More than any previously released (in English) edition of his acclaimed protagonist, Hugo Pratt's In Siberia (IDW Publishing, 120 pgs) portrays the charming, adventurous hero, Corto Maltese, as a man who is simply too realistic to actually have any fear, even in the face of certain death. I mean, how else do you explain him throwing himself at and then strangling a man who was about to shoot him - at point blank range - to death, without so much as an afterthought?
Finding himself in the far East, in the Siberian sections where Russia and China intersect, the famed Captain will come across a beautiful Russian Duchess, a blood-thirsty General, and that "immortal" (or so it would seem) scoundrel Rasputin, both a villain and a foe to Corto, and a person who will remain a loyal motif to this series as much as Pratt's equitable prose. Of course, Rasputin still threatens to kill Corto every chance he gets, a threat that's more an artificial, friendly bark than a malicious, murderous bite.
Rasputin: Are you still thinking of her? You may not know it, but I had a great love, too. A girl from Nikolaevsk who took care of me when I was a baby... My mother was exiled to Western Siberia for prostitution and she died giving birth to me...
Corto Maltese: No doubt from fright after taking a look at you!
Rasputin: One more word about my mother, and I'll kill you, Corto Maltese!
Recruited by an Asian gang known simply as The Red Lanterns, Corto embarks on an adventure in which he's to orchestrate a massive gold heist, a la The Great Train Robbery, on a large convoy in the freezing Asian Northeast. An American Air Force Major, Jack Tippit, whom Corto meets at a Turkish bath, informs him of a Russian aristocrat, Marina Seminova, who is traveling in the North on an armored train. Naturally, when Corto meets the said Duchess, he is smitten with her, but not as much, it would seem, as she is with him. As she gives him a long stare, she simply says, between the puffs of her cigarette, "Hmmmh... Cortushka!"
One thing that's very noticeable about In Siberia - as opposed to, say Under the Sign of Capricorn or even Celtic Tales - is the kinetic energy of Pratt's vignettes, as well as his writing. No longer limited to sea faring adventures where Corto battles octopi or sails the high seas only to find himself stranded on strange islands, Maltese here chokes his foes to death, fights Chinese enemies on top of moving trains, and even finds himself at odds with a romantic officer by the name of Nino. Their first encounter is a melancholy one, typical of Pratt's sense of romanticism in the face of potential chaos of war.
Nino: Dasvidanya, would you like a drink?
Corto: Not just now.
Nino: Why not? Sooner or later we'll have to drink together...
Corto: Oh, really? Why?
Nino: Because fate willed that we both fall in love with the same woman...
The trigger happy, maniacal Baron Ungern-Sternberg, so keen on hearing a psychic's prophecy about his eventual fate, is no less a romantic than most of Pratt's creations. He's happy - or, at the very least, not unhappy - to shoot people as if it's a bodily function, all because they presented him with facts he didn't really want to hear. He's the antithesis to our faithful hero, in a way, and their encounter and general banter is definitely the stuff that graphic novel talk is made of.
Sternberg: Corto Maltese? Is that name supposed to mean something to me? You haven't told me what you're doing here...
Corto: You may not believe me, but I'm trying to forget someone.
Truer words were never spoken. Ever the hopeless romantic, Corto may sail the world, ride gold carrying trains across the frozen wilderness, and even fly planes over dangerous war zones, but he still falls in and out of love as if he was a prepubescent teenage boy. His farewell with Shanghai Lil at the very end is a very pensive adieu indeed, just as it was with a certain Pandora Groovesnore during one of his previous adventures on the Salt Sea. But that's just the beauty of Corto Maltese: like the brightest, most colorful seasons of the year, his life is cyclical, and although at moments repetitive, it's never quite mundane.
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