Euro Previews: The Finale To ‘Bear’s Tooth’ Brings A Close To A Great Tale Of Friendship And War

The sixth and final volume of Bear’s Tooth brings a thoroughly entertaining tale of friendship amidst the horrors of war to a close. And the end is a fine and fitting one to what’s been a great series.

The three young children who began as inseparable friends before the war that transformed Europe are now just two young adults, their friendship seemingly destroyed by the horrors of war.

We’re now in the final days of WWII, The Third Reich at its end, Hitler already dead, and the Allies marching in to carve up Germany, already plotting and planning to plunder the country of its finest minds.

But there’s still that final throw of the dice, one last ditch attempt to activate the last secret weapon of the SS, the Silbervogel. Allied bombers may have already managed to destroy the primary base and the one known prototype of the Amerika Bomber project, but the second prototype and the operation means the operation to destroy New York is still active.

Hanna and Werner are the two remaining friends left, but very much on opposite sides now — Hanna, Germany’s greatest test pilot, is meant to undertake the suicide mission on the Silbervogel as Flugkapitän Reitch, whilst Werner, sickened by Nazism and working for the Allied OSS, has a mission to stop Hanna by any means necessary. Now both have travelled to the secret base, their friendship and their attraction to each other still there but their missions very much in the front of their minds. Hanna is struggling with the horrors she has seen carried out in the name of the Nazis and Werner seems incapable of carrying out his mission to kill his childhood friend. Meanwhile, the Allies close in on them and the Silbervogel.

The series concludes with this volume, and concludes so well, with survivors stood amid the debris, where new and complicated alliances will be made to move forwards.

I won’t spoiler any of it, I’ll just tell you that things are nowhere as simple as things perhaps may have seemed. And that’s down to Yann’s storytelling. Yes, there are perhaps a few too many shortcuts and conveniences in the wrap-up for this volume, but they’re forgivable ones. And as for the artwork of Henriet and Usagi, it’s a sublime thing, wonderfully detailed stuff but also with a beauty amongst the horrors they’re portraying.

Bear’s Tooth Volume 6 – Silbervogel

Script by Yann

Artwork by Alain Henriet

Colours by Usagi

Translated by Jerome Saincantin.

Originally published in 2018 by Dupuis. Published on 18 January 2023 by Cinebook.

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