I swear, it feels like yesterday... Or almost.

Those were the days of Bob Morane's arrival in Tintin, of Hermann and Greg's final Bernard Prince adventures and Red Dust's adapting to life after prison... Paape's Luc Orient in outer space, Andreas's Rork, Pratt's Corto Maltese in colour...

I wish my kids were as keen on those series as I was, since we have them all right here at home!

What went before: Wait! This comic is from 2000? Why are you recapping/reviewing this now? Isn't the series on issue 10 now? That's right, I read issue 10 about a month ago, but was a bit lost as I hadn't read the series for a while, so a reread was in order. I started rereading this series last week and I remebered that I really liked this issue. So here it is. Back to "What went before": Carmen McCallum was hired by a Yakuza family to free one of their drug runners from a cryogenic prison. The drug runner, Naoko, turn out to have stolen a box of drugs from her employers who try to capture her using heavy military force. McCallum, betrayed turns on them and together with Naoko and some other alles, they find out that inside the box is a device that can digitalize the human mind into a computer program, allowing the Yakuza's leader to cheat his own death from old age and become a powerful A.I. Instead Carmen's friend Bugg takes control of the device and ends up as the A.I.

Summary: It's 48 pages long, but a lot happens, so this is not going to be a summary so much as a longer recap: Inside an expensive restaurant, billionaire Samuel Earp is eating his diner, guarded by bodyguards. Carmen approaches him visually, distracting the bodyguards from Naoko who pretends to be a waitress. Together they capture Earp and jump from a window: the restaurant turns out to be on an airship. The bodyguards tell the staff to notify the authorities, but notice that the staff is talking to the Nevada authorities. The ship is travelling from Texas to California and should be above Arizona. The staff explains that they had to take a detour on order of Houston. The bodyguard then realises that this not a kidnapping, it's an arrest.
Earp meanwhile seems rather calm by this arrest, even offers McCallum and Naoko a job because he was impressed by their skills during the extraction.
UNO agent Mr. Young, Nevada sherriff Tom and tech-expert Sam await Carmen and Naoko. Sam has to disable Earp's cybernetic implants, but can't: the implants are connected to his pacemaker. Tom puts Earp under arrest, while Young thanks Naoko and Carmen. Earp uses this moment to activate his failsafe plan: on a satellite which houses his weapon's factory, 4 cyborgs kill all the staff with a nanobot weapon, then leave the station in 4 shuttles.
Back on Earth, Carmen leaves, this being her last job. Naoko stays behind, having taken the job offered by Young. Meanwhile a TV program mentions that Earp is responsible for a disaster in Emigrant Valley, Nevada. Nevada's authorities have been trying to bring him to justice for years, but the US government and other states have protected the wealthy Earp for years now. In a small town a younger man watches this on TV and remembers the disaster in Emigrant Valley: the same nanobot weapon used a scene ago, was responsible for killing most of his village and seriously injuring many others (the man has a cybernetic arm to replace the hand that was eaten by the nanodrones).
More flashbacks show Earp giving a speech how his nanobots will give the farmer of Emigrant Valley independence from the sellers of genetically manipulated seeds and offers a solution to the pesticide-immune bugs that threaten their crops. In the end, the disaster claims the lives of 123 farmers.
McCallum tries to get some food, but is ordered to leave by the Nevadan sherrif and feels that something is wrong.
Earp asks Young to enter his personal cyberspace with him to negotiate. Earp's cyberspace is a reenactment of the battle of Bull Turn, 1861. Young accuses Earp of producing illegal nanodrone weapons after the disaster at Emigrant Valley. He will protect Earp from prosecution in return for control of Earp's arms factories. Earp's counter-offer: 4 cyborgs have placed caches of his nanodrone weapons in 4 major cities accross the Earth. He has no direct control over them, but if he's not back in his office within 4 hours, they will release the nanodrones. The negotiations are broken off when Earp notices that an intruder has entered his cyberspace.
Outside UNO's transport of Earp is attacked by forces, who turn out to be Nevadans out for revenge against Earp. Young tries to convince them that Earp's threats are real, but they don't believe him. The Nevadans want Earp dead and will hold a trial where the jury will be the disaster's survivors. McCallum wakes up, imprisoned by an older Nevada man who wants to keep her out of the situation, but Carmen manages to escape (with some mysterious help) and she breaks into the trial against Earp. Threatening to shoot hostages, McCallum manages to convince the Nevadans to let her, her allies and Earp go. Leaving inside an armoured truck to take Earp to the actual courthouse, but it's still a long road and the Nevadans won't give up that easy.

Plot: As said before, I love Gibson style cyberpunk and this hits all those notes. Tech is around and important to the plot, but the core are human characters, each with their own personality, goals and methods. McCallum is the hero of this title, but when she claims that she will start shooting hostages if the Nevadans won't let them go, we know she is not bluffing. Earp is ruthless, but not stupid and remains calm throughout the story, being very impressed with Carmen and Naoko defeating his bodyguards with little trouble. Read that whole recap: it's a really dense stories that has worldbuilding, plot advancement and characterisation.

Art: Gess get a lot of opportunities to do interesting things: the young man's flashback to the day his village died is completely without text and chilling. Then we get sci-fi cyborgs, action scenes, space stations but also an American Civil War era battle. The art is not super detailed, but expressive and actions flow nicely.

Grade: 9/10: My favourite issue of this series so far, it has a lot going for it. The sci-fi enhances the setting, but with some minor changes the story could be set in the present and still be effective.

I'm finally catching up with this thread and see two of my favorites have barely been mentioned (although I have also learned about a lot of comics).

Jacques Tardi's work is slowly being translated by Fantagraphics. I don't like everything he's done equally, but his volumes about World War One are stunning, and I am a huge fan of his heroine Adele Blanc-Sec (who received a light but entertaining film adaptation a few years ago).

I'm hoping one of these days there is a similar revival in English of Vittorio Giardino's work. His Hungarian Rhapsody is one of the greatest comics ever created, and it is a shame it is currently out of print in this country. In addition there is much of his work which had never seen print in English.

There's also a lot of Giardino which has never been translated ... many short pieces and a story about art forgers (which I have seen many years ago and don't own).

This just in from Gary Groth:

I like Crepax quite a lot although I don't think enough to invest in a series of thick hardbacks. Still one of my prized possession is a signed print by him that I have on a wall.