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La Caste des Méta-Barons #1-8
The Metabarons: Ultimate Collection
Jodorowsky & Gimenez's epic saga collected for the very first time. A multi-generational tale of family, sacrifice, and survival told within an immense universe, both in scope and originality. A true classic in the pantheon of graphic storytelling and science fiction as a whole. Omnibus content includes The Metabarons #1-4 trades + 30 pages of bonus material (including two Metabaron short stories), presented in its original size and color and in a limited and numbered print run of 999 copies only.
544 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2003
111 people are currently reading
2481 people want to read
About the author
Alejandro Jodorowsky
692 books1,939 followersAlso credited as Alexandro Jodorowsky
Better known for his surreal films El Topo and The Holy Mountain filmed in the early 1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky is also an accomplished writer of graphic novels and a psychotherapist. He developed Psychomagic, a combination of psychotherapy and shamanic magic. His fans have included John Lennon and Marilyn Manson.
Better known for his surreal films El Topo and The Holy Mountain filmed in the early 1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky is also an accomplished writer of graphic novels and a psychotherapist. He developed Psychomagic, a combination of psychotherapy and shamanic magic. His fans have included John Lennon and Marilyn Manson.
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December 31, 2020
The Metabarons: Incest, Dismemberment, Genital Mutilation... but the Comedic Fails are Brutal
Alejandro Jodorowsky, at his age, will never master the art of shutting the fuck up. He has a Ph.D. in Self-Aggrandizement, specializing in The Virtue of Vanity, with a Master's in the Jodo-Economic discipline of Charm Management - his thesis for the latter was 'Fully Exploiting Charisma & Sexual Allure via New Age Spirituality' - all from the Jodo-Institute of Robotics, Sexuality, & Robotic Sexuality. While he's a Jodo-expert on Jodo, he's an amateur in the field of accepting criticism, especially when said criticism originates beyond the Jodoverse... i.e. his cranium. Nevertheless: Jodo will never write proper female characters that aren’t idealized and objectified sex-goddesses, insane fanatics, or spiteful old hags. He will never quit trying to be funny (and failing). He will never crack a book in order to make his science fiction even vaguely scientific. I've learned to accept all that shit, after years of conflicted Jodo-fandom, though I didn't know much about him before my first reading of 'The Metabarons', back in the 00's. It was my initial exposure to his work, and I recall liking it, for all its faults. I still do, even after seeing the same tired tropes & twists repeated ad nauseum throughout decades of Jodo-Comics.
This is Alejandro Jodorowsky's epic spin-off from the equally epic Incal trilogy. The character of the Metabaron was a supporting player in the fucked-up 'space-wizard' proceedings, but he was also a charismatic enigma, and Jodo had plans - ugly, evil plans - for him and his entire family. Ideas from his failed attempt at bringing Dune to the screen made their way into all the bande dessinee space operas he has written over the decades, but The Metabarons - after The Incal - squeezes the best of them from the tube, like a revised version of the film that completely expurgates Frank Herbert's story. The film had already ejected most of the novel anyway; Jodo was essentially using Dune as a subterfuge to raise capital for his own story. He had no intention of realizing Frank Herbert's vision, or any vision that wasn't his. If Kubrick could treat the source material for 2001 and The Shining like soft clay, to be shaped or cast aside by the auteur, so could he! That's another reason for the production's financial collapse, as investors suspected they were being conned into funding a mega-budget sci-fi sequel to 'El Topo', with sand-worms and spice.
Mega-macho murder by numbers:
Juan Gimenez provides page after fully painted page of otherworldly vistas and horrific mutant hybrids; carefully detailed robotic machinery, weapons and armor; beautiful women and brutal combat... blood spurting everywhere and often. The impressive array of artists that Jodo has worked with throughout his career includes some of the greatest comic artists of the 20th Century -- Moebius, Milo Manara, Ladronn, Georges Bess, Francois Boucq, Beltran, Das Pastoras, Arno, Travis Charest, Zoran Janjetov, etc., etc. Gimenez is far from the best of them. He's not the slickest, or the most technically proficient of Jodo's many collaborators, and there is occasionally confusion regarding both characters and action, stemming from the rough, unpolished feel. When he's at his best, though, his rich colors and dense compositions make The Metabarons look like the weird mix of beautiful and fugly that defines the spirit of the Jodoverse. It's unfortunate, in fact, that Jodorowsky's verbosity impinges on the art like it does, probably exacerbating the random bits of visual incoherence. A great deal of the action is obscured by this 'narrator-interference'... because Jodorowsky's biggest fault is an inability to just shut the fuck up and let the artist tell the story.
This is the kind of thing where Gimenez shines; his talent as a conceptual artist, imagining alien worlds and future-tech, is truly fantastic:
Nevertheless, this remains a multi-generational BD-epic like no other, telling the tale of four generations of Metabarons, and the harsh, inexplicably fucked-up demands they place upon themselves and their loved ones. It’s batshit crazy. They’re warriors, living by a kind of Bushido-code-on-steroids; the sick and brutal tests they inflict on their children are designed to prepare them for their final test, when the child will face the father in a battle to the bloody death. As for why? I have no fucking clue. Maybe if I was swimming in a pool of elephant testosterone and jamming steroids into my eyeballs it might seem reasonable for a family to torture, dismember and murder each other for the sake of claiming the 'Mega-Macho' crown. But… I don’t have a pool. Most of Jodorowsky’s weirdness can be distilled down to a super-violent machismo, draped with a pseudo-Zen mysticism meant to give all this earnest/ironic idiocy an illusion of depth.
(Top) the idiocy in question. Is patricide/infanticide really necessary? Couldn’t the father-son death-match be swapped out for Scrabble, or some other ‘manly’ boardgame?
The more I read by Jodo, and come to recognize the same basic themes and characters repeating throughout his oeuvre, the more he... annoys me. For a guy who’s spent much of his career doing science fiction, he might know less about science than any SF writer since Jules Verne... and even though Verne belonged to a temporal locale where the Newtonian model of reality hadn't been molested by the brain-fucking revelations of relativity and quantum mechanics, I still think Jules could science the fuck out of Jodo. His solution to an awe-inspiring ignorance is adorable: he puts the words ‘techno’ and ‘space’ in front of everything. I take his books in small doses, usually, so the standard 48-page BD album is just about right. Worse than the ignorance, he thinks he's pretty fucking funny, and apparently no one's had the heart to tell him that his comedic failures are getting far more spectacular and explosive than the stories themselves. Still... there is a lot to like here, if you can tolerate tuning in to the Jodorowsky wave-length...
OR
So... yeah. If you're down for the whacky space opera, manly violence, and the slight risk of Jodo-psychosis, 'The Metabarons' remains one of the foundation stones of modern SF BD... even if the robot narrator and his pal come perilously close to Jar-Jar Binks-level shittiness.
While Gimenez is sometimes haphazard with his interior art, his covers for the various international editions of the series are spectacular, often combining Renaissance and early Baroque portraiture with classic SF elements, and somehow avoiding the artistic disaster that most SF illustrators would make of it:
If you’re feeling generous, however, you could take all the camp, the silly names and over-the-top violence, and see it all as satire and/or Kaufmann-esque comedy. Perhaps the Metabaron code is a satirical ‘reductio ad absurdum’, condemning the glorification of ‘Warrior-Codes’, and exposing their deleterious effects in civilized societies where that manipulative philosophy is not just antiquated, but dangerous. It could be satire on every level… or simply a gleeful writer’s ID unleashed. In a lot of ways, Jodo's ultra-violent visions remind me of Paul Verhoeven's 'Starship Troopers' or 'Robocop': brutality and gore and vaguely fascistic politics that almost seem like satire... but it's hard to say for certain. Or perhaps Jodorowsky’s days as a film auteur -- serving as writer, director, editor and actor for his hugely influential and successful avant garde masterworks like ‘El Topo’ and ‘The Holy Mountain’ – influenced Verhoeven. As I said earlier, you either accept Jodo's flaws and eccentricities, or avoid his entire body of work. Despite the image he tries to project of himself as a shaman-philosopher in tune with the music of the spheres, walking the ley-lines and shuffling his tarot deck, he owes his success to an arrogance so intense it's blinding. He's a Director, dammit!
Alejandro Jodorowsky, at his age, will never master the art of shutting the fuck up. He has a Ph.D. in Self-Aggrandizement, specializing in The Virtue of Vanity, with a Master's in the Jodo-Economic discipline of Charm Management - his thesis for the latter was 'Fully Exploiting Charisma & Sexual Allure via New Age Spirituality' - all from the Jodo-Institute of Robotics, Sexuality, & Robotic Sexuality. While he's a Jodo-expert on Jodo, he's an amateur in the field of accepting criticism, especially when said criticism originates beyond the Jodoverse... i.e. his cranium. Nevertheless: Jodo will never write proper female characters that aren’t idealized and objectified sex-goddesses, insane fanatics, or spiteful old hags. He will never quit trying to be funny (and failing). He will never crack a book in order to make his science fiction even vaguely scientific. I've learned to accept all that shit, after years of conflicted Jodo-fandom, though I didn't know much about him before my first reading of 'The Metabarons', back in the 00's. It was my initial exposure to his work, and I recall liking it, for all its faults. I still do, even after seeing the same tired tropes & twists repeated ad nauseum throughout decades of Jodo-Comics.
This is Alejandro Jodorowsky's epic spin-off from the equally epic Incal trilogy. The character of the Metabaron was a supporting player in the fucked-up 'space-wizard' proceedings, but he was also a charismatic enigma, and Jodo had plans - ugly, evil plans - for him and his entire family. Ideas from his failed attempt at bringing Dune to the screen made their way into all the bande dessinee space operas he has written over the decades, but The Metabarons - after The Incal - squeezes the best of them from the tube, like a revised version of the film that completely expurgates Frank Herbert's story. The film had already ejected most of the novel anyway; Jodo was essentially using Dune as a subterfuge to raise capital for his own story. He had no intention of realizing Frank Herbert's vision, or any vision that wasn't his. If Kubrick could treat the source material for 2001 and The Shining like soft clay, to be shaped or cast aside by the auteur, so could he! That's another reason for the production's financial collapse, as investors suspected they were being conned into funding a mega-budget sci-fi sequel to 'El Topo', with sand-worms and spice.
Mega-macho murder by numbers:
Juan Gimenez provides page after fully painted page of otherworldly vistas and horrific mutant hybrids; carefully detailed robotic machinery, weapons and armor; beautiful women and brutal combat... blood spurting everywhere and often. The impressive array of artists that Jodo has worked with throughout his career includes some of the greatest comic artists of the 20th Century -- Moebius, Milo Manara, Ladronn, Georges Bess, Francois Boucq, Beltran, Das Pastoras, Arno, Travis Charest, Zoran Janjetov, etc., etc. Gimenez is far from the best of them. He's not the slickest, or the most technically proficient of Jodo's many collaborators, and there is occasionally confusion regarding both characters and action, stemming from the rough, unpolished feel. When he's at his best, though, his rich colors and dense compositions make The Metabarons look like the weird mix of beautiful and fugly that defines the spirit of the Jodoverse. It's unfortunate, in fact, that Jodorowsky's verbosity impinges on the art like it does, probably exacerbating the random bits of visual incoherence. A great deal of the action is obscured by this 'narrator-interference'... because Jodorowsky's biggest fault is an inability to just shut the fuck up and let the artist tell the story.
This is the kind of thing where Gimenez shines; his talent as a conceptual artist, imagining alien worlds and future-tech, is truly fantastic:
Nevertheless, this remains a multi-generational BD-epic like no other, telling the tale of four generations of Metabarons, and the harsh, inexplicably fucked-up demands they place upon themselves and their loved ones. It’s batshit crazy. They’re warriors, living by a kind of Bushido-code-on-steroids; the sick and brutal tests they inflict on their children are designed to prepare them for their final test, when the child will face the father in a battle to the bloody death. As for why? I have no fucking clue. Maybe if I was swimming in a pool of elephant testosterone and jamming steroids into my eyeballs it might seem reasonable for a family to torture, dismember and murder each other for the sake of claiming the 'Mega-Macho' crown. But… I don’t have a pool. Most of Jodorowsky’s weirdness can be distilled down to a super-violent machismo, draped with a pseudo-Zen mysticism meant to give all this earnest/ironic idiocy an illusion of depth.
(Top) the idiocy in question. Is patricide/infanticide really necessary? Couldn’t the father-son death-match be swapped out for Scrabble, or some other ‘manly’ boardgame?
The more I read by Jodo, and come to recognize the same basic themes and characters repeating throughout his oeuvre, the more he... annoys me. For a guy who’s spent much of his career doing science fiction, he might know less about science than any SF writer since Jules Verne... and even though Verne belonged to a temporal locale where the Newtonian model of reality hadn't been molested by the brain-fucking revelations of relativity and quantum mechanics, I still think Jules could science the fuck out of Jodo. His solution to an awe-inspiring ignorance is adorable: he puts the words ‘techno’ and ‘space’ in front of everything. I take his books in small doses, usually, so the standard 48-page BD album is just about right. Worse than the ignorance, he thinks he's pretty fucking funny, and apparently no one's had the heart to tell him that his comedic failures are getting far more spectacular and explosive than the stories themselves. Still... there is a lot to like here, if you can tolerate tuning in to the Jodorowsky wave-length...
OR
So... yeah. If you're down for the whacky space opera, manly violence, and the slight risk of Jodo-psychosis, 'The Metabarons' remains one of the foundation stones of modern SF BD... even if the robot narrator and his pal come perilously close to Jar-Jar Binks-level shittiness.
While Gimenez is sometimes haphazard with his interior art, his covers for the various international editions of the series are spectacular, often combining Renaissance and early Baroque portraiture with classic SF elements, and somehow avoiding the artistic disaster that most SF illustrators would make of it:
If you’re feeling generous, however, you could take all the camp, the silly names and over-the-top violence, and see it all as satire and/or Kaufmann-esque comedy. Perhaps the Metabaron code is a satirical ‘reductio ad absurdum’, condemning the glorification of ‘Warrior-Codes’, and exposing their deleterious effects in civilized societies where that manipulative philosophy is not just antiquated, but dangerous. It could be satire on every level… or simply a gleeful writer’s ID unleashed. In a lot of ways, Jodo's ultra-violent visions remind me of Paul Verhoeven's 'Starship Troopers' or 'Robocop': brutality and gore and vaguely fascistic politics that almost seem like satire... but it's hard to say for certain. Or perhaps Jodorowsky’s days as a film auteur -- serving as writer, director, editor and actor for his hugely influential and successful avant garde masterworks like ‘El Topo’ and ‘The Holy Mountain’ – influenced Verhoeven. As I said earlier, you either accept Jodo's flaws and eccentricities, or avoid his entire body of work. Despite the image he tries to project of himself as a shaman-philosopher in tune with the music of the spheres, walking the ley-lines and shuffling his tarot deck, he owes his success to an arrogance so intense it's blinding. He's a Director, dammit!
July 17, 2017
This was awful. Jodorowsky must be the world's oldest, horniest teenager. My favorite part is when Metabaron #1 plugs the controls to his spaceship into the mechanical socket that replaces his dick (as it was shot off two pages prior).
In 500+ pages I only saw only 3 characters: the invincible Metabarons, the cowardly robot narrators, and the greedy everyone else in the galaxy. The Metabarons were each presented with an impossible task to overcome which they each solved by being even more powerful than they had been before, smashing the indestructible obstacle with a power that had never before been seen in the galaxy. All of the characters were flat, lifeless stereotypes of the 3 character categories. It kind of felt like reading an Image comic from the 90's. The dialogue of the robot's was the first offender. They repeated the same formulaic conversation every time they appeared to interrupt the story. And the art was great, so again, it felt like reading an Image comic from the 90's.
And dear God the dialogue. Jodorowsky uses the prefix "paleo" on every single page. EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. And then he crams an extra techno-meta-electro-bio-meca-prefix onto each page just for good measure.
In 500+ pages I only saw only 3 characters: the invincible Metabarons, the cowardly robot narrators, and the greedy everyone else in the galaxy. The Metabarons were each presented with an impossible task to overcome which they each solved by being even more powerful than they had been before, smashing the indestructible obstacle with a power that had never before been seen in the galaxy. All of the characters were flat, lifeless stereotypes of the 3 character categories. It kind of felt like reading an Image comic from the 90's. The dialogue of the robot's was the first offender. They repeated the same formulaic conversation every time they appeared to interrupt the story. And the art was great, so again, it felt like reading an Image comic from the 90's.
And dear God the dialogue. Jodorowsky uses the prefix "paleo" on every single page. EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. And then he crams an extra techno-meta-electro-bio-meca-prefix onto each page just for good measure.
August 22, 2014
One of the biggest letdowns I've ever experienced in a book. After the huge buildup of people continuously talking about this series as the most mindblowing of all comics, I'm sorely disappointed. I made it to about page 400, and finally pulled the ripcord.
People keep saying "Greek tragedy as science fiction" but I beg to differ. This lacks any of the sophistication of Greek storytelling, even the more lurid versions Ovid presented.
While the science fiction elements are interesting, the behavior of the characters is more and more horrifying. The worst kind of masculinist nonsense--worse, a relatively childish idea of what masculinity means is upheld as the ultimate universal virtue throughout the bulk of these stories.
The art is brilliant in spots, but overall lacking in subtlety. Notice that the characters are depicted as either stoically silent or screaming at one another, even when the dialogue in question doesn't call for a scream. I would love to take some solace in the lovemaking scenes, even, but as they are almost all (and I do mean all) rapes or incest, they lose a bit of something.
To be honest, the fact that some writers I respect revere this book makes me lose a bit of respect for them.
I'm not trying to score cheap points, but if this is what he would have done to Frank Herbert's masterpiece, then I'll take the David Lynch version any day.
Avoid this one--go read The Incal, instead.
People keep saying "Greek tragedy as science fiction" but I beg to differ. This lacks any of the sophistication of Greek storytelling, even the more lurid versions Ovid presented.
While the science fiction elements are interesting, the behavior of the characters is more and more horrifying. The worst kind of masculinist nonsense--worse, a relatively childish idea of what masculinity means is upheld as the ultimate universal virtue throughout the bulk of these stories.
The art is brilliant in spots, but overall lacking in subtlety. Notice that the characters are depicted as either stoically silent or screaming at one another, even when the dialogue in question doesn't call for a scream. I would love to take some solace in the lovemaking scenes, even, but as they are almost all (and I do mean all) rapes or incest, they lose a bit of something.
To be honest, the fact that some writers I respect revere this book makes me lose a bit of respect for them.
I'm not trying to score cheap points, but if this is what he would have done to Frank Herbert's masterpiece, then I'll take the David Lynch version any day.
Avoid this one--go read The Incal, instead.
March 22, 2018
Like so many other reviewers, I really can't tell if any of this series is to be taken seriously or not. Let's break down what makes this "epic" some of the worst science fiction graphic fiction I've ever read:
1.) Incel-level woman hating: If you've ever read any of the old Conan the Barbarian stories, then you'll be familiar with the kind of females encountered in the Metabarons. They are one-dimensional mirrors of the ur-feminine character sexist men dream of: always barely-clothed, busty, in need of rescuing, while simultaneously "heroic", willing to die for a dude they just met, rapeable...By this I mean, the author will use rape just about any time he needs to have an excuse for the main characters to jump in and kill a bunch of guys with explosions. It's incredibly gross. Sometimes though, we get "lucky, and they'll immediately fall in love with the Metabaron, who, without fail, will ruin their life in the most gory, inhumane way possible. Women exist in these books only as plot devices to help male characters get enraged enough at their misuse to kill a lot of people. There's one character who's literally a male brain put into a female body, and the whole story around that character is just people shitting on him/her for having a vagina. Jodorowsky must hate women a whole lot, and I feel sorry for him.
2.) Proto-pseudo-meca-techno-expialodocius: Every other word in this goddamn book has some stupid prefix attached to it. I'm not kidding. If Jodorowsky is trying to make the story sound sci-fi, he's failing miserably. It's so campy it's not even fun. "Bio-balls", "Techn0-techno cult", "Paleo-Christ." Now make every other word spoken one of those words and you have the dialogue of this book.
3.) Wait...these are the heroes? : Every one of the titular metabarons is a godawful piece of shit. Period. The story traces their lineage, and how against impossible odds, they somehow manage to keep breeding. Given that at least one of them punched the head off a newborn in a fit of rage (yep, this happened), it's a wonder they exist at all. The ones who keep enough limbs/brains to live to 7 are then physically tortured while being told not to cry (you fucking pussy! Man up!) while they have more vital body parts removed, to be replaced with badass robot parts. At 16 they have to kill their dad to prove how manly and awesome and worthy of being a Metabaron they are. Everything they do after that point is Super-Saiyan levels of dumb, and since they can't ever lose, it's ultimately a snoozefest. At this point, I think the Warhammer 40k universe is trying less hard to beat you over the head with its toxic masculinity. At least those books have less rape, incest, and baby-murder...and are fun to read.
4.) The narration is as boring as robots reading a bedtime story...oh wait: Two robots are the main narrators of the story. They both suck. One is a big, dumb simpering hulk, and the other is a little prissy asshole. Every interlude is the same joke told ad-nauseum, and somehow it only makes you want to go back to the main story rather than endure their conversation, which is saying something, because the story is awful. They just trade insults, and wish they had human penises...and sometimes blow up. But unlucky us, they always come back for another round of "Really gross ways to describe human genitalia".
5.) Animal abuse: Most of the Metabarons kill their pets at some point. I think it's supposed to show that they're too cool for feelings. One of the kids had to kill his wooly TALKING frog pal, because his mom is like "Love is for plebs." When the little critter goes "Master, why?" I really wished someone would have punched THAT kid's head off before he made tartar out of super cute little friend.
6.) They fly their ships by plugging them into their dicks: I can't make this up, nor can I explain it. I am one of those lower order creatures with a vagina, so maybe I'm missing something here, but I never thought you men out there had such precision control with those things.
7.) Clearly, this is Jodo spitefully ripping off Dune: Your movie failed, so why not steal from a better book to make your own "epic"? There's ridiculous galactic empires, weird mutants, space-whore priestesses trying to control the genetic fate of the galaxy, and good guys that aren't likeable or actually good. If you're going to shamelessly crib from one of the most beloved sci fi classics, please god do something creative or unique with it. Don't make the Metabarons.
The only redeeming thing I can say about this graphic novel is that the art is excellent. The city and space-scapes especially are full detail and show a real creativity. Sure, it seems like the artist has a hard time rendering people sometimes (women and men are hard to tell apart in certain situations because the guy can only draw one "angry face", which is the most common face in the whole book), but when it works, it works well. If this was just a book of cool space art, it would be way more enjoyable.
I would not recommend anyone sit down to dig though the hundreds of pages of garbage that is this story. You won't leave it feeling anything profound, except maybe that human beings are capable of horrendous actions for dumb reasons. I'd certainly rather blow my bio-brain out my paleo-skull rather than try to sift through it again.
1.) Incel-level woman hating: If you've ever read any of the old Conan the Barbarian stories, then you'll be familiar with the kind of females encountered in the Metabarons. They are one-dimensional mirrors of the ur-feminine character sexist men dream of: always barely-clothed, busty, in need of rescuing, while simultaneously "heroic", willing to die for a dude they just met, rapeable...By this I mean, the author will use rape just about any time he needs to have an excuse for the main characters to jump in and kill a bunch of guys with explosions. It's incredibly gross. Sometimes though, we get "lucky, and they'll immediately fall in love with the Metabaron, who, without fail, will ruin their life in the most gory, inhumane way possible. Women exist in these books only as plot devices to help male characters get enraged enough at their misuse to kill a lot of people. There's one character who's literally a male brain put into a female body, and the whole story around that character is just people shitting on him/her for having a vagina. Jodorowsky must hate women a whole lot, and I feel sorry for him.
2.) Proto-pseudo-meca-techno-expialodocius: Every other word in this goddamn book has some stupid prefix attached to it. I'm not kidding. If Jodorowsky is trying to make the story sound sci-fi, he's failing miserably. It's so campy it's not even fun. "Bio-balls", "Techn0-techno cult", "Paleo-Christ." Now make every other word spoken one of those words and you have the dialogue of this book.
3.) Wait...these are the heroes? : Every one of the titular metabarons is a godawful piece of shit. Period. The story traces their lineage, and how against impossible odds, they somehow manage to keep breeding. Given that at least one of them punched the head off a newborn in a fit of rage (yep, this happened), it's a wonder they exist at all. The ones who keep enough limbs/brains to live to 7 are then physically tortured while being told not to cry (you fucking pussy! Man up!) while they have more vital body parts removed, to be replaced with badass robot parts. At 16 they have to kill their dad to prove how manly and awesome and worthy of being a Metabaron they are. Everything they do after that point is Super-Saiyan levels of dumb, and since they can't ever lose, it's ultimately a snoozefest. At this point, I think the Warhammer 40k universe is trying less hard to beat you over the head with its toxic masculinity. At least those books have less rape, incest, and baby-murder...and are fun to read.
4.) The narration is as boring as robots reading a bedtime story...oh wait: Two robots are the main narrators of the story. They both suck. One is a big, dumb simpering hulk, and the other is a little prissy asshole. Every interlude is the same joke told ad-nauseum, and somehow it only makes you want to go back to the main story rather than endure their conversation, which is saying something, because the story is awful. They just trade insults, and wish they had human penises...and sometimes blow up. But unlucky us, they always come back for another round of "Really gross ways to describe human genitalia".
5.) Animal abuse: Most of the Metabarons kill their pets at some point. I think it's supposed to show that they're too cool for feelings. One of the kids had to kill his wooly TALKING frog pal, because his mom is like "Love is for plebs." When the little critter goes "Master, why?" I really wished someone would have punched THAT kid's head off before he made tartar out of super cute little friend.
6.) They fly their ships by plugging them into their dicks: I can't make this up, nor can I explain it. I am one of those lower order creatures with a vagina, so maybe I'm missing something here, but I never thought you men out there had such precision control with those things.
7.) Clearly, this is Jodo spitefully ripping off Dune: Your movie failed, so why not steal from a better book to make your own "epic"? There's ridiculous galactic empires, weird mutants, space-whore priestesses trying to control the genetic fate of the galaxy, and good guys that aren't likeable or actually good. If you're going to shamelessly crib from one of the most beloved sci fi classics, please god do something creative or unique with it. Don't make the Metabarons.
The only redeeming thing I can say about this graphic novel is that the art is excellent. The city and space-scapes especially are full detail and show a real creativity. Sure, it seems like the artist has a hard time rendering people sometimes (women and men are hard to tell apart in certain situations because the guy can only draw one "angry face", which is the most common face in the whole book), but when it works, it works well. If this was just a book of cool space art, it would be way more enjoyable.
I would not recommend anyone sit down to dig though the hundreds of pages of garbage that is this story. You won't leave it feeling anything profound, except maybe that human beings are capable of horrendous actions for dumb reasons. I'd certainly rather blow my bio-brain out my paleo-skull rather than try to sift through it again.
May 15, 2022
The Metabarons was an excellent surprise. It is an epic sci-fi story on par with its major influence- Frank Herbert's Dune. The scope and violence of the story makes it a great sci-fi for mature readers.
This volume collects the entire series in one huge Omnibus. It is a story that covers generations. The Empire has stumbled upon a little known world. The world has valuable resources and the Empire makes a deal with the rulers of the planet and they become fabulously wealthy and take on the title of "Metabaron".
The clan of the Metabaron's is a harsh one. It develops perfect warriors that are inured to pain. The story of these Metabaron's is amazing and epic in scope. The tragedy of their story is similar to a Greek tragedy. The entire scope of the story starts with the first Metabaron and finishes with the last-this is one of the most creative and interesting sci-fi worlds ever written for a comic.
The artwork is rather interesting. It works well for this story, though certain panels can be a bit difficult to decipher. But it is still a very cool work of art.
Factoring in the superb story and the good artwork, this is one of the more unique stories out there. As far as quality and story-this is heads and shoulders above anything I've encountered in a comic. Absolutely superb and highly recommended.
This volume collects the entire series in one huge Omnibus. It is a story that covers generations. The Empire has stumbled upon a little known world. The world has valuable resources and the Empire makes a deal with the rulers of the planet and they become fabulously wealthy and take on the title of "Metabaron".
The clan of the Metabaron's is a harsh one. It develops perfect warriors that are inured to pain. The story of these Metabaron's is amazing and epic in scope. The tragedy of their story is similar to a Greek tragedy. The entire scope of the story starts with the first Metabaron and finishes with the last-this is one of the most creative and interesting sci-fi worlds ever written for a comic.
The artwork is rather interesting. It works well for this story, though certain panels can be a bit difficult to decipher. But it is still a very cool work of art.
Factoring in the superb story and the good artwork, this is one of the more unique stories out there. As far as quality and story-this is heads and shoulders above anything I've encountered in a comic. Absolutely superb and highly recommended.
November 10, 2019
Ce volume présente l’intégrale (plus de 500 pages) de la série La Caste des Méta-Barons de Jodorowsky (scénario) et Gimenez (dessin). Elle comprend les 8 albums, chacun consacré à l’un des personnages de cette dynastie — car il s’agit de cela plutôt que d’une caste — de guerriers sanguinaires : Othon, Honorata, Aghnar, Oda, Tête-d'Acier, Doña Vicenta Gabriela de Rokha (sic. !), Aghora, Sans-Nom. L’histoire de chacun d'entre eux répète les mêmes éléments encore et encore : naissances sanglantes, amputations, duels mortels avec le père, viols, affrontements intergalactiques avec l’Imperoratriz, la cour impériale, les Mentreks, l’Endogarde, la Guilde Techno-Techno, le Magnat, l’Ekonomat, les colonies Troglosocialiks, la secte Shabda-Oud et tutti quanti... L’ensemble, s’il est inspiré d’éléments mythologiques et de romans de « Space Opéra » à la Frank Herbert (voir : Dune), est finalement assez confus et, par moments, franchement lassant. Les dessins de Gimenez prennent quelquefois une dimension épique, mais, le plus souvent, ont une apparence surchargée et dégoûtante.
A cela s'ajoute, pour faire bonne mesure, les interruptions continuelles et impertinentes des deux robots-narrateurs qui, loin de créer le suspens ou de détendre l'atmosphère, deviennent assez vite agaçantes avec leurs potins ponctués de « paléocretin », « mecamerde », « bioplouc », « metacharabia » et « archeocrottedebique »... Bref, des dialogues puérils, bâclés, dans un récit alambiqué et écœurant. Par comparaison, revenir à la vielle série d’origine, L'Incal. Integrale, publiée par Jodorowsky et Mœbius dix ans auparavant, est une expérience presque rafraîchissante !
A cela s'ajoute, pour faire bonne mesure, les interruptions continuelles et impertinentes des deux robots-narrateurs qui, loin de créer le suspens ou de détendre l'atmosphère, deviennent assez vite agaçantes avec leurs potins ponctués de « paléocretin », « mecamerde », « bioplouc », « metacharabia » et « archeocrottedebique »... Bref, des dialogues puérils, bâclés, dans un récit alambiqué et écœurant. Par comparaison, revenir à la vielle série d’origine, L'Incal. Integrale, publiée par Jodorowsky et Mœbius dix ans auparavant, est une expérience presque rafraîchissante !
August 9, 2019
This is where I'm going to step off this train. First let's be clear, this is not science fiction at all, rather it is pure fantasy, completely disconnected from anything remotely scientific. Prefixing everything with paleo-, techno-, or bio- doesn't make it SF, it just makes it sound lazy and stupid. The framing sections between the robots are particularly repetitive and awful, as if Jodorowsky is constantly trying to tell the reader "look how exciting this story is, aren't you excited"? This may be the worst portrayal of robots I've ready in any book ever. The Metabarons stories were far less interesting than I was hoping, packed full of utterly absurd behaviors, and ridiculous extremes. Some of the artwork is gorgeously amazing, but even that failed to hold my attention by the time I hit the final third of the book.
May 16, 2022
DNF (after issue #7; at page 204). Decided to rate it because I highly doubt my issues with it can be addressed in later chapters. I suppose some specific plot points might turn out to make slightly more sense, but after 204 pages I think I have a good enough grasp on the writing style, and find it reasonable to assume it will remain as it is.
Review:
A great love for science fiction, and for Dune in particular, can be seen on every page. Sadly, the writing is really bad.
It reminds me of a scene from Bojack Horseman (might not be exact), where Bojack and Todd get high on drugs and write what they think is a literary masterpiece, only once they’re sober they try reading it and find out it’s actually a mixture of incomprehensible nonsense and copy-pasted Wikipedia articles. This work is very similar, in the sense that it reads like a Dune fanfiction (so much so that I’d call it plagiarism) written by someone who’s high on all sorts of drugs, and not the kind that makes you creative.
Dialogue: Everyone recite their thoughts out loud as if this was an old theatre play. I admit that it gives the story some superficial resemblance to old classic plays, but at a great cost, especially since this is a comic-book and not a novel – Dune got away with such writing, but a visual medium is expected to rely on its visuals for storytelling, not be a novel with a colourful background. In Dune characters felt somewhat real, but here people literally fall in love at first sight, in a complete and absolute way (and stating all of this aloud, of course). When I read such dialogue, all I sense is immaturity.
Fan fiction: This work is not just inspired by Dune – it copies entire plot points, usually with a superficial change. Examples: 1. A sorceress from a sisterhood called Shabda-oud (which has reverend mothers and mother superior) becomes a lover of the metabaron because . An exact plotline from Dune, only with a superficial change – probably to avoid it being an actual rip-off. 2. There’s a semi-magical substance that only exists on the barons’ world. 3. There’s a test of pain endurance (on the legs instead of a hand) which, once over, is commented upon with words that are almost an exact copy of the ones used in Dune. There are many other examples, but I think the point is made – inspiration is great, but this is too close to the original. And the last example is pure plagiarism.
Side note: Star Wars also copied plot points from Dune, but not nearly as egregiously.
Science fiction? : The sci-fi language (futuristic techno-babble?) sounds similar to the handful of classic superhero comic books I had read. When the meta-baron takes his meta-weapon, enters his meta-craft and leaves his meta-bunker, all I hear is batman taking his bat-weapon, entering his bat-mobile, and leaving his bat-cave. We also have paleo-dogs, proton-pelvis, you name it. Someone even curses “bio-crap”. It’s ridiculous.
To me this feels like an excited, rushed attempt at emulation – an author taking his favourite genre and simply cranking the everything up to eleven. If you like it, that’s perfectly okay. But I don’t.
World-building: Too little thought was put into the consistency of the word-building, from the science to the cultures and the characters. Example: a character is weightless due to being infused with an anti-gravity substance. He then receives mechanical legs so their weight will compensate for it. But then he uses his mechanical feet to scratch two enemies which immediately start to float, and we learn that his mechanical legs were filled with the anti-gravity substance... And this is among the less ridiculous ones.
A more ridiculous one:
Many events and plot points are not thought all the way through, similar to the examples above, creating a sense of an author changing things on the fly with no attention to detail and no attempts at foreshadowing. The purpose seems clear: he wants cool stuff to happen, so he bends the logic of the world (and the characters, and the writing) to move the plot to where he wants it to go. The plot making sense doesn’t seem to be on his agenda.
Review:
A great love for science fiction, and for Dune in particular, can be seen on every page. Sadly, the writing is really bad.
It reminds me of a scene from Bojack Horseman (might not be exact), where Bojack and Todd get high on drugs and write what they think is a literary masterpiece, only once they’re sober they try reading it and find out it’s actually a mixture of incomprehensible nonsense and copy-pasted Wikipedia articles. This work is very similar, in the sense that it reads like a Dune fanfiction (so much so that I’d call it plagiarism) written by someone who’s high on all sorts of drugs, and not the kind that makes you creative.
Dialogue: Everyone recite their thoughts out loud as if this was an old theatre play. I admit that it gives the story some superficial resemblance to old classic plays, but at a great cost, especially since this is a comic-book and not a novel – Dune got away with such writing, but a visual medium is expected to rely on its visuals for storytelling, not be a novel with a colourful background. In Dune characters felt somewhat real, but here people literally fall in love at first sight, in a complete and absolute way (and stating all of this aloud, of course). When I read such dialogue, all I sense is immaturity.
Fan fiction: This work is not just inspired by Dune – it copies entire plot points, usually with a superficial change. Examples: 1. A sorceress from a sisterhood called Shabda-oud (which has reverend mothers and mother superior) becomes a lover of the metabaron because . An exact plotline from Dune, only with a superficial change – probably to avoid it being an actual rip-off. 2. There’s a semi-magical substance that only exists on the barons’ world. 3. There’s a test of pain endurance (on the legs instead of a hand) which, once over, is commented upon with words that are almost an exact copy of the ones used in Dune. There are many other examples, but I think the point is made – inspiration is great, but this is too close to the original. And the last example is pure plagiarism.
Side note: Star Wars also copied plot points from Dune, but not nearly as egregiously.
Science fiction? : The sci-fi language (futuristic techno-babble?) sounds similar to the handful of classic superhero comic books I had read. When the meta-baron takes his meta-weapon, enters his meta-craft and leaves his meta-bunker, all I hear is batman taking his bat-weapon, entering his bat-mobile, and leaving his bat-cave. We also have paleo-dogs, proton-pelvis, you name it. Someone even curses “bio-crap”. It’s ridiculous.
To me this feels like an excited, rushed attempt at emulation – an author taking his favourite genre and simply cranking the everything up to eleven. If you like it, that’s perfectly okay. But I don’t.
World-building: Too little thought was put into the consistency of the word-building, from the science to the cultures and the characters. Example: a character is weightless due to being infused with an anti-gravity substance. He then receives mechanical legs so their weight will compensate for it. But then he uses his mechanical feet to scratch two enemies which immediately start to float, and we learn that his mechanical legs were filled with the anti-gravity substance... And this is among the less ridiculous ones.
A more ridiculous one:
Many events and plot points are not thought all the way through, similar to the examples above, creating a sense of an author changing things on the fly with no attention to detail and no attempts at foreshadowing. The purpose seems clear: he wants cool stuff to happen, so he bends the logic of the world (and the characters, and the writing) to move the plot to where he wants it to go. The plot making sense doesn’t seem to be on his agenda.
September 28, 2017
La Storia di fantascienza a fumetti. Molto più dell'Incal, che si mostrava ripetitivo e macchiettistico, sebbene avesse al reparto grafico Moebius. I Meta-Baroni sono una casta di guerrieri supremi, che da soli possono affrontare intere legioni e distruggere pianeti. Le loro avventure sono un concentrato di eccessi: l'eroismo, l'amore, la crudeltà, tutto portato al massimo grado. Eppure le pagine si leggono che è un piacere, non stancano dalla prima alla cinquecentesima, pur facendoci tuffare nello stesso grande universo popolato dagli stessi esseri squallidi e umanoidi. Tonto e Lothar ci conducono in un viaggio meraviglioso alla scoperta di una terribile e tragica famiglia, fatto di personaggi che non chiedono amore o empatia, ma rimangono stampati nel ricordo. Ci sono colpi di scena e invenzioni narrative praticcamente in ogni episodio, ma la finale rivelazione su Lothar è fantastica, e riesce a colpire e sorprendere dopo tante rivelazioni portentose. E' un viaggio nella fantasia e nell'avventura come ce ne sono pochi nella narrativa a fumetti. Merito anche della qualità pittorica dei disegni, che ci mostrano sciami di vascelli spaziali, mostri innominabili e guerrieri dalle terribili armi e armature, donne bellissime e mondi da fiaba. Unico, davvero unico appunto, che viene dopo aver assaporato la qualità del prodotto: forse l'edizione cartonata originale, con pagine più grandi, consentiva di cogliere meglio alcuni dei particolari delle minuziosissime vignette di Gimenez. In ogni caso: uno di quei fumetti da leggere assolutamente.
April 18, 2022
Appassionante ricostruzione storica, a dir poco bizzarra, particolarmente violenta, sicuramente drammatica e magnificamente illustrata, per mezzo di due simpatici robottini che tendono spesso ad accapigliarsi (anch’essi in modo discretamente bizzarro, violento e drammatico) della casta dei Meta-Baroni.
June 21, 2017
Some very strange stuff but the writing was solid and the art was great.
January 10, 2022
Immaginifico, barocco (sia nel testo che nei disegni), tragico, comico, tenero e romantico.
September 4, 2014
Too surrealistic for me, the behaviour of the metabarons has less and less sense with each generation. I only really liked the first ones.
September 23, 2019
The graphic novel that offended so many PC readers in GR
September 6, 2016
Well, hmm..5 efing stars! That's right, "it was amazing" rating because, well, it amazed me even though it's far for perfect.
I remember reading part of the story in follow-ups in a Greek newspaper's magazing called 9. It had struck me as the best space opera I found after Star Wars. I had found the rest of the story here and there but I decided it was high time to read it in its entirety. True, now that I've read much more science fiction (although not that much space opera) I realise it doesn't offer anything new to the genre. But what it does is giving back the best of the old...tenfold.
Galactic empires, super warriors, love and tragedies, multiverse, superweapons, corruption and intrigue, with a little bit of humour(admittedly not the best part, mainly a recycling of running "funny" insults between the two robots). And above all the superd drawings. Oh, I love space opera drawings and it has some pretty good ones. The story is quite cliche and simple. The main characters are all similar, they are all metabarons like their father after all! And the rest are unimportant. Either just love interests or insignificant lords/oppontents that stand in metabaron's way for a nanosecond. Also, there isn't much of an interest. No one worries who will win since we are being told the story during the time of the last metabaron and of course the metabarons always win. But I think it's a great homage to the old pulp space opera and people who like it will love it, just like me.
I remember reading part of the story in follow-ups in a Greek newspaper's magazing called 9. It had struck me as the best space opera I found after Star Wars. I had found the rest of the story here and there but I decided it was high time to read it in its entirety. True, now that I've read much more science fiction (although not that much space opera) I realise it doesn't offer anything new to the genre. But what it does is giving back the best of the old...tenfold.
Galactic empires, super warriors, love and tragedies, multiverse, superweapons, corruption and intrigue, with a little bit of humour(admittedly not the best part, mainly a recycling of running "funny" insults between the two robots). And above all the superd drawings. Oh, I love space opera drawings and it has some pretty good ones. The story is quite cliche and simple. The main characters are all similar, they are all metabarons like their father after all! And the rest are unimportant. Either just love interests or insignificant lords/oppontents that stand in metabaron's way for a nanosecond. Also, there isn't much of an interest. No one worries who will win since we are being told the story during the time of the last metabaron and of course the metabarons always win. But I think it's a great homage to the old pulp space opera and people who like it will love it, just like me.
May 12, 2016
Ah. Jodorowsky. I should've known better, having seen Jodorowsky's Dune documentary. It was rather amusing, but it was clear that Jodorowsky's mind works in mysterious ways. Heavy substance abuse, perhaps? I don't know. Maybe. Probably.
Eisnein pretty much nails it in his review. I'll just add this:
Quoting fellow GR reviewer Doyle: [This is the part] when Metabaron #1 plugs the controls to his spaceship into the mechanical socket that replaces his dick (as it was shot off two pages prior). Link to original image.
Eisnein pretty much nails it in his review. I'll just add this:
Quoting fellow GR reviewer Doyle: [This is the part] when Metabaron #1 plugs the controls to his spaceship into the mechanical socket that replaces his dick (as it was shot off two pages prior). Link to original image.
February 26, 2020
This is...utterly, completely batshit crazy. Whole galaxies will explode, incest and autoincest will happen, one being will kill defeat thousands of enemies with only a knife and so on. And that is just the beginning.
It reads like a feverish dream, exploding with imagination and the weirdest hyper(sur)realistic art possible. And still - the tragedy there is understandable, ideas quite fresh and the tempo is so fast that even if you dont like one part of the story dont worry, this high speed train is going to give you something else in few panels.
It reads like a feverish dream, exploding with imagination and the weirdest hyper(sur)realistic art possible. And still - the tragedy there is understandable, ideas quite fresh and the tempo is so fast that even if you dont like one part of the story dont worry, this high speed train is going to give you something else in few panels.
October 12, 2016
La verdad es que para mi esta serie ha sido una completa decepción, estoy llegando a la conclusión de que no me gusta nada Jodorowsky, mucho he leído y oído hablar de la casta de los metabarones y casi todo muy bueno, pero me da la impresión de que el tiempo ha sido muy duro con este cómic.
Supongo que si lo hubiera leído en los 90, mi opinión sería distinta, pero a día de hoy me chirrían demasiados elementos, en primer lugar el machismo que impregna toda la obra, con modelos negativos de mujeres por doquier, todos altamente sexualizados, por otro lado unos personajes huecos sin valores ni motivación alguna aparte de un absurdo código de conducta (el bushitaka) que se acata cuando interesa y si no se olvida, pero lo peor de todo es la elección de temas escabrosos y su mezcla al azar (incesto, automutilación, parricidio, violación, genocidio), son temas que en su justa medida pueden aportar significado a una obra, pero aquí tenemos una sobredosis constante con la única intención de impactar al lector que termina cansando mucho.
Por último tenemos el argumento, que aunque contiene momentos muy imaginativos, la mayor parte del tiempo es ridículo y absurdo, Jodorowski transmite un profundo desconocimiento científico y tecnológico, lo cual no sería problema en otro tipo de obra aún siendo ciencia ficción, pero es que Jodorowsky se pone en evidencia tirándose a la piscina mil veces sin saber si hay agua dentro. Los pequeños intentos de humor, los diálogos entre los robots tonto y lothar, son esperpénticos en el peor sentido de la palabra, demuestran muy mal gusto y en definitiva no tienen ni pizca de gracia, la primera vez que leí decir a uno que se le quemaba un diodo me entraron ganas de cerrar el libro, pero de ahí va empeorando, derivando en lo escatológico y repitiéndose mil veces los mismos chistes malos hasta la extenuación.
hay elementos que hacen por salvar este cómic... entre todo este despropósito se pueden encontrar bastantes buenas ideas, muy originales aunque la mayoría estén desaprovechadas, la gran ambición de la historia, se agradece por inusual el intento de abarcar varias generaciones de metabarones. El dibujo de Juan Giménez tiene momentos brillantes: escenas espaciales espectaculares, diseños de naves, ambientes, criaturas y personajes geniales, pero luego la expresividad de los personajes es muy pobre (varían entre enfadados y muy enfadados) y por momentos la genialidad se diluye en dejadez, resultando el conjunto muy irregular.
En definitiva, si hubiera leído esto a principios de los 90 siendo adolescente a lo mejor lo vería de otra forma, quizás hasta me parecería una genialidad, pero a día de hoy me parece un cómic medianero tirando a malo, tremendamente pretencioso pero sin sustancia, con muchas buenas ideas echadas a perder por un argumento absurdo.
Supongo que si lo hubiera leído en los 90, mi opinión sería distinta, pero a día de hoy me chirrían demasiados elementos, en primer lugar el machismo que impregna toda la obra, con modelos negativos de mujeres por doquier, todos altamente sexualizados, por otro lado unos personajes huecos sin valores ni motivación alguna aparte de un absurdo código de conducta (el bushitaka) que se acata cuando interesa y si no se olvida, pero lo peor de todo es la elección de temas escabrosos y su mezcla al azar (incesto, automutilación, parricidio, violación, genocidio), son temas que en su justa medida pueden aportar significado a una obra, pero aquí tenemos una sobredosis constante con la única intención de impactar al lector que termina cansando mucho.
Por último tenemos el argumento, que aunque contiene momentos muy imaginativos, la mayor parte del tiempo es ridículo y absurdo, Jodorowski transmite un profundo desconocimiento científico y tecnológico, lo cual no sería problema en otro tipo de obra aún siendo ciencia ficción, pero es que Jodorowsky se pone en evidencia tirándose a la piscina mil veces sin saber si hay agua dentro. Los pequeños intentos de humor, los diálogos entre los robots tonto y lothar, son esperpénticos en el peor sentido de la palabra, demuestran muy mal gusto y en definitiva no tienen ni pizca de gracia, la primera vez que leí decir a uno que se le quemaba un diodo me entraron ganas de cerrar el libro, pero de ahí va empeorando, derivando en lo escatológico y repitiéndose mil veces los mismos chistes malos hasta la extenuación.
hay elementos que hacen por salvar este cómic... entre todo este despropósito se pueden encontrar bastantes buenas ideas, muy originales aunque la mayoría estén desaprovechadas, la gran ambición de la historia, se agradece por inusual el intento de abarcar varias generaciones de metabarones. El dibujo de Juan Giménez tiene momentos brillantes: escenas espaciales espectaculares, diseños de naves, ambientes, criaturas y personajes geniales, pero luego la expresividad de los personajes es muy pobre (varían entre enfadados y muy enfadados) y por momentos la genialidad se diluye en dejadez, resultando el conjunto muy irregular.
En definitiva, si hubiera leído esto a principios de los 90 siendo adolescente a lo mejor lo vería de otra forma, quizás hasta me parecería una genialidad, pero a día de hoy me parece un cómic medianero tirando a malo, tremendamente pretencioso pero sin sustancia, con muchas buenas ideas echadas a perder por un argumento absurdo.
May 20, 2021
The metabarons came about after Jodorowsky's ambitious project to film Frank Herbert's Dune failed. As such quite a bit of the Dune essence bleeds through into this SF epic: The mysterious Epyphite reminded me a bit of spice and we have the twisted agenda of the whore priestesses - who are basically the Bene Gesserit, this also has all the politics, barons and psychic powers you associate with Dune. However the Metabarons goes beyond it's origins into something uniquely its own.
One of the ways it does this is with the quirky narrative technique. The multi-generational saga is relayed to us via two robots with a kind of C3PO/R2D2 comedy double act going on. If you're familiar with MST3K that's also in the same kind of vein. So these droids are the servants of the current metabaron 'No Name' and pass the time awaiting their master's return by one droid telling the other of the metabaron's history. This mixes up the pace - we go from the lol comedy of the droids to seriously dark space opera including incest, mutilation, sacrifice and death - I quite like the fluctuating tone it makes things interesting. The narrators are also significant and I won't give you spoilers, however we do get a twist I did not see coming which makes these two integral parts of the saga - they are not just a random narrative technique.
Gimenez' art isn't as breathtaking as some of Jodorowsky's other collaborators (I'm a big fan of his work with Moebius and Beltran) however its still good. I particularly love the supra-lice ship and it's vampiric queen - fans of organic ships (like Lexx and Moya etc) are going to love this.
Like any prequel/history spanning several generations, the metabarons is a bit repetitive and pretty dark (each generation having to die). It also fails to make any real point other than to lead us up to the present. As a narrative its not as interesting as say Incal or Megalex which is why it only gets 4* However It is still brilliant - The characters are all wonderfully well developed and this does an excellent job of exploring their psyche, Its also twisted, dark and set in a fully realised SF universe ranking up there with the greats.
Fans of Dune, The epic of Gilgamesh and of course European comics and Heavy Metal Magazine really aren't going to want to miss this.
One of the ways it does this is with the quirky narrative technique. The multi-generational saga is relayed to us via two robots with a kind of C3PO/R2D2 comedy double act going on. If you're familiar with MST3K that's also in the same kind of vein. So these droids are the servants of the current metabaron 'No Name' and pass the time awaiting their master's return by one droid telling the other of the metabaron's history. This mixes up the pace - we go from the lol comedy of the droids to seriously dark space opera including incest, mutilation, sacrifice and death - I quite like the fluctuating tone it makes things interesting. The narrators are also significant and I won't give you spoilers, however we do get a twist I did not see coming which makes these two integral parts of the saga - they are not just a random narrative technique.
Gimenez' art isn't as breathtaking as some of Jodorowsky's other collaborators (I'm a big fan of his work with Moebius and Beltran) however its still good. I particularly love the supra-lice ship and it's vampiric queen - fans of organic ships (like Lexx and Moya etc) are going to love this.
Like any prequel/history spanning several generations, the metabarons is a bit repetitive and pretty dark (each generation having to die). It also fails to make any real point other than to lead us up to the present. As a narrative its not as interesting as say Incal or Megalex which is why it only gets 4* However It is still brilliant - The characters are all wonderfully well developed and this does an excellent job of exploring their psyche, Its also twisted, dark and set in a fully realised SF universe ranking up there with the greats.
Fans of Dune, The epic of Gilgamesh and of course European comics and Heavy Metal Magazine really aren't going to want to miss this.
October 26, 2021
Μεγάλη απογοήτευση, ειδικά όταν εισέρχεται κάνεις στο σύμπαν των Μεταβαρόνων έχοντας νωπές στο νου τις μαγευτικές περιπέτειες του Ινκάλ. Ο Μεταβαρόνος υπήρξε μάλλον περιφερειακή φιγούρα στο Ινκάλ αλλά ο Jodorowsky φαίνεται πως είχε μεγαλύτερες προσδοκίες για αυτόν τον σκληροτράχηλο alpha male χαρακτήρα. Το αποτέλεσμα είναι μια απο τις μεγαλύτερες ψευδο-Sci fi πατάτες της ιστορίας που αν δεν έφερε το όνομα Jodoroswky στο εξώφυλλο είναι αμφίβολο εάν θα ασχολείτο κάνεις σοβαρά μαζί της.
Από που να αρχίσει κάνεις: φαλλοκρατικά κλισέ του τύπου της ηρωικής φαντασίας, βαρετή και προβλέψιμη πλοκή, αδιάφορο σχέδιο, ατυχείς απόπειρες να επενδυθεί η ωμή και ανούσια βία με δήθεν ψυχαναλυτική ή εσωτεριστική σημασιοδότηση. Λέγεται ότι εδώ ο Jodorowsky προσπάθησε να υλοποιήσει ιδέες που είχε για την infamous κινηματογραφική εκδοχή του για το Dune. Εάν το "έπος" των Μεταβαρόνων αποτυπώνει τις ιδέες του Jodorowsky για την ταινία που δεν έγινε ποτέ, τότε νομίζω πως ούτε εμείς ούτε η τέχνη του σινεμά έχασε κάτι σπουδαίο.
Τα τελευταία κεφάλαια δείχνουν κάποια σχετική ωρίμανση στο εικαστικό πεδίο αλλά το σενάριο δεν ξεπερνά ποτέ την ρηχότητα ενός ��ετα-Κόναν "παλαιοβάρβαρου"!
Από που να αρχίσει κάνεις: φαλλοκρατικά κλισέ του τύπου της ηρωικής φαντασίας, βαρετή και προβλέψιμη πλοκή, αδιάφορο σχέδιο, ατυχείς απόπειρες να επενδυθεί η ωμή και ανούσια βία με δήθεν ψυχαναλυτική ή εσωτεριστική σημασιοδότηση. Λέγεται ότι εδώ ο Jodorowsky προσπάθησε να υλοποιήσει ιδέες που είχε για την infamous κινηματογραφική εκδοχή του για το Dune. Εάν το "έπος" των Μεταβαρόνων αποτυπώνει τις ιδέες του Jodorowsky για την ταινία που δεν έγινε ποτέ, τότε νομίζω πως ούτε εμείς ούτε η τέχνη του σινεμά έχασε κάτι σπουδαίο.
Τα τελευταία κεφάλαια δείχνουν κάποια σχετική ωρίμανση στο εικαστικό πεδίο αλλά το σενάριο δεν ξεπερνά ποτέ την ρηχότητα ενός ��ετα-Κόναν "παλαιοβάρβαρου"!
September 30, 2011
La historia es buenisima. Pura opera espacial mezclada con elementos de tragedias griegas y lios familiares freudianos, tipico Jodorowsky. Los dibujos y la diagramacion de Juan Gimenez son impresionantes, de una escala que yo no creo tenga equivalente en el mundo de los comics. Sin embargo, no le pongo cinco estrellas porque el libro falla en algo inesperado: el guion. Los dialogos y la narracion son tan malos (o tan faltos de editor) que en muchas ocasiones me dieron ganas de coger corrector liquido y re-escribir los textos y gran parte de la jerga. Curiosamente el arte es tan bueno que con una buena mano editorial eso se habria arreglado, pero Ay del pobre editor que se le enfrente a papa-Jodorowsky!
May 15, 2020
Mám tuhle epickou sci-fi šílenou ságu přečtenou už poněkolikáté (nepokrytě přiznávám, že je to mé guilty pleasure) a pořád dokola musím oceňovat bezbřehou fantazii Jodova vesmíru a skvostnou kresbu. Nerad bych kazil své stoprocentní hodnocení slaboduchými bláboly o tom, jak je to super dílo, tak to necháme takhle a pokud máte rádi vesmírná, lehce ujetá dobrodružství, tak si na to prostě vyhraďte týden a přečtěte si to.
January 22, 2016
A quite entertaining history of the Metabarons through history. There is an odd technique employed in the storytelling whereby the protagonist is constantly presented with a roadblock that would make it seem impossible for the story to reach the conclusion that we already know about (because the entire story is about past events). It is entertaining but does not always make sense.
January 18, 2018
Imaginemos un preadolescente que tiene "Dragon Ball" y las pelis del destape como pilares de su cultura. Imaginemos que decide hacer una versión pirata de "Dune", libro que no ha leído. Como no le dejan hacerla en cine, se pasa al cómic, y convence a un doctorado en dibujo para que le haga el trabajo gratis. Luego a otro. Sigamos imaginando que va y se lo editan, porque la ciencia-ficción está de moda. Aquí tenemos el resultado.
Resulta que hay una gente -los metabarones- que son guerreros implacables y súper poderosos, que consideran los sentimientos una debilidad, y han de matar a sus padres para demostrarse a sí mismos lo machotes que son (a la madre, ni mentarla: esto sólo va de machotes). Con una premisa así, igual esperas algo así profundo, psicoanalítico, pero lo más que vas a encontrar es payos que controlan sus naves con implantes en la pilila y (cuatro) señoritas ligeras de ropa suspirando por ellos.
Los diálogos son hilarantes por malos, salpicados de palabras inventadas a partir de cuatro o cinco prefijos (a saber: meta, paleo, tecno, bio y robo) y emitidos por personajes intercambiables que hacen de SonGohan un Macbeth. Yo pensaba que Jodorowsky me gustaba, pese a haberse convertido en un autoproclamado gurú de la autoayuda, porque "El topo" y "La montaña sagrada" me parecen películas provocativas y sugerentes, con su imaginería primitiva. He descubierto que era así por un motivo: prácticamente nadie habla, y así no podía ver lo mongolo que es el autor. Una fantástica muestra: "El parto fue dramático, y cambió para siempre la vida del niño". Mátame y déjame muerto.
La narración es muy torpe: todo sucede porque sí, o lo que es lo mismo, porque los metabarones son como son, y no pueden dejar de ser así. Cada dos páginas tenemos a dos robots hablando de que quieren saber más de la historia en términos del nivel "¡biomierda! ¡Se me calientan los robodíodos de emoción! ¡Cuéntame más, no seas robomaricón!" (sic.). Le dan un ritmo increíble -por irregular- a la narración que, para suerte del medio, no se ve demasiado.
También tenemos un poquito de rollo mesías para reforzar el autoayudismo del conjunto (puedes ser un cabrón mata-universos, pero todo se arregla y disculpa con amor, à la Interstellar). Y niñAs que nacen con el cráneo vacío y luego quieren ser niños para poder ser machotes guays como todos los demás. Y así, casi 600 paginitas llenas de luz y color.
Hablando de color: el dibujo. Muy resultón, sí, pero ningún manejo de la narración o del ritmo, saltándose el eje cada dos por tres sólo porque así la viñeta queda más molona, y solucionando el problema de la composición con detalle por doquier. Mucho color, mucho músculo y mucha teta, pero no salva el conjunto. Quiero pensar que Giménez habrá dado más y mejor de sí con un guión digno, pero vete a saber...
Mención honorable a la edición de Mondadori, que tiene erratas desde la primera página. Menos mal que lo saqué de la biblioteca, porque llego a pagar los casi 50 eurazos que piden por esta mierda, y le pego fuego a algo. ¡Larga vida a las bibliotecas!
Resulta que hay una gente -los metabarones- que son guerreros implacables y súper poderosos, que consideran los sentimientos una debilidad, y han de matar a sus padres para demostrarse a sí mismos lo machotes que son (a la madre, ni mentarla: esto sólo va de machotes). Con una premisa así, igual esperas algo así profundo, psicoanalítico, pero lo más que vas a encontrar es payos que controlan sus naves con implantes en la pilila y (cuatro) señoritas ligeras de ropa suspirando por ellos.
Los diálogos son hilarantes por malos, salpicados de palabras inventadas a partir de cuatro o cinco prefijos (a saber: meta, paleo, tecno, bio y robo) y emitidos por personajes intercambiables que hacen de SonGohan un Macbeth. Yo pensaba que Jodorowsky me gustaba, pese a haberse convertido en un autoproclamado gurú de la autoayuda, porque "El topo" y "La montaña sagrada" me parecen películas provocativas y sugerentes, con su imaginería primitiva. He descubierto que era así por un motivo: prácticamente nadie habla, y así no podía ver lo mongolo que es el autor. Una fantástica muestra: "El parto fue dramático, y cambió para siempre la vida del niño". Mátame y déjame muerto.
La narración es muy torpe: todo sucede porque sí, o lo que es lo mismo, porque los metabarones son como son, y no pueden dejar de ser así. Cada dos páginas tenemos a dos robots hablando de que quieren saber más de la historia en términos del nivel "¡biomierda! ¡Se me calientan los robodíodos de emoción! ¡Cuéntame más, no seas robomaricón!" (sic.). Le dan un ritmo increíble -por irregular- a la narración que, para suerte del medio, no se ve demasiado.
También tenemos un poquito de rollo mesías para reforzar el autoayudismo del conjunto (puedes ser un cabrón mata-universos, pero todo se arregla y disculpa con amor, à la Interstellar). Y niñAs que nacen con el cráneo vacío y luego quieren ser niños para poder ser machotes guays como todos los demás. Y así, casi 600 paginitas llenas de luz y color.
Hablando de color: el dibujo. Muy resultón, sí, pero ningún manejo de la narración o del ritmo, saltándose el eje cada dos por tres sólo porque así la viñeta queda más molona, y solucionando el problema de la composición con detalle por doquier. Mucho color, mucho músculo y mucha teta, pero no salva el conjunto. Quiero pensar que Giménez habrá dado más y mejor de sí con un guión digno, pero vete a saber...
Mención honorable a la edición de Mondadori, que tiene erratas desde la primera página. Menos mal que lo saqué de la biblioteca, porque llego a pagar los casi 50 eurazos que piden por esta mierda, y le pego fuego a algo. ¡Larga vida a las bibliotecas!
March 20, 2023
I have been meaning to read this for for some time but as you can see it is a bit of a monster both in page count and value but I finally got round to it.
And I have to say I am so glad that I did - this is basically the back story of the Metabaron that we first met in the Incal series. This book consists of a series of stories which tell of each generation of the Metabaron (and how even the title came about) all of which lead up to the events of the Incal (however there are no explicit references to that story so this book can be read in isolation - though I cannot imagine why it is so much fun and so exquisitely drawn)
So what of the book - it tells of love and lost, duty and determination - all great tropes for comic book but this is so much more. I feels like you are in the middle of a galactic spectacle - each image contains so much - I dread to think how long it took to create this body of work -you just have to stop and marvel - this is one of those books I can imagine you can read again and again and find something new every time.
And I have to say I am so glad that I did - this is basically the back story of the Metabaron that we first met in the Incal series. This book consists of a series of stories which tell of each generation of the Metabaron (and how even the title came about) all of which lead up to the events of the Incal (however there are no explicit references to that story so this book can be read in isolation - though I cannot imagine why it is so much fun and so exquisitely drawn)
So what of the book - it tells of love and lost, duty and determination - all great tropes for comic book but this is so much more. I feels like you are in the middle of a galactic spectacle - each image contains so much - I dread to think how long it took to create this body of work -you just have to stop and marvel - this is one of those books I can imagine you can read again and again and find something new every time.
July 2, 2022
Jodo si vysnil filmovou Dunu, která nakonec nedopadla. Tak všechnu tu kreativní energii přesunul a vytvořil svět Incalu a tím později i legendu Metabaronů. Inspirace je zde vidět velká, ale stěží se dá hovořit o plagiátu. Jodo do toho dává velký kus sebe, roubuje tam metafyziku a veškeré libůstky, co má rád. Vzniká tak opus, ve kterém tiše rezonuje Herbertova Duna a křičí Jodorowského šílená kreativita a mysticismus. To vše vizualizováno neskutečně talentovaným Gimenézem. Metabaroni vypadají skvěle, čtou se skvěle (a to i v českém překladu). Ten epizodický děj (odvíjející se od konceptu alb, jak to původně vycházelo) trošku rozbíjí plynutí, ale zase lépe se pak ten komiks odkládá. A pořád je lepší když jde znát v knize (integrálu) vlnovka přechodů alb než sešitů.
Každopádně Kasta metabaronů je určitě jeden ze sta komiksů, které by člověk měl kdy přečíst.
Každopádně Kasta metabaronů je určitě jeden ze sta komiksů, které by člověk měl kdy přečíst.
September 14, 2016
Pros: Cool art, some nice design. Very imaginative.
Negatives: Terrible story-telling. And I mean terrible. Dialogue is beyond weak. One dimensional characters, random plot jumps, no flow. Sometimes the panels are cluttered and difficult to visually figure out. Complete lack of nuance and depth to characters and story.
Negatives: Terrible story-telling. And I mean terrible. Dialogue is beyond weak. One dimensional characters, random plot jumps, no flow. Sometimes the panels are cluttered and difficult to visually figure out. Complete lack of nuance and depth to characters and story.
September 15, 2017
Nádherná vesmírná sága. Příběhy několika generací mocného rodu válečníků. Každá generace má své jedinečné zápletky a traumata. Texty plné originálních bioprdelí a jeptiškokurev dodávají tu správnou freudovskou atmosféru již tak psychoanalyticko-mytopoetickému příběhu.
February 20, 2016
I am impressed by this epic saga, telling the history of a dynasty of ultimate warriors, in which Jodorowsky blends his crazy, over-the-top sci-fi fantasies with a compelling, logical story.
April 18, 2017
EL MEJOR COMIC DE SPACE OPERA.
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