. Serge Lehman , Fabrice Colin, and Gess Celine Bessonneau showed us the way up to us now to clear this Hypermonde , replant the seeds and reap the heroes and stories .
