Premiere October 28, 2020.
Masters of Comics. The Monster, 2nd Edition.
Screenplay: Enki Bilal.
Drawings: Enki Bilal.
Translation: Wojciech Birek
Nike Hatzfeld, an orphan from Sarajevo, is 33 years old. It lives at a time when the whole world is plunged into a catastrophic political and social crisis. Democracy is collapsing and its place is being taken by a variety of religious movements as well as predatory and extreme ideologies, both right and left. The most important of the new characters of the changing reality is the satanic Optus Warhole, the self-proclaimed Artist of the Highest Evil … The wave of his criminal activity is flooding the world, but it affects Nike and his loved ones in a special way. The heroes become the object of the sophisticated endeavors of a criminal who strives to implement his insane plans.
In his mind, Nike travels to another era of chaos and fire – the day he was born in a hospital in Sarajevo during the Yugoslav Civil War. It was then that his future was forever tied to the fate of two other orphans, Amir and Leyla. Though the children were quickly separated, Nike – only eighteen days old – swore to find friends and to protect them at all times. Now is the time to fulfill your promise. This is how a crazy, dark, suffering science fiction story begins, unfolding in a world we wouldn’t want to know. Enki Bilal’s vision is the result of a logical analysis of our present reality. So does everything have to end badly and gloomily? Fortunately, the author of this excellent story sees hope …
“Monster” is the collective album of the series called “Monster Tetralogy”. It includes the volumes: “A Monster’s Dream”, “December 32”, “Meeting in Paris” and “Four?”. History is a projection of both individual and collective memory, in which the records of the collapse of Yugoslavia – Bilal’s home country – are mixed with the prognosis of a bleak future. The creator of the series presents hundreds of expressive images, sometimes shocking and brutal, which warn us about what may lie ahead. However, it also shows that in the heroes – and therefore in us – there is a salutary need for love.
