Weapons of the Metabaron

Weapons of the Metabaron is a one-off story of The Saga of the Metabarons. It was written by Alejandro Jodorowsky, illustrated by Travis Charet and Zoran Janjetov and published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 2008.

Although the details are unclear, originally the graphic novel was meant to be longer, with each chapter chronicling the origin of one of the Metabaron's most powerful weapons. However, Travis Charet left the comic book industry around 1999-2000 and only completed 29 pages, which were eventually released in 2002 under the title The Last Metabaron, assuring that the next chapter would be called ''The Sword With a Soul. ''Ultimately the project was left on hold for many years until Zoran Janjetov was brought in to finish it.

The story takes place after Aghora birthed the Metabaron in Aghora the Father-Mother but before Before the Incal, and it partly overlaps with Nameless, the Last of the Metabarons.

Plot
In the center of the universe Enneade, the Metabaron, along with Tonto, arrives in his metacraft to Omphale, an asteroid that makes all the dreams of all living things, but he has trouble remembering exactly why he’s there.

Tonto reminds him that he’s bringing the omnigrail (a “receptive weapon” that dematerializes inside of him and takes away his memories) to the eights sages. The sages have the Metabaron sleep so that he can remember how he got the weapon. The four next paragraphs take place inside that dream: The Metabaron, and his father-mother, Aghora are returning from a victorious battle against the Karbit armada to Okhar. Once they arrive to the planet Nameless fights a leodactylea to prove his strength. After the beast is defeated, the initiatory tradition of the metabarons commences: the son must kill his father on combat. Nameless succeeds, and Aghora transfers the crest of the Castaka to him before dying. The Metabaron swears to never have children, launches Aghora’s coffin into space, and triggers his-her Oko-bombs.

Now that Aghora is dead, Tonto tells the Metabaron the last secret of the Castakas: the location of Omphale, which is at the center of Enneade. Inside it, eight sages who are 300,000 years old rest in the sleeping room, being fed by the energy of Ennead. The Ennead itself is surrounded by main dreamer, Bihargam, creator of all visions that come out at night for living beings. Changers of dreams glide in the lobes of Bihargam, taking different forms, descending into the brain to make dreams and then entering the mind of beings. But the changers of dreams are in danger. Due to an over-sight, a door for Hulzgemeaux has been opened, letting evil beings enter the realm of Bihargam, the Metabaron must now close the door. Nameless meets the sages, who guide him into Ennead’s dream. Once he enters the dream, he traces the Virgin Temple where he acquires Praxis, a sword with a soul. The Metabaron faces the wicked door, where he’s attacked by a Hulzgemeaux, Praxis helps him by filling the warrior’s heart with the sword’s soul, which allows the Metabaron to close the door, and re-enter the normal realm. The sages let him keep Praxis and inform him that there are still many Hulzgemeaux in Enneade, and that there are three opponents the he will need to overcome, as well as acquire two more weapons. The next weapon that the Metabron must find is the transpinal eye (a mini-computer with its own will that escaped), but first he must activate the omnigrail, which is in the hands of a tribe of  cannibal lizard-men living in Bottra.

The Metabaron arrives to Bottra and, after freeing some aboriginal child prisoners, strikes Praxis into the ground and uses his Superkolt to destroy the lizard-men temple and kill all of them. Suddenly, he’s attacked by a giant spider, but Nameless defeats it using Praxis once again. The Metabaron finally acquires the omnigrail. Now that the Nameless has remembered how he got the omnigrail he awakes again, and sets course to the concentric rings of Trafalhar, to find the transpinal eye. In the first ring of Trafalhar the metacraft gets attacked by a formless-matter monster, but the Metabaron uses Praxis’ vibration to get rid of it.

In the second ring, he finds multiple egg-asteroids that contain dragons that start spouting fire, but the Metabaron uses an invulnerable shield to defend himself from the flames. He heads to the bigger asteroid, where the brain of all dragons resides, and launches a super Oko-missile at it, killing all of them.

In the third ring, each asteroid contains a colony of leeches. Nameless tries to activate the repulsive shield, but the computer is nonfunctional because the leeches actually feed on energy. The Metabaron uses his last amount of strength to release the anti-energy of Praxis, which devours the leeches. The Metabaron finally reaches the transpinal eye, a mini-computer who has the power to destroy all eight universes, and which has the form of a pyramid. The transpinal eye tries to trick him by using the images of his antecessors, but Nameless doesn’t fall for it, since compassion only poison his destiny. Now the transpinal eye offers him the opportunity to be the father of a child of his choosing, but he refuses, his duty is more important than anything else.

The transpinal eye transforms into a mirror image of Nameless, so that if he kills him he dies too. Nevertheless, the Metabaron decides to fight him, using his Kolt and Oko-bombs, but the transpinal eye mirrors all his attacks. The Metabaron decides to trick the transpinal eye with an illusion: he pretends to pierce through stone so that when the transpinal eye tries to copy him crashes. The transpinal eye is defeated, and the Metabaron imprisons him in the omnigrail, and changes him into a host.

The Metabaron returns to Omphale and the sages insert the changed transpinal eye in his brain, becoming the sages’ personal weapon. Now Nameless must travel to the eight universes and conquer the Hulzgemeaux.

Art Style
Charet's and Janjetov's styles are radically different. Charet favors an ultra realistic and detailed style while Janjetov's art is more cartoon-like.