The Metabarons

The media could not be loaded.  The art was amazing and I enjoyed the reading. This is definitely mature rated lol. The quality of the book is amazing. The pages are very tough.

The art achievement is mind-boggling. Truly an epic accomplishment. Whatever the story's deficiencies, the illustrations compensatorily supply in breathtaking spades. I've yet to see anything else like this, mesmerizing and marvelous to behold. The pictures really fail to do it justice but should provide a vague notion of what to expect.

What can I say. It's a product of Jodorowsky.If you like his work, you'll probably like it.If you hate his work, you'll probably hate it.If you watch his Dune documentary before reading this, you'll see this borrows a lot from the actual book Dune, plus from his own... concept of what Dune was to him. (Please note, he admits several times he'd never actually read Dune)My only major complaint about the book is how awful the dialoge is, and how primitive the technology is.Everything is "proto" this, "meta" that "cyber" this other thing, and "robo" whatever. It's exceedingly annoying that at least one of those prefixes is on every page.Without spoiling the story, there's a medical thing that to solve it takes the entire resources of a planet sized hospital 30 years to solve. Something that we've been able to easily do for 20-30 years.I could forgive thsee if this was written in the 50s or 60s,but this book was published in '92.

This story is a spin-off from the Incal, which is much beloved for its originality and creativity. However, this is a distinct flavor entirely separate from the Incal. This is heavy metal (HA) compared to Jazz. The fun and funky Incal features the Metabaron from the perspective of John Difool.Here you see the filter removed and you have a galactic apex predator telling the evolution of its own kind. Well technically, it's told by a servant droid, but in that way, the story gets both a chance to breathe between tragedies and a sense of awe.If you are looking for a happy story skip this, if you are looking for the good to win in the end keep moving, epic raw sci-fi weirdness built into bloody and impossibly over-the-top violence, sprinkled with loving touches and touching scenes of humanitiy then you are home.

The characters in this graphic novel are shallow and un-nuanced. Every once in a while they achieve a Greek-tragedy level of humanity, but in the intervening sections they are irredeemably misogynistic and macho.The art is fantastic. Ignore the words if you can, and the production quality is amazing. It’s a beautifully produced book.

Even Jodorowsky's other comics masterpieces couldn't prepare me for the deranged cosmic beauty of this book. For anyone new to his work, this might be the perfect place to start, and you MUST start. The vast sci fi fantasy universe of intersecting stories Jodorowsky has created that includes the Incal, the Metabarons, and the Technopriests, is among the very greatest works of imagination ever produced. I believe it stands among titans like the Sandman, the original Star Wars movies, Dune, Lord of the Rings, etc. Metabarons could be the capstone of the Jodoverse, as the unbridled imagination of this book goes even beyond the Incal and the Technopriests. Sometimes there is a single panel, a single sentence, that you realize could have been developed into its own entire saga, and in this day and age it would have been, by someone with far less vision. In The Metabarons, mind blowing ideas are tossed out with a nonchalant regularity that is almost maddening. It is a wonder to behold. It is still more a wonder that this man's work in comics is so little known in the US. If you are here, reading this, buy this book while it is in print and relatively cheap, read it, and lend it to everyone you know who might appreciate the absurd levels of imagination on display here. Oh and the art by Juan Gimenez is exquisite as well.

I crave space opera. Of a more optimistic beat, esp. nowadays but like Berserk, I can usually dip into stuff like this ever so often.The art is beautiful even if the themes are darker then what I crave. Feels like there's more space opera on the European Comic market then there is here in the US side of the house. Ill be checking out more of Humanoids stuff in the future.

The Metabarons begins with a conceit sifted from the sands of Dune (a woman charged by her fearsome feminine cult to bear a daughter to bring to fruition their millennia-long, Messianic breeding plan has a son instead), which Jodorowski famously failed to film after seeing his planned script run upwards of 10 hours. The stories spiral out into a unique epic that blends strains of space opera with older heroic mythopoetics - for example, a Metabaron can only claim his place after committing patricide. Like any archetypal narrative, there's an unreal crystalline moral clarity, absolutely NO compromise, and dialogue that rarely amounts to more than declarations of principle and intent, but holy s%!$, it's a dizzying achievement...

This is a big heavy tome. Hard to read in one go as the stories then become much of a sameness, so pace the reading of it. I had the first edition but got rid of it for that same reason, but bought it back again (third printing) as I quite like it and the illustrations are very good and worth having the book for. A bit heavy so it needs handling with care or the it starts coming apart. It's well made but not that well to stand a lot of handling.It's not my favourite Jodorowsky book, but it's there or thereabouts.

Quite simply a masterpiece. As enjoyably wild of a ride as The Incal was, this saga has a much broader scope and to me is a more detailed and engaging story. I also find the art by Gimenez is of the same order, richly detailed technologies and surfaces all coloured in a gorgeously realistic way. It's a different style to Mobius, as it is a little more precise, but it is every bit as captivating. This is a book and a universe to get lost in; the scope, the sex, the horror, the humour, the tragedy...it's all there. Fans of the documentary on Jodorowsky's Dune will be especially transfixed by this, as it contains a lot of the ideas he originally developed for that, possibly even more so than ended up in Incal.

This volume is the same size as The Incal volume by Humanoid and it is well bound. The artwork wraps around the cover and there is no dustjacket included. The Metabarons is a much bigger book than The Incal and the story is rich and deep and the artwork is sublime throughout. This is an excellent buy for any Science Fiction and/or comic fans. Be warned though... this is an adult-oriented story with strong adult themes and situations depicted.

Forgot to take picture but Christmas present and edge had been bashed. Book greatly appreciated regardless

Fantastic art work, great story.I have just recently got in to European Comics / Graphic Novels and its a breath of fresh air compared to all these Marvel superheros.This is a violent graphic book not for the faimt hearted.Love the hardback edition.