Not many people get an entire universe named after themselves, but that’s exactly what Alejandro Jodorowsky has managed to do. Sure, it’s only a fictional comics universe, but they’re all the rage right now and tend to be the sole preserve of huge American publishing entities with vast IP portfolios and a track record of shafting their creators. They’re not usually associated with cult filmmakers with mystic tendencies who are now in their nineties.
This place is called The Jodoverse – AKA The Metabarons Universe – and there’s nowhere quite like it in comics or, indeed, anywhere else. It’s big, it’s weird and can sometimes be so ferociously violent that it makes Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy look like Zooey Deschanel’s New Girl.
Here’s a list of the comic titles that make up the Jodoverse, all of which are English translations published by Humanoids (the US-based offshoot of legendary French comics publisher, Les Humanoïdes Associés). Any prices displayed are in US dollars, although the links will take you to your local Amazon store where they’ll be priced in your local currency. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission for any purchases made via this article, but it won’t affect the price you pay and it’ll earn you my eternal gratitude.
The Incal – by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artist: Jean (‘Moebius’) Giraud
The one that started it all – the Jodoverse’s Big Bang, so to speak. Originally serialised in French comics anthology Metal Hurlant (and later it’s US counterpart, Heavy Metal), The Incal is a gorgeously illustrated and staggeringly original cosmic saga in which Jodorowsky reclaimed and repurposed many of the certifiably insane concepts from his famously unproduced and probably unfilmable 70s adaptation of the sci-fi novel, Dune. Together with the late Franco-Belgian comics legend Moebius, Jodo’s storyboard artist on Dune, they chronicled the reluctant spiritual quest of protagonist John DiFool from selfish dystopian-dwelling private (in every sense of the word) dick to enlightened cosmic entity and back again. The Incal introduced many of the concepts and characters that Jodorowsky would revisit in the decades to follow – including many, many things with a ‘Techno-‘ and ‘Paleo-‘ prefix – and remains an undisputed comic art masterpiece.
The Metabarons (1992-2003)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artist: Juan Giménez
Tonally, The Incal’s most famous spin-off title is a very different beast to its illustrious predecessor. A classic in its own right, The Metabarons (AKA ‘The Saga of The Metabarons’) is a multi-generational epic that explores the family tree of The Incal’s bald master assassin, right back to their humble beginnings as stone-cutters on a planet made of marble. To put it another way, it’s like an unbelievably violent and outrageously explicit version of the popular TV show Who Do You Think You Are?
With beautiful, painted visuals by the late Argentinian comics artist Juan Giménez, this is a wonderfully operatic space opera full of blood, honour, patricide and ritualised initiations that involve mutilation (families, huh?). It also manages to be even more outrageously bonkers than The Incal: when comic writer Warren Ellis says “There is literally a new and mad idea on every page” he’s not exaggerating
Before the Incal (1988-1995)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artist: Zoran Janjetov
Yes, it’s a prequel, but don’t let that put you off. Published not long after the original Incal finished, the story was illustrated by the Serbian comic artist and Moebius protégé Zoran Janjetov. Telling a more grounded, noir-ish tale (no cameos from God this time around), Before the Incal delves into the traumatic backstory of Incal protagonist John DiFool and his seedy dystopian city-shaft home with a compelling tale of corruption and conspiracy.
The TechnoPriests (1998-2006)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artist: Zoran Janjetov
Another Incal spin-off, this time featuring a protagonist called Albino (and yes, he is). Told mainly in flashback, it charts Albino’s rise from unwanted offspring of an intergalactic cheese magnate to the Moses-like leader of Cosmic Exodus, because that’s how character arcs play out in the Jodoverse. Beautifully illustrated by Before the Incal’s Zoran Janjetov, who had moved on from his early Moebius-influenced linework to something more distinct and personal.
After the Incal/Final Incal (2000/2008-14)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artists: José Ladrönn (Final Incal); Moebius (After the Incal)
When a deadly metallic virus threatens to eradicate all organic life in the universe, our only hope is John DiFool and the power of L-U-R-V-E – providing John’s various selves don’t kill each other first! When Jodorowsky and Moebius released the first volume of their long-awaited Incal sequel in 2000 it was quite the bande dessinée du jour, as they say in fancy Parisian comic shops. Unfortunately, Moebius was unable to complete After the Incal and so, with his blessing, Jodorowsky teamed with the immensely talented Mexican artist, Ladrönn. Rather than continue from where Moebius left off, they restarted the entire series from scratch under a new title, Final Incal. A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, Ladrönn’s artwork is stunning and even manages to surpass Moebius’s After the Incal work.
Weapons of the Metabaron (2008)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artists: Travis Charest and Zoran Janjetov
An odd one, this. Travis Charest – the Canadian artist best known for his work on the American superhero comic WildC.A.T.S and his lush, highly-detailed cover illustrations – moved to Paris in the early 2000s to work on a Metabarons story called Dreamshifters. This would look at how the greatest warrior in the galaxy acquired his formidable arsenal (his weapons, not the English soccer team). Unfortunately, Charest was a far from prolific perfectionist and, by 2007, only 29 pages of the story were complete. These were published as Weapons of the Metabaron with a framing sequence by Zoran (Before the Incal, Technopriests) Janjetov, who probably knocked out his 26 pages in the same amount of time as Charest spent prepping a panel.
Having said that, those 29 pages by Charest sure are purty.
Metabarons Genesis: Castaka (2007-2013)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artist: Das Pastoras
A beautifully illustrated prequel to the Metabarons saga, which possibly makes it a pre-prequel. The original series explored the colourful genealogy of the galaxy’s premier hardman, but Metabarons: Castaka goes further back and tells the story of the ancestors of his ancestors. Turns out that before they were humble stone-cutters on a planet made of marble, the Meta-Fam lived a semi-feudal, samurai-like existence on an isolated world. This was before mom, dad and the kids turned to space piracy to make ends meet. Meta-Ancestors, huh?
The Metabaron (2015-2018)
Writers: Jerry Frissen and Jodorowsky
Artists: Valentin Sécher, Niko Henrichon
While the Jodoverse titles have featured work by some of the comic industry’s finest artists, up until 2015 they were all written solely by Jodorowsky himself. That changed with the confusingly-titled The Metabaron series (singular not plural, although the series is currently being rebranded as The Metabarons: Second Cycle). As the title suggests, albeit obliquely, these stories focus on the most recent Metabaron, the bald badass from The Incal. While Jodorowsky received a ‘Story by’ credit, the series is written by Humanoids veteran, Jerry Frissen, with an English-language adaptation by the cult South African filmmaker Richard Stanley. Incidentally, the documentary film Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau is well worth your time and serves as an ideal double-bill companion to the excellent Jodorowsky’s Dune .
Megalex (1999-2007)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artist: Fred Beltran
Some would argue that Megalex shouldn’t be classified as a Jodoverse title as it doesn’t seem to be set in the same Incal/Metabarons universe as everything else on this list. Others (this author included), have a looser definition of ‘Jodoverse’, possibly encouraged by its publisher who lists it in the Jodoverse section of their website. As for the book itself? Jodorowsky explores his familiar theme of nature vs tech, although not as successfully as he’d later do with Final Incal. It features the distinctive CG stylings of Fred Beltran, which jarringly switches to traditional hand-drawn art for the final volume.
Verdict: it’s alright, mostly.
Simak (2019)
Writer: Jerry Frissen
Artist: Jean-Michael Ponzio
The latest Jodoverse series, with Frissen flying solo and not a Jodorowsky in sight. Future noir yarn in which an amnesiac cop investigating the murder of his colleague gets mixed up with the Simak, the loathsome transhuman critters last seen in Metabarons: Second Cycle.
The Jodorowsky Library (5 volumes)
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artists: Various
Featuring deluxe collected editions of Jodorowsky comics from the Jodoverse and beyond. Three volumes have been released so far with a further two available for pre-order, each featuring at least two main features and a veritable plethora of bonus material (including rare pages from Jodorowsky’s never-reprinted comics debut in 1966!)
Book One: featuring bawdy secret agent tale Anibal 5 (art: Georges Bess) and the aforementioned Megalex (art: Fred Beltran), along with a selection of stories from his anthology work Screaming Planet.
Book Two: featuring modern-day, El Topo-esque spiritual western Son of the Gun (art: Georges Bess) and the harrowing tale of a mime in Nazi-occupied France, Pietrolino (art: Olivier Boiscommun).
Book Three: an all-Jodoverse volume featuring the aforementioned Metabarons Genesis: Castaka (art: Das Pastoras), Weapons of the Metabaron (art: Travis Charest and Zoran Janjetov), After the Incal (art: Moebius) and Final Incal (art José Ladrönn).
Book Four: featuring the English-language debut of 80s psychedelic Saga of Alandor (art: Silvio Cadelo) and the unfinished erotic tale Diosamante (art: Jean-Claude Gal), more tales from his Screaming Planet and articles about Metal Hurlant and Jodorowsky’s legendary Dune movie project.
Book Five: featuring the Tibetan-set mystical adventure The White Lama and Jodorowsky’s first YA story, The Magical Twins.
Humanoids Presents: The Jodoverse
Writer: Jodorowsky
Artists: Various
If you’re new to the Jodoverse and you’re not too sure where the best place is to start frying your synapses, you could do a lot worse than this reasonably-priced tasty hors d’oeuvre of brainwrong, which features excerpts from The Incal, The Metabarons, The Technopriests and Megalex.
If you want to find out more about The Jodoverse, it’s worth checking out Christophe Quillien’s books Deconstructing The Incal and Deconstructing The Metabarons (both published by Humanoids). I’ll regularly update this post as new titles become available, but in the meantime please let me know if there’s anything I’ve overlooked (I’m @tomlennon on Twitter).
