XIII.2 — Promotional banner and first picture of Roxane Mesquida

The tagline "l'enfer, c'est lui-même" literally means "hell, it's himself".

It's a twist on the expression "l'enfer, c'est les autres" (literally, "hell, it's the others", but the proper translation would be "hell is other people") which is originally a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre's play Huis clos (No Exit).

And here's the first picture of Roxane Mesquida on set :



She plays Betty Barnowsky. As you know, she's the new female lead of this second season helmed by Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe, Laws of Attractions, Silent Hill & Beowulf). Roxane Mesquida's casting follows the departure of Virginie Ledoyen who played Irina in season 1.

She looks nothing like Betty Barnowsky, but then again, judging by season 1, they couldn't care less about respecting the comic-book. XIII.2 is supposed to be a "retooling", but some things don't change, I guess.

For instance, Lauren Ambrose would have been a very good choice, don't you think ?



Anyway, it's not Lauren Ambrose that they chose. Roxane Mesquida co-starred in a few films (À ma soeur, Sheitan, Une vieille maitresse, Kaboom and Rubber) and played Béatrice Grimaldi in 3 episodes of the 5th season of Gossip Girl.

This TV show is an adaptation of the XIII comic-book series, which is complex, well thought out, compelling, action-packed, with bits of funny every now and then… so it's many things the TV adaptation isn't (yet ?). The quality of the plot may have dipped a little after the 12th volume (which relaunches the plot a bit artificially in the very last pages, although there was more story to be told, but it wasn't as gripping as what preceded).

XIII is a serialized story told in 19 volumes, written by Jean Van Hamme and drawn by William Vance :



1984 : I — Le jour du soleil noir (The Day of the Black Sun).
1985 : II — Là où va l'Indien... (Where the Indian Goes).
1986 : III — Toutes les larmes de l'enfer (All the Tears of Hell).
1987 : IV — SPADS (SPADS).
1988 : V — Rouge Total (Full Red).



1990 : VI — Le dossier Jason Fly (The Jason Fly File).
1990 : VII — La nuit du 3 août (The Night of August 3rd).
1991 : VIII — Treize contre Un (Thirteen to One).
1992 : IX — Pour Maria (For Maria).
1994 : X — El Cascador (El Cascador).
1995 : XI — Trois montres d'argent (Three Silver Watches).



1997 : XII — Le Jugement (The Trial).
1999 : The XIII mystery - L'enquête (The Investigation).
2000 : XIV — Secret Défense (Top Secret).
2002 : XV — Lâchez les chiens ! (Release the Hounds!).



2004 : XVI — Opération Montecristo (Operation Montecristo).
2005 : XVII — L'or de Maximilien (Maximilian's Gold).
2007 : XVIII — La version irlandaise (The Irish Version) - drawn by Jean Giraud.
2007 : XIX — Le dernier round (The Last Round).

A new cycle has begun, written by Yves Sente and drawn by Youri Jigounov :



2011 : XX — Le jour du Mayflower (Mayflower Day).
2012 : XXI — L'appât (The Bate).

The XIII Mystery is a collection of one-shot stories focusing on the background of the main characters of the original series :



2008 : I — La Mangouste (Mongoose), written by Xavier Dorison and drawn by Ralph Meyer.
2009 : II — Irina, written by Eric Corbeyran and drawn by Philippe Berthet.
2010 : III — Little Jones, written by Yann le Pennetier and drawn by Eric Henninot.
2011 : IV — Colonel Amos, written by Didier Swysen and drawn by François Boucq.
2012 : V — Steve Rowland, written by Fabien Nury and drawn by Richard Guérineau.
2013 : VI — Billy Stockton, written by Laurent-Frédéric Bollée and drawn by Steve Cuzor.
2013 : VII — Betty Barnowsky, written by Joël Callède and drawn by Sylvain Vallée.

I advise you to read these very good comic-books, whether you liked what you saw of the TV series or not (it's totally different so it shouldn't matter in your decision). If you like engaging thrillers and layered stories, this is for you. It has been translated in 15 languages, and nowadays it's finally being released in English for good. Some companies had started to publish it but stopped after a few volumes, but Cinebook will go all the way : since May 2010, they've released a new volume every 3 months in the UK, which are released 3 months afterwards in the US.

The 12th volume was released in the US on June 16, the 14th volume was released in the UK on July 5, and they keep coming, maybe it will be over* by early 2013 at that rate. You've got no excuse : here's the link to purchase the XIII comic-books on amazon.co.uk or on amazon.com.

* By over, I mean the publishing of The Last Round, which acts as a definitive conclusion of the XIII series. As you see above, it's been relaunched in 2011 by a different writer, taking the series in another direction by exploring XIII's past using a deus ex machina, it's a continuation (albeit not a necessary one) that I'm not a fan of.

NB : They don't seem to be releasing "The XIII mystery - L'enquête" (The Investigation), they go from Volume 12 to Volume 14, which they label Volume 13. That's too bad. While it doesn't impact the story in any way, this book is very useful whether you are confused or not - and you have every right to be given the amount of characters and twists. The 13th volume is special, it's outside of the chronology of the series (but the ending does introduce a key 'villain' of the next 5 volumes), but for 95% of the book it's more like an encyclopedia providing us with tons of information on the XIII universe (there are so many main / secondary characters, so many names mentioned throughout the series, it's easy to get a bit lost and this book helps to get everything straight, while remaining a riveting read).

Yes, this message is more about telling you to check out the comics rather than about the show (btw, the underrated video game is awesome too), but I think you won't regret it if you do read XIII. Once you start, you can't stop ! As for XIII.2, with the co-writer of Pulp Fiction on board, I guess I'll have to see if they've learned from their numerous mistakes. What about you ?