‘The Nyctalope and The Tower of Babel’

The Nyctalope is an overlooked French proto-superhero/proto-pulp adventurer that was featured in a series of serialized novels and stories by Jean de La Hire during the first half of the 20th century.

Due in part to the author working with the Vichy French government during World War II, both he and his character fell out of popularity.

Now, Black Coat Press has been slowing bringing the character back with translations of the original stories and new ones by several authors in their “Tales of the Shadowmen” series. There has been an attempt to fit all these stories into a coherent chronology, and explain or fix some of the problems in the original stories. They have put out six volumes with the original Nyctalope novels and stories, along with new stories. Now I look at the latest volume, The Nyctalope and the Tower of Babel, which contains the “Le Mystère de la Croix du Sang” from 1941, plus a modern sequel.

The Nyctalope is really Léo Saint-Clair. He has the ability to see in the dark, hence his name. He also has an artificial heart, which seems to also gives him vitality and a bit of longevity (though this is not mentioned in the first novel, so this is something the author added later to the character, but I’m not sure when).

He embarks on a life of adventure, both on the Earth and on other worlds, and as a patriotic Frenchman, working for his government as a sort of special agent.

The stories in this series are:

• “L’Homme Qui Peut Vivre dans l’Eau” (“The Man Who Could Live Underwater”) (1909) — features only Léo’s father
• “Le Mystère des XV” (“The Mystery of the XV”) (1911) — first adventure, translated as The Nyctalope on Mars
• “Lucifer” (1921–22) — translated as Nyctalope vs Lucifer
• “Le Roi de la Nuit” (“The King of the Night”) (1923) — translated in The Return of The Nyctalope
• “L’Amazone du Mont Everest” (“The Amazon of Mount Everest”) (1925)
• “La Captive du Démon” (“The Demon’s Captive”) (1927)
• “Titania” (1929)
• “Belzébuth” (1930)
• “Gorillard” (1932)
• “Les Mystères de Lyon” (“The Mysteries of Lyon”) (1933)
• “L’Assassinat du Nyctalope” (“The Assassination of The Nyctalope”) (1933) — translated as Enter The Nyctalope
• “Le Sphinx du Maroc” (“The Moroccan Sphinx”) (1934)
• “La Croisière du Nyctalope” (“The Nyctalope’s Cruise”) (1936)
• “Le Mystère de la Croix du Sang” (“The Mystery of the Cross of Blood”) (1941) — translated in The Nyctalope and the Tower of Babel.
• “L’Enfant Perdu” (“The Lost Child”) (1942) — translated in The Nyctalope Steps In
• “Rien qu’une Nuit” (“Only One Night”) (1944) — translated in Night of The Nyctalope
• “La Sorcière Nue” (“The Naked Sorceress”) (written c. 1940+; publ. 1954)
• “L’Énigme du Squelette” (“The Enigma of the Skeleton”) (written c. 1940+; publ. 1955)

Now, as you can see by this list, after working on the earliest stories, Black Coat Press seems to have been focusing on the later works. When I read about the skipped stories, they seem very interesting, but I have no idea when we might get these.

Let’s look at the recent collection, The Nyctalope and the Tower of Babel.

In “The Mystery of the Cross of Blood,” The Nyctalope is called in to help a friend whose family has been overshadowed by a strange illness. Most of the immediate family, husband, wife, and some of their children seem to suffer from this unknown illness. The wife passes away. Strangely, one daughter is unaffected.

The Nyctalope and his associates look into it, as it seems clear there is some human agency behind it. And he is successful in tracking it down to a new and sinister foe, Armand Logreux d’Albury, who is the “Master of the Seven Lights.” You’ll need to read the story to learn the reasons for his attack on that family.

The second story in this volume is a modern sequel, set six years later and written by Emmanuel Gorlier, who has been writing many of the newer Nyctalope stories. This brings back d’Albury and another of The Nyctalope’s foes, Engineer Korrides. Now, Korrides previously appeared in other works by La Hire that we haven’t been able to read (in English). Korrides later crossed paths with The Nyctalope in “Titania,” which we don’t have access to, and his son appeared as “Belzebuth.” Korrides sounds interesting, being a kind of super-scientist who builds supermachines. So I’d really wish these prior works had been translated before we got these stories. But anyway…

In this story, The Nyctalope’s son Pierre is on an expedition to Africa looking for the Tower of Babel. This is tied to a lost civilization that may have some link to Atlantis. While this is going on, both d’Albury and Korrides are looking for revenge against The Nyctalope, and so attack his family and close associates, including his son. The Nyctalope and the Committee for Information and Defense, or CID (a private defensive group formed by The Nyctalope), strike back, but things still turn out tragically for many, including The Nyctalope’s current wife. This ties to other new stories about The Nyctalope. To say more would give too much away.

While we get some interesting villains in these stories, who are sometimes more interesting than the hero, I would like to read more of the earlier Nyctalope stories. As noted, what little I know of them sound very interesting. I hope we will get them soon. We also continue to get new short stories of The Nyctalope in Tales of the Shadowmen series, and I expect to see more. And sadly, I find the newer stories much more interesting and fast moving than the original. As I’ve found with some works, the authors didn’t make good use of the characters at the time as they could have. But there are some interesting concepts in them.