This is the longest volume so far in the series, it collects two main stories spread across two albums each.

If I had been religious, they might have gotten a rise out of me, but I'm not, so it was just boring. There's also an alien called Ralph, who looks very similar to the Hanars from the Mass Effect games, giving me even more reason to think that the game creators are fans of this series.īasically everything is going fine, right until the end, which is a) pretty incomprehensible and b) tries to be funny with some light-hearted blasphemy and falls flat. Or is it? There are some stiff-upper-lip Brits and some of my favourite aliens from an earlier album makes an appearance.

Second story also starts out on Earth, right before humanity is almost destroyed by a nuclear winter. Some minor flaws here and there, like Valentin cheating on Linda and her being mad at him,but no mad enough for the whole thing to not be completely pointless. We get some fascinating glimpses of the universe and the creatures in it, but the parts on Earth are also great, not least thank to some fun side-characters. Valentin is on Earth, trying to fight them, while Linda is travelling the universe looking for clues as to where the monsters came from. In the first story, four monsters based on the four elements are attacking earth back in the 80ies (which would have been the present day back when the stories came out). It's not available in English.So this is a collection of four albums, but it's really two stories, so I'm just gonna review them as such. They also recently printed a special 50th Anniversary edition of Pilote dedicated to Valerian, with short story contributions from a variety of acclaimed French cartoonists. Titled 'Across the Pathways of Space,' the French-language collection feature seven short stories in the Valerian universe done in 19.

There is a 22nd album that remains untranslated either in print or digital, though. For various rights reasons, the first 14 albums are under Cinebook's name in the catalog, while Europe Comics is listed as the publisher of albums 15 - 21. If you don't want to wait for the print editions, all 21 albums in the series are available digitally today through comiXology. RELATED: Valerian’s Stunning Final Trailer Unleashes Destruction These collections also contain interviews with the creators and the movie's director, Luc Besson, along with biographical articles and short commentaries on each story.

The other omnibuses collect three albums at a go, in sequential order.

Valerian by Pierre Christin