Adventureman, the most powerful superhero in the United States, will mysteriously disappear as the conflict with Nazi Germany looms. Decades later, everyone seems to have forgotten him except Claire and her son Tommy who want to discover the solution to this mystery.
A spectacular (end) beginning
Published by Glénat, the beautiful matte and shiny cover encourages us to open the book which begins with the massive attack of multiple airships in a New York of the 30s and 40s. The time has come for Adventureman and his allies to confront their Nemesis, the Bizarre Baron. We immediately feel the inspiration of superheroes when the situation of the Adventureman team is so catastrophic that everyone drinks the super-serum. However, as usual, good will prevail… but not this time: Adventureman is defeated and the Bizarre Baron has won. Well, that's what the last page Tommy just finished says. Frustrated by this ending, the boy asks Claire, his single mother, to find out more. This one seems clueless because there are no other books… until a mysterious woman entrusts him with an unpublished edition of Adventureman's stories… This reading will transform the life of this woman who loved routine and refused action because curiosity pushes her to check what the book describes. The ending and all that follows is therefore a hymn to the imagination. Since contact with this book, Claire sees signs on maps and buildings that do not exist for others. Claire will save people through the stories of Adventureman. 
A fiction about pulp
This beginning shows the parodic character of this scenario by Matt Fraction which pays tribute to pulp, these tales of cheap adventures sold before and after the Second World War in every street corner of American cities. This influence is marked by the main characters. Adventureman is not only a mass of muscles but also a genius scientist. He is surrounded by a team with specialties worthy of a popular novel with a magician in a tuxedo and an Indian mage. They oppose a sorcerer and his gang of demonic Nazis and a pirate. Adventureman is a beautiful tribute by the characters, the settings but also the parodies of the novels written by Matt Fraction. We also feel that the cartoonist Terry Dodson is passionate about this period. He enjoys designing interiors filled with Art Deco furniture. The warm, cottony colors with digital colorization reinforce the fun element of the scenario. A complete dossier of Dodson's sketches is accompanied by Fraction's rich commentary to understand the roots and purposes of this title. However, the drawing is sometimes sloppy in the inking but it could be the change of format. Indeed, the Franco-Belgian format of the French edition means that the drawings have been enlarged.
A modernized pulp
However, the screenwriter is not fooled by the problems posed today by these stories (racism, misogyny). He diversifies the Adventureman team and chooses a main heroine. Claire is a deaf and Jewish single mother who lives in anineteenth century house. She loves to use her disability to isolate herself from the world when she disconnects her hearing aids on the Sabbath with her father and six sisters. Indeed, she lives in a large adopted family but she feels worthless. She is not an archivist, lawyer or scientist, but she took over her mother's second-hand bookstore. Fraction and Dodson also bring a discrepancy by anachronisms: a woman in mourning dress of thenineteenth century is kidnapped by men composed of a swarm of insects.Writing makes it possible to find what has disappeared, what is hidden from ordinary mortals. Adventureman is a fun story that takes some codes of pulp but also plays with them by modernizing them. Claire is angry when her son doesn't respond to her text messages in class, but the heroine grows both symbolically and physically through experience. In addition, the volume gathering the first four episodes of the series spares the suspense by sabrupt end of episode. You can find the genealogy of pulp on our site and a more European version of this kind with Nathanaëlle.
