He fights injustice wearing fetish gear. So, you can either play Johnston McCulley’s
Zorro dark and moody, or rather silly and randy. Many versions have opted for
the latter. Remember George Hamilton in Zorro: The Gay Blade? At least
Martin Campbell’s first movie with Antonio Banderas kept the mood light without
getting too silly (but maybe not so much the second). In contrast, the
short-lived newspaper comic strip really explored the darker side of Don Diego’s
psyche. However, the new French-speaking swashbuckler leans back into broad farce
throughout co-creators Benjamin Charbit & Noe Debre’s eight-episode
French-language Zorro, which just released on MHz Choice.
Don
Diego de la Vega has hung up his whip, retiring from Robin Hood-style
vigilantism. Instead, he concentrates on boring public works projects he hopes
to implement once he succeeds his father as alcalde of [Old] Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, Don Alejandro has no confidence in his supposedly clumsy,
over-intellectual son, so he refuses to transfer power, until he leaves office
feet-first. Yet, he still bedevils Don Diego as a very judgmental ghost.
Of course,
the old man never knew Don Diego was Zorro, the notorious “Fox.” Similarly, Don
Diego never knew Don Alejandro had completely mortgaged Los Angeles to sly Don
Emmanuel, who now intends to collect. As the crooked villain exploits the
people with impunity, Don Diego once again assumes the guise of Zorro. As
usual, he steals the hearts of women, including, much to his own consternation,
his wife Gabriella’s. Given their marriage’s recent doldrums, Don Diego cannot
help seducing her as Zorro, but then he feels the pain of betrayal as Don
Diego.
Indeed,
a more serious treatment might have made considerable psychological hay out of
Don Diego’s split persona. However, Charbit, Debre, and writer Emmanuel Poulain-Arnaud
largely play the situation for naughty laughs. Frankly, in terms of tone, this
Zorro often feels like a Mission-flavored prequel to Jean Dujardin’s OSS 117
spy spoof franchise.
In
contrast, Audrey Dana is terrific navigating her unusual love triangle, with
sensitivity and passion. Weirdly, Gregory Gadebois is also quite memorable, as
Sgt. Cristobel Garcia, of the Los Angeles garrison. Unlike the portly soldiers
who were weekly fat-shamed on the Disney-Guy Williams series (which remains one
of the more successful Zorro productions), Garcia comes to self-consciously
embrace Zorro as the nemesis that gives meaning to his existence.
The late 1990s were salad days for the Zorro franchise. Topps had published several
well-received Zorro limited comic series, written by Don McGregor, but
the main event was the 1998 box-office hit The Mask of Zorro, which had
its own comic adaptation, also written by McGregor. In 1999, newspapers still
existed as physical objects, so a Zorro strip was quite a coup. Of course,
adventure comic strips had been out of fashion since the 1960s, but a big movie
could convince the syndicates to give a franchise another chance. The 1979 Buck
Rogers film and TV show re-launched the strip, just as the ill-fated Legend
of the Lone Ranger re-launched the classic western daily in 1981. In contrast,
Zorro had never been a newspaper comic, but it spawned four big-screen film
serials, so it transferred quite easily. Indeed, in some ways McGregor’s
newspaper Zorro might be the most realistic and compelling psychological
depiction of “The Fox” to date, definitely including the new French streaming
series.
The first
thing that really jumps out about the Zorro strip is the quality of
Thomaas Yeates’ art, produced with Tod Smith as co-penciler. In 2012, Yeates started drawing Prince Valiant,
which is the Cadilac of strips. His work on Zorro would have stood as a
convincing reference, because his period details are exquisite. Yeates' Sunday
strips, rendered in black-and-white in Image’s The Dailies: The First Year collection, also frequently use inventive layouts that really pop off the page.
McGregor
also serves up an intriguing visual right off the bat, setting much of his
first story-arc, “Tusk Envy,” against the backdrop of the La Brea tarpit, which
still visibly entraps a massively imposing fossil. Those bones become a source
of intrigue for two rogue Spanish soldiers. Nearby, Zorro fights for his life,
against his nemesis, Captain Monasterio, and a ruthless mercenary, Quick Blade,
retained to kill Zorro.
Indeed,
Quick Blade is more skilled, better armed, and far less honor-bound than
Monasterio and his men. Consequently, their first encounter becomes an epic
struggle for Zorro’s survival. McGregor has a keen facility for writing Zorro’s
thoughts and concerns during such battles, including his fear of tell-tale
facial scars.
McGregor
also keenly expresses the pain Don Diego subsequently suffers as he silently
grimaces through his subsequent day. Even more than Zorro, his trusty steed,
Tornado truly emerge as the hero of year one. However, McGregor advances the story
at a decidedly slow pace, which might have been part of the strips undoing. In
one year of strips, he essentially chronicles two days in Zorro’s clandestine career.
Admittedly, they are two very eventful (and painful) days. Regardless, when read
in a collected format, McGregor’s Zorro is a genuinely gripping
page-turner.
