Valerian: Ambassador of the Shadows

Valerian: Ambassador of the Shadows

by Jean-Claude Mezieres (art) and Pierre Cristin (story)

Dargaurd, 1981

'Valerian: Ambassador of the Shadows' (48 pp.) first was issued in 1975 as a serial in the French magazine Pilote, then later, an album des bande dessinee (Franco-Belgian comic book). 

It's one of a number of Valerian albums des bande dessinees that were translated into English and published in the United States by Dargaud during the early 1980s; 'Ambassador' was issued in 1981. That same year, it was serialized in Heavy Metal magazine.

Some of the contents of 'Ambassador' were incorporated into the 2017 feature film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

The Dargaud editions measure 8 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches, which corresponds to the dimensions of the traditional bande dessinee. It's nice to see the artwork in the format in which it originally was published.

As 'Ambassador' opens, our heroes Valerian and Laureline are tasked with escorting the Galaxity ambassador to an important diplomatic conference on the massive artificial planet of Central Point.

Central Point, which has been in existence for hundreds of years, is home to envoys from all the civilized races of the galaxy; these are accommodated in neighborhoods custom-tailored for the physiologies of their inhabitants.

This being a French comic, the ambassador likely is a satirical depiction of an actual French politician from the mid-70s, but I confess to not knowing exactly who that French politician is..........

Soon after their arrival on Central Point, a group of assailants ambush the team and abduct the ambassador and Valerian. It is up to the resolute Laureline, accompanied by a reluctant Colonel Diol, a 'protocol officer' of cowardly bent.

The search for the ambassador and Valerian will takes Laureline all over Central Point, and involve encounters with all manner of strange alien races.

'Valerian: Ambassador of the Shadows' is another good episode in the Valerian Canon. The action is well-plotted by Cristin, who takes advantage of the sprawling nature of Central Point to introduce the characters into a new milieu every other page or so. This being a comic intended for a juvenile audience, there is no explicit violence or risque content, but there certainly is some satiric humor that will be understood on a 'adult' level.

As with other Valerian titles, there is a political subtext to Cristin's story, namely, Galaxity (a stand-in for Earth) is a less than noble entity, and the ambassador's mission has an underlying motive that belies Galaxity's outward appearance of cooperativity and mutual respect. 

Mezieres' artwork is very good, and the color schemes are arguably more advanced as compared to those appearing in the American comic books of the 1970s and 1980s.

If you're interested in getting a copy of 'Ambassador of the Shadows', copies of the Dargaud edition remain available for prices under $20. Also available is a smaller-dimension English version, released by UK's Cinebook in 2013. And, as the sixth book in the Valerian series, 'Ambasador of the Shadows' currently is included in Cinebook's 'Valerian: The Complete Collection' hardbound edition, Volume 3 (2017).