The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

XIII Volume 5: Full Red

By Jean Van Hamme and William Vance

Cinebook

Another Van Hamme series that I love. I’m never really sure whether I enjoy XIII or Largo Winch more – I think it all depends on which I’m currently reading. All I know is that I’m extremely grateful to Cinebook for bringing them to me.

So far, after 4 volumes of this series of XIII, we’ve followed the quest of an amnesiac man to discover his past and his identity, whilst avoiding a plethora of people trying to kill him for things he can’t remember doing – up to and including assassinating the oh so JFK-like president of the USA President William B. Sheridan.

And, just like last time, I’m going to completely bypass the complicated explanation in favour of the summary three pages presented at the start of Volume 4. Cheating? Oh yes….. (what is it they say about a picture – or sequential series of pictures – painting a thousand words?)

Okay, well, here in Volume 5 Van Hamme has really, really accelerated the pace. Surprisingly, this is the conclusion of the first storyline, and after all the carefully lain groundwork of the last four volumes which I found so deliciously thrilling, I have to admit I think it’s a mistake.

Okay, not that much of a mistake, since I still thoroughly enjoyed it and found it all tremendously exciting.  (Just like all the previous volumes: Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4- which I can quickly summarise by describing XIII as a stunningly good thriller of a book.)

But the whole volume proceeds so damn fast there’s barely time to draw breath. XIII and his associates make their way back from the wilderness they found themselves in at the end of Volume 4 in all too quick a fashion.

Meanwhile, in Washington, everything comes together all too quickly, with plot and counter plot dispensed with over a few pages. Before we know it, there’s a group of men acting somewhere well above the hapless current president very, very close to starting World War III on the pretense of making America strong again – and they’re the people with the roman numerals tattooed on their collar bones that have been controlling XIII’s life all along.

(Oh yes, WW3 – no half measures in XIII – as General Carrington discovers the depth of the conspiracy. From Volume 5; Full Red by Van Hamme and Vance, published by Cinebook)

Before you can say action set-piece it’s all over, with the plot thwarted, everything neatly wrapped up and XIII none the wiser and pledging to continue his quest to discover his identity, to investigate his previous life as Jason Fly.

There’s even that mainstay of rushed endings the summary conclusion pages (the sort you usually see over the end credits of a movie telling you where the characters ended up), where it seems Van Hamme simply either ran out of pages or ran out of steam and decided he couldn’t be bothered with a 6 volume of this part of the story to finish everything up satisfactorily.

(And there’s the set-up to the next part of the story – as XIII goes in search of his life as Jason Fly. From XIII Volume 5; Full Red by Van Hamme and Vance, published by Cinebook)

But even though the ending was, in my humble opinion, rushed and flawed, having just read Volumes 1-5 all over again for writing this review, I’m still convinced that Van Hamme and Vance’s XIII is a classy and classic piece of intriguing thriller. Possibly one of the best I’ve read in comics, certainly one of the most enjoyable.

Still, there’s still another 14 volumes of XIII to go. Van Hamme has a load of twists and turns in his story yet I’m quite sure. And this little bump along the road certainly wont stop me from being there right till the end.