The Metabarons
Writer: Alexandro Jodorowsky
Artist: Juan Giménez
Published by Humanoids Publishing
The Metabarons represents perhaps the most successful attempt ever at depicting in comics the type of sweeping, epic space-saga that has long occupied the realm of science fiction novels, but rarely been seen in comic books.
It's puzzling that there have been so few attempts -- only Walt Simonson's Star Slammers comes to mind, really -- because just like prose novels, the only cost of depicting a grand tapestry that spans galaxies is the cost of the creator's imagination. It would cost many hundreds of millions of dollars to properly breathe life into the events of The Metabarons on a movie screen, and even when that kind of money is spent, in Star Wars for example, there historically has been a limited scope in the depiction of the length and breadth of the saga. That's not a problem here.
Despite its focus on one family, The Metabarons is anything but limited. The artwork depicts majestic spaceships and worlds truly enormous in scale, inviting the reader to experience such grandeur in a way that very likely will never be possible in real life. The images here are more beautiful and mind-blowing than any ever seen on any movie screen. The fact that such astounding imagery is combined with a story that so convincingly depicts an alien culture is the key to the success of the series.
The fact that this is a translated work actually plays to its favour, I think. We are, after all, trying to understand the motives and actions of an alien culture whose way of life is utterly repugnant. The Metabaron dynasty is built on an implicit masochism and an explicit ritual of mutiliation as a rite of passage. I could never imagine going through what the family does to maintain its lineage, but the struggles faced by the Metabarons are depicted against a backdrop of truly interstellar concerns; a big problem that is met by a big solution, with even bigger sacrifices made along the way.
This won't be a totally alien tale for most readers; there are echoes of earlier tales like Dune and Asimov's Foundation saga here; the execution and artwork, though, set The Metabarons apart as one of the most ambitious and visually staggering series ever attempted in the medium of comics. The fact that it stays grounded in the human by its focus on the tragedies and triumphs of the individual members of the family makes it all the more accessible. This may be an alien culture, but its lives, loves, battles and wars are convincingly depicted in one of the most compelling science-fiction comic books ever. Grade: 5/5