Brigade Temporelle
Encyclopedia
Brigade Temporelle is a French
comic book
series created by French writer
Claude J. Legrand and Spanish
artist
Edmond Ripoll for the magazine Futura
published by Editions Lug
in 1972.
The Time Brigade stories were initially clearly influenced by Poul Anderson
’s Time Patrol. When the series begins, 20th century archeologist Jason Spell on a dig in Mesopotamia
is recruited to become a member of Delta Hand 28, a four-person operative unit of the Time Brigade, a time-travelling organization from the 40th century.
The Brigade is responsible for the monitoring and control of the pludimensionality of Earth, in a segment of the space-time continuum known as Sector Rhamno. This spans our galactic
quadrant
, six billion years from the creation of the Solar System
to some unspecified date in the future, about 1,000,000 years AD, and all of its alternate timelines.
The Brigade functions with teams of four operatives, called a Hand since it reports to an artificial intelligence
known as the Thumb. A Hand consists of one Coordinator and three Agents. While Coordinators tend to originate in the 40th century or later, Agents are recruited throughout time.
The members of Delta Hand 28 are Khanor Rhi, its coordinator, a former chronoprogrammer from the 40th century, the beautiful Varna Zelton, a timsensitive and former student of Khanor, and Spell. In the first series, the fourth member was Rock Klammers, who tried to kill Adolf Hitler
, but his memory was erased and he was returned to his own time. He was replaced in the second series by Minus-3, an augmented ape
. The first series of stories involved various missions through time, ending with a nuclear explosion
that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
. In the second series, the heroes discovered that the Brigade had been founded and was secretly controlled by a hidden group of immortals
, inheritors of the science of Mû
, the legendary fifth planet destroyed c. 65 million years BC. They tried to prevent the destruction of Mû by a lethal civil war, but failed.
Brigade Temporelle was serialized in Futura Nos. 1-10 and Nos. 19-26 in 1972-74. The characters returned in 2001 and 2002 a number of short stories written by Jean-Marc Lofficier
and drawn by Timothy Green II. A 46-page graphic novel by the same team subtitled La Guerre du Graal
[The Grail War] was then released in 2005.
Brigade Temporelle is now part of Hexagon Comics
which plans to publish collections of their adventures translated into English.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
series created by French writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
Claude J. Legrand and Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Edmond Ripoll for the magazine Futura
Futura (magazine)
Futura was an influential monthly French digest size comic book magazine launched by Editions Lug in August 1972. It ran for 33 issues until April 1975.-Contents:* Jaleb the Telepath - issues #1-#18.* Homicron - issues #1-#8...
published by Editions Lug
Editions Lug
Editions Lug was a French comic book publisher created in 1950 by writer/editor Marcel Navarro and businessman Auguste Vistel.-History:When it started, Editions Lug only reprinted old French and Italian comics in digest-sized magazines....
in 1972.
The Time Brigade stories were initially clearly influenced by Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...
’s Time Patrol. When the series begins, 20th century archeologist Jason Spell on a dig in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
is recruited to become a member of Delta Hand 28, a four-person operative unit of the Time Brigade, a time-travelling organization from the 40th century.
The Brigade is responsible for the monitoring and control of the pludimensionality of Earth, in a segment of the space-time continuum known as Sector Rhamno. This spans our galactic
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
quadrant
Galactic quadrant
A galactic quadrant, or quadrant of the galaxy, refers to one of four circular sectors in the division of the Milky Way galaxy.-Quadrants in the galactic coordinate system:...
, six billion years from the creation of the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
to some unspecified date in the future, about 1,000,000 years AD, and all of its alternate timelines.
The Brigade functions with teams of four operatives, called a Hand since it reports to an artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
known as the Thumb. A Hand consists of one Coordinator and three Agents. While Coordinators tend to originate in the 40th century or later, Agents are recruited throughout time.
The members of Delta Hand 28 are Khanor Rhi, its coordinator, a former chronoprogrammer from the 40th century, the beautiful Varna Zelton, a timsensitive and former student of Khanor, and Spell. In the first series, the fourth member was Rock Klammers, who tried to kill Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, but his memory was erased and he was returned to his own time. He was replaced in the second series by Minus-3, an augmented ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...
. The first series of stories involved various missions through time, ending with a nuclear explosion
Nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...
that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
. In the second series, the heroes discovered that the Brigade had been founded and was secretly controlled by a hidden group of immortals
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
, inheritors of the science of Mû
Mu (lost continent)
Mu is the name of a hypothetical continent that allegedly existed in one of Earth's oceans, but disappeared at the dawn of human history.The concept and the name were proposed by 19th century traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of...
, the legendary fifth planet destroyed c. 65 million years BC. They tried to prevent the destruction of Mû by a lethal civil war, but failed.
Brigade Temporelle was serialized in Futura Nos. 1-10 and Nos. 19-26 in 1972-74. The characters returned in 2001 and 2002 a number of short stories written by Jean-Marc Lofficier
Jean-Marc Lofficier
Jean-Marc Lofficier is a French author of books about films and television programs, as well as numerous comic books and translations of a number of animation screenplays. He usually collaborates with his wife, Randy Lofficier .-Biography:Jean-Marc Lofficier was born in Toulon, France in 1954...
and drawn by Timothy Green II. A 46-page graphic novel by the same team subtitled La Guerre du Graal
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
[The Grail War] was then released in 2005.
Brigade Temporelle is now part of Hexagon Comics
Hexagon Comics
Hexagon Comics is a syndicate of French, Italian and Spanish comic book writers and artists formed in early 2004, after French publisher Semic Comics decided to cancel its line of comic books....
which plans to publish collections of their adventures translated into English.