In 2054, individuals can travel to the past but the time police are watching to preserve reality. Follow Agent Tarik in RetroActive on a mission but also in his complicated personal life.
A timeguard
In RetroActive, Tarik has just joined an elite top-secret service: the Office of Time Affairs. This American agency uses temporal technology to prevent individuals or states from upsetting reality. As anomalies appear, Tarik must discover their origin. But why doesn't he stop dying at the same time? 
RetroActive starts in fourth gear: newly engaged, Tarik must chase a killer on the rooftops. Indeed, this former officer of the Bureau betrayed. He chose a personal answer to the ultimate question of the time traveler: should Hitler be killed? The Bureau cannot accept this major change from the past. Both screenwriter and artist, Ibrahim Moustafa has already explored this relationship to time in his previous book by rewriting The Count of Monte Cristo, a novel by Alexandre Dumas for a science fiction novel. There is a science fiction dimension to RetroActive again. Time travel is done by a watch and an elevator. But, on a daily basis, the settings resemble our present and Tarik's mission is close to that of the homeland security of the United States. Like a secret agent, saving a life is sometimes a bad choice. After this linear introduction, the sequel to RetroActive is more disturbing because Tarik dies during an operation… before coming back to life. Indeed, an agent cannot die until the mission is fulfilled. Before, he must undergo a more or less long series of time loops to find the solution. The reader is just as disturbed as the hero whose mind is shaken by these successive time travels. The structure of the book becomes more complex because we follow on the one hand a series of time loops on a mission against a survivalist group and on the other hand the daily and professional life of Tarik. A bonus timeline helps to understand this difference between this potential time and the present time. To preserve his sanity, Tarik uses a series of numbers certifying that he does not lose his memory.
Memory problems
Indeed, he fears going crazy like his mother. Tarik is not only an agent but he has a complicated personal life. If, in his job, he saves time, he runs after in his family life. Between two missions, he must accompany his mother to a retirement home but she refuses. RetroActive presents a conflict of family memory. His mother cannot agree to leave home and Tarik is ashamed to have to abandon his mother in a nursing home. Unfortunately, we do not feel these feelings much because the faces are very little expressive. This personal conflict is also cultural. Quite rare in comics, RetroActive places at the center an Arab hero like the author, Ibrahim Moustafa. We read Arabic and this multicultural aspect is all the more refreshing because it is never demonstrative but is part of the heart of the story. Racism seems to have disappeared because in the Office different communities collaborate smoothly. Indeed, Tarik's mother loses her memory while her son must preserve the collective memory. His mission takes him back to the roots of the American continent. Retroactive makes it possible to reread the past from the perspective of great men. Other recent narratives such as The People's History of France have qualified this idea. In a progressive vision, an Arab defends the country's past but also the present. The narrative incorporates a geopolitical dimension because five states have a time accelerator and Westerners are wary of Russians and Chinese. Moreover, there are also traitors in the agency. Like its hero, RetroActive is a complete story with many facets. It hides a very complex and clever scenario behind a more bland drawing by a little inking and a neutral colorization. The reader is totally immersed in the different layers of the past and no longer sees time pass before having dropped the book on the last page. Feel free to follow the links to other chronicles of the H1 Originals collection of the Humanoids associated with Campus and Space Bastards.
