The story begins in January 1948. The Second World War is over. Well almost. Nostalgic for the Third Reich will join forces with members of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, to prepare a terrible attack. To blow up Buckingham Palace, the Mecca of the British monarchy, such is their dark design. “This plan to attack the IRA is genuine. It was imagined by the Germans during the war and was foiled at the end of it in 1944. The Last Swordfish is a fiction but I thought that I could use this historical and geopolitical context with an Ireland which remained neutral throughout the conflict ”, explains Jean Van Hamme.
The Swordfish is the aircraft and submarine that appears in The Secret of the Swordfish, The Early Adventures of Blake and Mortimer. Imagined by Edgar Pierre Jacobs, it is a weapon of mass destruction. The story is published from September 1946 from the first issue of Tintin’s journal. One hundred and fifty pages of drawings which this year is celebrating its 75th anniversary. “Professor Mortimer is presented as the inventor of the Swordfish. However, this invention is never really shown in the sequel to the adventures that Jacobs imagined. I said to myself that it was time to do something about it and to sort of come full circle, ”says Jean Van Hamme.
The Swordfish drawn by Edgar P. Jacobs in Le Secret de l’Espadon (Editions Blake and Mortimer).
The “madeleine de Proust” effect is certainly no stranger to the choice of the Belgian screenwriter. “When I discovered The Secret of the Swordfish at the age of 7 and a half, I felt great emotion. It was the first time that I read such a realistic story, much more realistic than the adventures of Tintin. The first pages terrified me! », Remembers Jean Van Hamme. Mortimer is his favorite character. He confides in a documentary on Blake and Mortimer not yet released that the publisher had made for the 75e anniversary of publication. Jean Van Hamme finds blandness and coldness in his sidekick, Francis Blake. In the new album, he will even make Francis Blake, who has become a “super-cop”, assume the possibility of having Mortimer removed by the English secret services if the story turns out badly. Shocking? No, Jean Hamme infuses this realism which had so won him over as a young reader. And he pushes it a little further. He updates it without betraying it. In 75 years, the world of comics has evolved, modesty, censorship and heroes too.
What also changes happily is the presence, we can even say the arrival of humor in the series. The “so British” atmosphere sought by Jacobs did not push its creator to include humor in the series, whether British or Belgian for that matter. “In Jacobs albums, humor is not frequent. I added a hint and take this opportunity to settle accounts with the two heroes, ”admits Jean Van Hamme. The humor is shed like a tear of whiskey. Jean Van Hamme knows the springs of Jacobian mechanics. He has fun with it and incites some fantasies as with Marge, a zealous collaborator ready to donate her body for her Gracious Majesty. A side step that allows the story to go beyond the simple Jacobs-style copy. A distance subtly shifting the album into the register of homage.
Jean Van Hamme, screenwriter of Last Espadon (Paris, nov. 2021 / Photo F. Forget).
So let’s summarize this Last Swordfish. Nazis allied with Irish Republicans, an attack project touching the symbol of the Empire, a heritage device from the universe of Jacobs and respectful or amused references to the album The Secret of the Swordfish. Teun Berserik and Peter Van Dongen are the two designers for the occasion. The duo previously produced two volumes of the series with The Valley of the Immortals. Their features progress over the volumes and they once again do their job with dignity. The recipe for Last Swordfish therefore seems excellent, better than that of the Centaur Club, the chic club of Blake and Mortimer where the English roast beef is always overcooked.
First box of the 28th adventure of Blake and Mortimer (Editions Blake and Mortimer).
This 28e tome is undoubtedly one of the three best albums after the death of Jacobs in 1987 at the age of 83. In 2019, there was The Last Pharaoh including the brilliant François Schuiten provided the drawing and part of the script. Before, in 1996, there had been The Francis Blake Affair of the late Ted Benoit in the drawing. Certainly the most successful album graphically, critical and commercial success which relaunched the series with, in the scenario, already a certain Jean Van Hamme.
THEe Last Swordfish. Blake and Mortimer Volume 28. Jean Van Hamme, Teun Berserik and Peter Van Dongen. Blake and Mortimer editions. 16 euros.