Euro Preview: ‘The Fiery Arrow’ – Jean Van Hamme Writes The Sequel To EP Jacobs’ Earliest Work

80 years after the publication of The U Ray, Edgar P. Jacobs‘ first work of bande dessinée brilliance, Jean Van Hamme, along with artists Christian Cailleaux and Etienne Schréder, gets around to a sequel in The Fiery Arrow…

A rather terminally late preview here I’m afraid, with Cinebook’s The Fiery Arrow published in November, but better late than never and better to see the thing than not. So, late it may be but it’s still something rather special in terms of Euro comics.

The Fiery Arrow is a sequel to The U Ray, the debut work from Edgar P. Jacobs, a master of European ligne claire. He may have found fame as the Belgian creator of the quintessentially British post-WWII adventures of Blake & Mortimer but it was with The U Ray that his legend began, with Jacobs’ beautiful artwork and sumptuous colours filling every page.

Now, eight decades after the first publication of The U Ray, we have Jean Van Hamme bringing us a sequel, following on from the events of the first volume. And it’s as if no time at all has passed, with Christian Cailleaux and Etienne Schréder doing a fine job of producing something very Jacobs-like on the art.

In The U Ray, Norlandia’s Professor Marduk’s major scientific discovery is immediately seized upon by the High Council as a possible weapon in their conflict with neighbouring Austradia. But to develop this U Ray, they need a deposit of Uradium, the ore required to power the ray. With the only known deposit being an unexplored volcanic archipelago, a Norlandian expedition is put together – one the Austradian intelligence services are well aware of.

That was then, now we have the events of The Fiery Arrow, where the victorious Marduk expedition returns to Norlandia complete with that all-important Uradium. But of course, there’s still the threat from the Imperial Austradian Army and the dastardly Captain Dagon who’s determined to capture the Uradium deposit.

It’s packed with all the action and adventure of the original – and yes, it has some of the stiffness that comes with any EP Jacobs’ book, that’s just the way things were written back then, although to be fair, Van Hamme does pull back from some of those panel-filling word balloons that we sometimes see in Blake & Mortimer.

But frankly, this is as good a continuation of The U Ray as you could wish for and I’d imagine it’s one that Jacobs fans will be looking forward to. As for those of you coming to this from a love of Van Hamme, perhaps from Largo Winch, XIII, or Thorgal, this might not give you the same sort of thrills. But for me, it’s more an exercise in creating that sequel, a wish fulfilment thing almost, and as such it works.

Before Blake & Mortimer: The Fiery Arrow – written by Jean Van Hamme, art by Christian Cailleaux and Etienne Schréder, translated by Jerome Saincantin
The sequel to The U Ray, based on characters by Edgar P. Jacobs
Out now from Cinebook in November 2023