‘Valerian and Laureline: The Complete Collection, Volume 4’ is saga’s high point

Looking for a “Valerian” fix after last year’s movie, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” I’m delving into the comics that started it all, by Frenchmen Pierre Christin (writer) and Jean-Claude Mezieres (pencils and inks). “The Complete Collection, Volume 4” includes the two-part sagas “Chatelet Station, Destination Cassiopeia” (1980)/“Brooklyn Line, Terminus Cosmos” (1981) and “The Ghosts of Inverloch” (1984)/“The Wrath of Hypsis” (1985).

Volume 9: “Chatelet Station, Destination Cassiopeia” (1980)

Volume 10: “Brooklyn Line, Terminus Cosmos” (1981)

Despite Valerian and Laureline being physically apart the entire adventure (she’s in space, he’s in contemporary France), this is a heartfelt love story between them, as they connect by phasing (talking in their heads, essentially) – something that Laureline finds nearly effortless but which gives Valerian headaches and confusion.

Further illustrating the depth of their love, which makes this series so special among sci-fi epics, is that while she gives him grief for cheating on him amid his undercover mission, we know it won’t lead to a breakup. By this point, the series has completed its transition to where Laureline – who started as an 11^th century peasant, not a galactic agent — is the more mature and competent half of the couple.

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There’s a minor sense that Valerian doesn’t totally grasp this fact, like when he calls her “my little Laureline” (which some translators argue should be “my dear Laureline,” but I like the literal choice), thus giving him the slightest of Zapp Brannigan airs. At the same time, there’s no sense that Valerian would resent Laureline being better than him at the job, as he clearly adores everything about her.

Perhaps providing a parallel to Valerian’s exploits, Laureline dresses in a sexy outfit and uses her feminine wiles to achieve her objective against the guardians of artifacts on a garbage planet. (She is somewhere in the Cassiopeia constellation. I find it odd that Christin uses a constellation as a measure of location.)

This is the first arc where Mezieres draws real-world settings, using reference materials. But the title still gives me the sense that I’m traveling somewhere exotic, since I’m unfamiliar with early-1980s Paris subway tunnels anyway.

The scenes of Valerian and his cheerful agency partner Albert stalking through the rain call to mind “Batman: Year One,” while Albert’s penchant for food effectively pre-dates the “Law & Order” principle that showing characters eating adds to the realism.

The storyline is a bit confusing in a macro sense – broadly, the agents take actions to calm down the timeline leading up to 1986 on Earth (when the planet is, on the original timeline, devastated by nuclear-weapons exchanges) – but that doesn’t hinder the panel-to-panel momentum or sense of fun.

5 stars

Volume 11: “The Ghosts of Inverloch” (1984)

Volume 12: “The Wrath of Hypsis” (1985)

Even more so than the previous arc, this one is notable for the steady rhythm of the banter. Valerian and Laureline and various contemporary temporal agents – among them Albert the foodie and a proper English couple – are joined by Ralph (who looks kind of like that “Star Wars” Legends creature who could be a Tampa Bay Rays mascot) and the constantly trading, gambling and deal-making Shingouz trio (who co-star in the movie, although they are for some reason called Doghan Daguis there).

The action panels are nearly nonexistent, yet the fun of following all these character arcs (including the Shingouz getting drunk on random substances and Ralph thinking decorative flowers are food) doesn’t waver.

We never lose sight of why these aliens are along for the ride: The Shingouz because of Laureline’s kindness (which she chastises them for abusing), and Ralph because his math genius will allow our heroes to track the ghost ship from the Arctic waters back to Hypsis, where they believe they’ll get to the heart of the mystery.

When the characters get together to discuss the next step in the mission, we get a nice comic riff on morality, and how even the most moral among this group practice flexible “for the greater good” morality. (For example, Valerian had outright kidnapped Ralph from his home planet to help on this mission. The fact that Ralph is fine with it makes him all the more lovable.)

Although this story takes a remarkably long time to get to the climax, where our heroes confront the beings from Hypsis trying to manipulate Earth into self-destruction, it didn’t bother me. I just loved soaking up the “Valerian” of it all.

The ending is thematically fascinating, as the rulers of Hypsis are literally the Holy Trinity. I found it slightly logistically clunky when Valerian has to decide between saving 1986 Earth or Galaxity, but that also gives poignancy to when our heroes return to a saved Earth and he looks to the sky, wondering what happened to Galaxity.

5 stars

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