XIII: The Trial

A word of warning from the off. This is not a ‘New readers start here’ volume!
The Trial follows on almost immediately from the previous book, Three Silver Watches, but not quite in the direction I was expecting. Yes, I figured from the title, cover and from what had gone on before that there would be a trial and that the President of the USA would be involved in it somewhere. And I was right on all counts, but also very wrong.
This being XIII, it takes a preposterous idea and runs with it in such a way that the reader is happy to come along, even though they know just how insane it is! And this one more so that other volumes. Obviously I’ll not tell you what happens here, but trust me – it’s crazy.
And it’s not only the high concept idea, but the returning guest stars that will surprise the reader. Add to that a completely unexpected outcome for one character and you’ve got yourself some classic XIII action going on.
If you’ve been following the series, then this will be a treat. If you haven’t, chances are you’ll be struggling to keep up with what’s happening for a lot of it. And as always, I can’t wait to get to the next volume!
XIII The Trial is available from Cinebook.

XIII Three Silver Watches review

For many volumes now, Jean Van Hamme has been drip feeding us information about the mysterious past of his amnesiac spy XIII.
Well, thanks to a character we have recently met, this book goes a long way towards filling us in on a lot of information. Only… it doesn’t really.
Yes, there is an enormous amount of information imparted here, however it is not about XIII, but rather about his grandparents.
Because of this, there is a real danger that this book could just be two men sitting about talking to each other for the duration, and for the first few pages I thought that this would be the case and that the dynamic cover image was going to turn out to be a big fat lie. I need not have worried though. For while a lot of the book is indeed two men talking, they are talking on the way to foil an invasion or between fights, as Van Hamme breaks his backstory up with an action filled main narrative. A narrative that does indeed include fighter jets doing what fighter jets do best: blowing things up.
And it’s one of these scenes that gives us our most ludicrous and over the top set piece yet. It’s insane and brilliant all at the same time, and wouldn’t look out of place at the climax of a James Bond movie.
This is not the best XIII book, and it is certainly not one for a new reader to start with – they would be lost from the first page. And while it is text heavy and at times heavy going, if you are a fan of the series, it is utterly essential.
Oh, and that’s before I even get to the ending, which left me thankful that I have the next volume sitting on the too-be-read pile already!

Thorgal The Invisible Fortress review

This volume starts immediately where the previous one, The Sun Sword, left off, with out titular hero and his companion journeying across lands and, as is always the way with these things, quickly getting into scrapes and adventures.
As I said in the previous review, I was unfamiliar with this series, and maybe because of that, I find myself yet again amazed by the storyline in here.
Obviously I’ll not go down the spoiler route here and tell you what happens, but I will say that it is a storyline and theme that is as opposite from the story in The Sun Sword as could possibly be.
Yet again, Jean Van Hamme proves himself to be the absolute master of storytelling. I found myself reading this book and thinking that it shouldn’t work. That combining the events in The Sun Sword and what goes on here should make for a crazy and nonsensical mish-mash of elements, but it works. It works brilliantly, in fact.
Van Hamme’s superlative writing is complemented perfectly by the incredible art by Grzegorz Rosinski.
There are some amazing scenes in here, and he transforms what I suspect were some very complex panel descriptions in the script into easily understandable images. The contrast between scenes of extreme detail and others where he uses blank white space is jarring and powerful.
Yes, yet again it’s another Cinebook volume that I loved. One day I’ll read a bad one… one day, but not today.

XIII El Cascador review

This is the second half of a story began in, For Maria, the previous volume, which you can read a review of here.

We’re pretty far into this Cinebook series, and we’ve reviewed enough of them for you to know the score by now. 

Van Hamme’s plotting is brilliant. In turn tense and claustrophobic and over the top widescreen, James Bond style action sequences.

Vance’s art is detailed and kinetic.

Even XIII’s sidekick, Major Jones gets more to do here than just moon about over him.

And yet again, Van Hamme proves himself the absolute master of drip feeding information to the reader, as we simultaneously uncover more truths about XIII’s past while finding even more unanswered questions.

This is a fine line to walk, and I’m not sure how long the series can go on doing this before credulity is stretched too far. But then again, it could be argued that in a spy story and world spanning and over the top as this one, credulity was never going to be something the reader should be brining to the table.

Whatever that case, this is a cracking read.

Thorgal vol 10 review

I had never read any of the previous volumes in this series, so was coming to this cold. I wasn’t not sure what to expect. From the beautifully painted cover, it was to be the story of a prehistoric fellow fighting bears and such.

And while it is true that he does briefly encounter a bear, as depicted in the cover, there is a hell of a lot more to it than that.

Of course if you have read any of these books this will not be news to you, but for those of you who have not let me expand on this a bit.

Thorgal is a wandering adventurer type. A bit like Conan. A bit like Slainé. Only not at all like those two characters at all.

The story here is just your standard capture/escape/repeat format, but as you would expect from a writer like Hamme (who also created that other Cinebook series, the sublimely convoluted XIII) there is much more going on here.

A lot is lost on me as a first time reader. Thorgal’s meeting up with a character from his past, for example, no doubt will have a greater impact on the long term reader, although it is communicated well enough that it is a Surprise and a Big Deal, so knowing the details of their past encounter is not required.

There is also an element of (apparent) magic going on in here, which is also something that I found surprising, although in hindsight I don’t know why. Perhaps it was the very authentic and real world art by Grzrgorz Rosinski that did so?

Whatever the reason, this element worked well too, and the explanation for it was doubly surprising and made me want to read the previous volumes just to find out more about the mysterious world that Thorgal inhabits.

Thorgal is published by Cinebook.

XIII Vol 9 For Maria review

The previous book in the XIII series, Thirteen to One, provided a neat epilogue to what had gone before and set up a series of further adventures.

It ended with a stonking final page that promised much, but of course, this being from the unpredictable pen of Jean Van Hamme, none of what was set up in the finale of the last book is addressed here!

Instead, we find our not-so-amnesiac-anymore-or-is-he? hero in South America with the bafflingly loyal Major Jones. I say bafflingly because despite being a feisty independent woman who can look after herself, she does tag along after XIII quite a bit. And during this particular volume she accepts a pretty major revelation about his past with barely a ‘meh’.

Anyway, that aside, this is very much business as usual for XIII as he goes up against yet another sinister group of bad guys.

And when I say ‘business as usual’, you’ll know that this is not a bad thing. Because business as usual for XIII always involves plenty of action, convoluted and surprising plotting and lots of good old fashioned adventuring.

As always, the art is brilliant, but Hamme’s plotting really stands out here.

He really is a great writer and the way he effortlessly weaves in plot elements for volumes near the beginning of the series and at the same time lays the groundwork for further ones is a joy to behold.

This is the first volume in a new cycle for XIII, and has one of those ending that leaves you not just wanting the next episode, but needing it.

XIII: For Maria is published by Cinebook.

XIII Vol 8: Thirteen to One review

The previous volume of XIII from Cinebook, Night of August Third, rounded of that particular story arc for our now not so amnesiac (but not yet fully memoried up) agent XIII.

At the beginning of this volume things have moved on somewhat, with agent Jones off doing her own thing (again!) and XIII receiving both an invitation one really cannot refuse and an interesting job offer…

And so, as is the way with this series, intrigue and double-cross are not far behind as XIII delves deeper into his past, perhaps putting more pieces together while an old foe is on his tail.

This volume, while having some great action set pieces (XIII’s infiltration of an enemy island is a particular highlight), there do seem to be a lot of talking heads senses in here which slow the pace somewhat, especially in the first third of the book.

Having said that, Hamme’s skill at dripfeeding the reader with titbits of information at a pace that could almost be described as torture. And the art by William Vance is, as usual, all but perfect.

This volume seems to be setting us up for some highly explosive shenanigans in the future with the aforementioned old foe and the new one XIII makes during the course of this tale.

Ah yes… that final scene. It had me laughing and almost punching the air. XIII is the sort of maverick spy hero that American writers only dream of creating.

Western review

Now, you may or may not know this, but here at HiEx! We are big fans of the western genre- so this book would have to drop the ball in a pretty major way to be received badly!

So we can ponder how possible this is before plunging further into the review- It is published by Cinebook, written by Jean Van Hamme – who also wrote XIII, Largo Winch and Thorgal with art by Grzegorz Rosinski – who illustrated Thorgal. You just know this is going to  be good already, don’t you?

And of course you would be right. It is quite brilliant.

The art is equisite. It is painted in warm sepia tones and cool blues, giving the whole book a lovely ‘old world’ feel. The only strong, sold colour in the book is the bright red blood that accompanies any acts of violence and serves to add to their impact. And these pages are broken up by the occasional magnificent fully painted double page spread, which serves as a chapter break and sets the scene nicely for what is about to follow.

The story itself is self contained- this book is a one shot- so you have no need to worry about picking up further volumes after this one. That’s not to say you will not want any, of course!

The narrative is as twisty as you would expect from Van Hamme, and has a pitch black streak running through it. The Old West was tough, so don’t expect this to have one of those endings where they all go off into the sunset together!

So yet again, Cinebook have delivered the good with yet another classic slice of comics. It’s almost getting tedious..!