2 out of 5

It’s probably because I’m an idiot, but the opening book of this series is practically incomprehensible to me.  This ‘review’ points out just how much of an idiot I am, outlining the slew of pulp heroes that make cameos in the book, or figure properly into the plot, which seems – and this is part of the incomprehension – to not so much be about anything so much as reviewing an alternate history stocked with European superheroes post WW I.  I was looking forward to reading this after enjoying Lehman’s ‘Masked,’ also on Titan, and the $10 hardcover album treatment (collecting a couple issues of this translated series in each) is handsome and well-packaged, as is Titan’s game, but Serge / Fabrice just drop you in the shit, and to these dumb eyes and brain, it reads like something you’ve missed the first forty chapters of.  The pitch comparison is to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, obviously just in the way it collects various literary sources and deposits them together into the comic book genre, but for as high-falutin’ as Moore can get, I at least can settle into his books and get the the plot even if whatever context is way over my head.  And that ain’t happenin’ here.  It’s not that I can’t follow any given scene – moments are well-written, with characters clearly identifiable – I just have not a clue how it’s all meant to stitch together, or what the…  Well, what the fuck the chimera brigade is, or where the hell this is going, if anywhere.

Gess’ art has a breezy balance of simplicity and complexity, common of European artists, and is well complemented by Celine Bessonneau’s bright colors, although I found the use of photos (…of art, of landmarks, attempts to smooth this stuff into history) didn’t sync up with the art style.

But am I in?  You bet.  I have faith in Titan’s output, and I suspect this is the kind of read that might shape up as you go along.  And I should say: it is by no means uninteresting, it just seems unwilling to even vaguely point us down the road to a plot at this point.  Let’s see.