In Review: The Chimpanzee Complex - Civilisation

The Chimpanzee Complex has been something of a revelation since it began three books ago. Near future, hardcore science fiction with a mature storyline, Cinebook chose to publish the title in the full European size rather than the American size that they use for the majority of their mature titles. This gave the highly detailed artwork the room that it needed and the reactions of both the comics reviewers and the readers to the series seem to have been overwhelmingly positive. Indeed The Chimpanzee Complex even received an Eagle Award nomination for Favourite European Comicbook. Civilisation is the third and final book in the ongoing story and it concludes the story of astronaut Helen Freeman.

Since this is an ongoing story split over three books, you cannot begin anywhere else but with the first book and then read forward. The first book took Freeman and her crew to the Moon while the second book took them to Mars and it ended with the crew entering suspended animation as their ship left the Solar System.

Civilisation begins with Helen waking up to discover that her ship is now docked with an unknown and enormous ship. Not knowing where and just as importantly when they are, Helen and Alexsa enter the apparently deserted ship knowing that they have little air left to breathe on their own and that they have nothing to loose by investigating the other ship.

At the end of the downthetubes review of the second book, Sons Of Ares, I said that writer Richard Marazano seemed to be setting off into 2001: A Space Odyssey territory and he does, after a quick detour via Alien's derelict spaceship. Where and when they are becomes obvious to the astronauts as the plot unfolds and, like 2001, the story comes full circle without explaining all the complexities of how it managed it. Also like 2001, it doesn't need to explain everything to leave you impressed. Having reached the end, I will now take the time to reread the entire series again without the gaps of months between the books - it really is that good.

Jean-Michel Ponzio's art remains at the high standard of the previous two books - accurate, realistic and above all believable. Indeed the visual reveal on page 32 of the book left me flicking back to the beginning to figure out just how he as the artist managed not to give this important plot point away in all his pages worth of establishing shots.

The two creators are working on another series together called Genetiks which is on its second book. While at 100+ pages each these are longer than the typical Cinebook publication, we can but hope that the reaction to this series is enough for Cinebook to consider translating Genetiks into English. In the meantime if you haven't begun The Chimpanzee Complex then do so - Civilisation is an impressive conclusion to an impressive series.

There are more details of The Chimpanzee Complex on the Cinebook website.

There are more details of the original French editions (in French) on the Dargaud website.

The downthetubes review of book one, Paradox, is here and of book two, The Sons Of Ares, is here.

In Review: The Chimpanzee Complex - The Sons Of Ares

Cinebook's The Chimpanzee Complex trilogy began with Paradox which was reviewed here and now continues with The Sons Of Ares.

Set in our Solar System in 2035, writer Richard Marazano and artist Jean-Michel Ponzio tell the story of an astronaut mother, Helen Freeman, who's mission of discovery makes her more and more remote from her 10 year old daughter Sofia.

As the second part of the ongoing story, it is difficult to say much about the plot without giving away too much, suffice to say that there was more happening in the Cold War space programmes of the 1960s and 1970s that was made public knowledge. This information took Freeman and her crew to the Moon in the first book and now takes them to Mars in the second in an attempt to discover what, if anything, really happened on the red planet some 50 years beforehand.

With their spaceship over Mars on the cover and with Ares (the Greek name of the god the Romans called Mars) in the title, it should not be too much of a spoiler that the action has moved away from the Earth and the Moon. The discoveries that the astronauts make on the Martian surface set the scene for the final part of the trilogy as writer Marazano moves the storyline somewhat into 2001: A Space Odyssey territory. Artist Ponzio's art is perhaps more obviously photographically based than in the first book but if anything this helps the reality of the near future hardware without becoming distracting.

The Sons Of Ares maintains Chimpanzee Complex's thoughtful, if perplexing, storyline and while it cannot be read alone it maintains the high quality of the first book and makes the third book a must buy when it is published later in the year.

• Read our review of The Chimpanzee Complex: Paradox

• More details of The Chimpanzee Complex are available on the Cinebook website.

• More details of the original French editions are available, in French, on the Dargaud website.

• Cinebook will publish the third and last Chimpanzee Complex book, Civilisation, during the second half of 2010.

In Review: The Chimpanzee Complex - Paradox

The latest science fiction offering in Cinebook's increasing number of translated bandes dessinee albums from France is The Chimpanzee Complex. Unlike Aldebaran or Orbital this is a story that takes place in the near future of 2035 and begins on a familiar Earth.

The US Navy recover an Apollo capsule from the sea off Madagascar which contains two men who claim to be Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin just returning from their 1969 mission to the Moon. Held in secret by a shadowy agency of the US Government, the men are questioned by NASA astronaut Helen Freeman who was scheduled to command the first manned mission to Mars before it was cancelled for financial reasons. The information given by the mysterious men takes Helen and her team into space and a landing on the Moon which suggests that more than was made public had been happening behind the cover of the Cold War space programmes of America and the Soviet Union.

This is the first of a three book serial by writer Richard Marazano and artist Jean-Michel Ponzio. In Paradox Marazano's plot builds slowly, leaving time for the back story of the cancelled Mars mission and Helen's daughter Sofia's thoughts on her mother's career keeping her away from Sofia to come to the fore. Ponzio's artwork, while apparently photographically based, is detailed and clear and his futuristic spacecraft designs are logically conceived.

The "chimpanzee complex" of the title relates, not to a zoological building, but to the concept that the chimpanzees used by NASA in their early spaceflights were intelligent enough to know what was happening to them and to be aware that they could do nothing to stop it. They were trapped in the inevitability of the situation that they found themselves in. It is translated here into the plotline that Helen is effectively locked into a situation which takes her further and further away from her daughter, both in distance and duration, and there is absolutely nothing that she can do about it.