In 2023 (as imagined in 1980), Paris is a fascist state, a floating pyramid full of Egyptian gods has turned up above the city and a man called Nikopol has come back to Earth after decades frozen in orbit. The god Horus decides that Nikopol's body would make a good disguise, and the resulting story is a political satire, a love story and a very strange buddy comedy, sometimes all on the same page.
Bilal's painted art, all rust, bruise-coloured skies and cold blues, is some of the most distinctive in European comics, and it looks as though it was made in a future he had personally visited and did not enjoy. The real 2023 turned out rather less Egyptian, but the rest of it has aged uncomfortably well.
