The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Last week saw one of the most successful comics series in Western Europe come to an end. After a run of more than 20 years, and with sales per book up from 12, 000 up to 500, 000 per issue, Jean Van Hamme and William Vance’s XIII reaches its penultimate “conclusion”, in which all questions will be answered (keep in mind those quotation marks – we’ll get back to them).

XIII is the long-running story of a man who is washed ashore one day somewhere on the East coast of the United States. He has lost all memory of his identity and his past, and the only clue as to where he comes from is a roman numeral XIII that is tattooed on his collarbone. As he appears to be very good at a variety of armed and unarmed combat techniques, it becomes clear fairly quickly that he’s an army man, probably trained for covert operations. With the help of Lee Marvin look-alike general Carrington and black love interest Major Jones, XIII uncovers layer after layer of his past, which features (amongst others) semi-legal missions in South America and other third world regions, and a honest-to-God plot to assassinate the president of the United States.

(page from XIII: La Version Irlandaise by Van Hamme, art by Giraud, published Dargaud)

A huge story like this deserves going out with a bang; writer Van Hamme understood that a multitude of loose threads still had to be tied up (especially those left from the “XIII Case” collection of profiles and short stories), and so the series ends with not one but two books: The Irish version, issue # 18, and The Last Round, issue # 19, which are both published at the same time. The first one, with art by legendary Blueberry artist Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius), is a flashback about an Irish terrorist who got to know XIII at the university of Boulder, Colorado, and who will disclose the identity of XIII. William Vance has provided the art for the very last book himself. It promises to be a real page turner, keeping the final discoveries until the very end, with a court case that puts even the US president to trial. Both books were produced independently of each other, and without much contact of the respective artists.

(the final issues of XIII get the royal treatment in one French store, pic borrowed from the official blog set up by Dargaud to promote the finale)

In France, where the book is immensely popular, a large-scale campaign has been set up to promote the new – and final – XIII books. The books will be published in three formats, ranging from regular up to platinum, which will be numbered and come with a special insert. There will be a special television documentary (you can see a clip of France 5′s interview with Van Hamme – in French, of course – here on the XIII blog – Joe) and a magazine, special editions of previous instalments, and a campaign with Total and the Lotterie Française.

(the first collected volume of Van Hamme and Vance’s XIII by Dabel Brothers/Marvel)

XIII in the mean time has gone global. There has been a quite stylish video game featuring David Duchovny, Eve and Adam West, published by Ubisoft, and the series is currently being reformatted for the English speaking market as a series of deluxe trades by Marvel and Dabel Brothers. And now two films are in gearing up for production, with Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer – or is that a TV series? The sources are not conclusive yet on this. For that conversion, the story’s premises had to be modified considerably, with Van Hamme’s consent: a trained killer who washes ashore in the middle of nowhere with no memory of who is and how he got there, that’s just a bit too reminiscent of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne Identity…

(XIII Le Dernier Round by Van Hamme and Vance, published Dargaud)

And, yes, those quotation marks at the beginning, let me explain what I meant: Jean Van Hamme has repeatedly stated that he was a bit bored with XIII, and with the necessity of constantly wrapping and unwrapping new riddles and layers of truth. Instead, he would rather focus on that other hit series of his, Largo Wynch, about the adventures of one of the richest men in the world. For Vance, it would be the second time a successful series that he’s involved in, suddenly ends because the writer’s bored with it: Bruno Brazil writer Greg suddenly quit, but remained co-owner of the character. For that reason, Van Hamme and Vance have contractually agreed that, if one or the other would die or otherwise stop working on XIII, the other is free to decide to continue the book, or end it. So maybe things are still not what they seem, appropriately enough for this series… XIII is published by Le Lombard. An English translation of the first three books has been published by Marvel.