The two stars are purely for the art which I thought was nicely done, with some quite original design ideas in places. The story was dire though; macho and misogynistic throughout it was a hard slog to get to the end. I almost gave up several times. It made me glad Jodorowsky never got to film Dune; I hate to think how it would have turned out. ( )

Despite my rating, The Metabarons is not a bad comics at all, but not for every reader. Its wildly imaginative with stunning visuals, interesting characters and quite an atmosphere that makes reader intrigued and curious, but on the other side everything but the main story does not really make any sense (science fiction that does not even try to imagine 'future', instead delivers some sort of medieval society with lasers, psychic powers and metal weapons ???!! I've stopped reading when author introduced giant leviathan-like animal that could somehow live in the vacuum of the outer space and was used as a spaceship) and the story is rather.. lets say I wasn't really drawn by it. But if you like pure imagination without bounds and don't mind mixing sci-fi with swords and sorcery then by all means give it a try. ( )

You know that voice in your head that sometimes comes when you read, or watch or play (or write) something fantastical - the voice that says 'That would never happen' or 'That's just silly'? If Alejandro Jodorowsky ever hears it, I bet he just tells it to shut up. :D
I've already heartily recommended The Incal. The Metabarons concerns the genealogy of one of that book's most memorable characters.
Imagine a family line of assassins - the most powerful and deadly warriors in the universe. Each Metabaron can earn that title only by defeating the previous Metabaron - their father - in a duel to the death.
We're deep in space opera territory here - perhaps at the pinnacle of the genre. The themes are huge and mythic, the plot contrivances outrageous, the tone relentlessly hysterical. The closest you'll get to an 'audience point of view character' - an easily identifiable bridge between 'normality' and the gleeful, epic weirdness these pages contain - are Tonto and Lothar, two bickering robots. And The Metabarons is all the better for it.
On any one page of The Metabarons you'll find more spectacle, sauce and soul than you'll find in an entire summer's worth of blockbuster movies. Sick of faded franchises, septuagenarian superheroes, risk-free reboots and sucking fequels? The Metabarons is a message from a parallel dimension - a better one. Seek it out and prepare to be astounded. ( )