In "The Ethiopian", Corto Maltese trades the ocean for the dry Northern African desert

The Ethiopian (94 pages, IDW Publishing $24.99), Hugo Pratt's sixth official entry to his Corto Maltese graphic novel/comic book serious, is more humorous and tongue-in-cheek than his previous episodes.  Trading his perennial vast oceans for the dry, equally-smooth and just-as-wavy deserts in the North of Africa, Corto joins Islamic extremists, rebel beduins and even native Leopard-Men in fighting against injustice and oppression from Europe on the Dark Continent during the late stages of World War I.  The setting is a little different than we're used to seeing in this series, but the witty banter and clever insertions of political and social commentary of its time and place is delivered by its hero impeccably, as always.

El Oxford:  You may not know that I studied at Oxford, in London, New York and Paris, but... I prefer the desert.
Corto Maltese: Hmm... why?
El Oxford:  Because it's clean.

The most fascinating of the new characters is none other than Cush, an Islamic devil-may-care, tea-drinking native, a hater of foreign "infidel dogs" (such as Corto) and a man with no remorse when it comes to taking lives of others.  Cush is the anti-thesis to Corto's righteous and all-fair hero, a person whose people have been so oppressed that he's lost all conscience when it comes sticking it to the foreign occupiers of his once-upon-a-time free continent.  While helping Corto rescue kidnapped Arabian princes, introducing him to the Abyssinian wizard Shamael, or impressing him because of the close relationship he has with his mother, Cush eventually warms up to our protagonist.  When they finally part ways, at the end of a long and grueling adventure, their adieu to one another sounds later melancholy.

Cush: There are mysterious things in this land... Tell me, where will you go now?
Corto: I don't know, Cush... far away...

In addition to changing the oceanic setting of previous Corto adventures, The Ethiopian gives us new insight into a different place, but albeit the same war we witnessed in previous issues, most notably Celtic Tales and Beyond the Windy Isles.  Our hero, now slightly out of his element as a "fish out of water", is here privy to the suffering and survival of more primitive tribes in an area he was previously unfamiliar with.  His literal view of his surroundings has changed, but what about the figurative one?  Is he still capable of differentiating between the War at home and the one abroad?  And having now been marked as a future target of the vengeful cult, the Leopard-Men, what fate will await him?  I'm afraid that not even The Ethiopian knows the answer to that.
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