3 out of 5

Things start to shape up here.

Gess’ and Bessonneau’s art gets a pretty fantastic workout here, with some Elastic Man attacks in both of the book’s collected issues, as well as a surreal takedown by The Eye and a monstrous battle between hypnotist Cagliostro and the also newly introduced magic lady Palmyra.  The story also starts to shape up, finally, with the prologue and first two chapters clicking into place as all introductory – establishing characters, rivalries, moods – and chapter 3 settling down around Jean Séverac, a scientist wounded during the war whom, under Marie Curie’s care and unbeknownst to him, became host to ‘The Chimera Brigade,’ a mythical group of heroes that have only been mentioned in passing (besides the title, of course) up to this point.  It could all make your head spin except for how Lehman and Colin have stitched it together, not overloading us with back history but dropping us in the middle and then working in tidbits, when it finally gets around to its focus (I think it’s the focus, anyway), the battle against the learning curve has paid off in an otherwise organic flow.  It’s very, very European in its lack of explanation, but it helps solidify my belief that the baffling first book would be worth it when the story actually kicked into gear.  We still don’t have much context at this point, but at least by revealing the tie-in to the title, it starts to ground things, and allows our curiosity to build for the next chapter.