Enki Bilal : The Woman Trap 1986 - Cold Equator 1992

Enes Bilal (born October 7, 1951) is a French comic book creator, comics artist and film director.
Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to a Slovak mother and a Bosnian father who had been Josip Broz Tito's tailor, he moved to Paris at the age of 9. At age 14, he met René Goscinny and with his encouragement applied his talent to comics. He produced work for Goscinny's comics magazine Pilote in the 1970s, publishing his first story, Le Bal Maudit, in 1972.

THE WOMAN TRAP ( LA FEMME PIEGE)

La Femme piege, or The Woman Trap, is a science fiction graphic novel from 1986 written and illustrated by the Yugoslavian born cartoonist and storyteller Enki Bilal. It is the second part of the Nikopol Trilogy, started by La Foire aux immortels (The Carnival of Immortals) from 1980 and ending with Froid Equateur (Equator Cold) in 1992.

The story centers around Jill Bioskop, a journalist woman with blue hair and white skin whose story becomes involved with that of Alcide Nikopol and the Egyptian god Horus. The story continues two years after Nikopol is admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Paris. 

Nikopol suddenly stops quoting Baudelaire after the discovery of a block of concrete, which contains the immortal body of Horus.

At the same time in London, Jill is working on an article about the Afro-Pakistian and Zuben'Ubisch minority conflicts in the suburbs of Chelsea.

While working on her Script-Walker she receives a phone call from John, an Alpheratzish friend and informant.

During that phone call John is murdered by four Afro-Pakistiani but before he dies, he tells Jill about an article in De Morgen. After having made her way to the phonebooth and discovered John's body, Jill returns to her hotel room where she takes two red pills of HLV, John's drug. The drug erases John from Jill's memory.

Meanwhile, the news media are reporting about the block of concrete and the liberation of Horus, which was followed by the brutal murder of the workers who freed him onboard of the space vessel Europe I.

Upon hearing this news, Jeff Wynatt, a friend of Jill Bioskop and former journalist, hurries towards the hotel where Jill is staying. He finds her in a deep coma and wakes her with cold water. Afterwards during a dinner in a restaurant Jeff asks Jill to cover the news of the return of Europe I, which is expected to arrive in a few days in Berlin.

Jeff also says that he might visit Jill once she is in Berlin, which is something she didn't want to hear. Later that evening in the hotel room Jill uses the antenna of the scripwalker to kill Jeff. After she has cleaned up, she takes another red HLV pill to erase everything from her memory.

Alcide Nikopol Jr. receives a report from his father's psychiatrist which says that Nikopol has fully recovered from his alleged mental illness, but that he hasn't accepted the fact yet. However, Nikopol is shown to cover the room observation camera while making a deal with the nurse about taking his pills for a kiss, which can be interpreted in several ways.

The next day Jill meets another journalist, Ivan Vabek, and they drink a cup of coffee in the bar of the hotel. Ivan tells about a conflict in Berlin called the Egg War, of which he thinks every journalist must cover at least once in his or her career. He offers Jill a front row spot and a dinner invitation.
Jill accepts the invitation and is transported by a local boy to the spot where she can watch the Egg War herself.

Next evening Jill tries to get access to the space port of Berlin, but everybody is denied access. The government inquires the only survivor of Europe I which is in fact controlled by Horus. Horus leaves the human body of the survivor he had taken and murders everybody who was questioning him.

He finds Ivan Vabek and takes control of his body. Nikopol has followed these events with his telepathic cat and is preparing to leave the hospital and travel to Berlin. Also travelling to Berlin is John, Jill's alien friend who was murdered in the beginning of the story.
During a dinner with Ivan, Jill notices that something has changed in him, especially his voice. While in Ivan's room, Ivan is fighting the spirit of Horus resulting in Horus leaving his body. Once more Jill is left back with another dead body and the usual red pill to erase it from her memory.

Nikopol arrives at the desk of Mauer Palast, and he asks for a room. Once in the room, Nikopol speaks to Horus asking him to appear. Horus appears and during a glass of champagne, they discuss an agreement.
John is arriving in the railway station of Berlin, where the police demands him to come with them. John knocks down three police men and flees, but is shot in the back three times...

COLD EQUATOR (FROID EQUATEUR)

Froid Equateur (French for "Cold Equator") is a science fiction graphic novel published in 1992, written and illustrated by Yugoslavian-French cartoonist and storyteller Enki Bilal.

It is the third and final part of the Nikopol Trilogy, started by La Foire aux immortels (The Carnival of Immortals) from 1980 and continuing with La Femme piege (The Woman Trap) in 1986. 

The books were awarded with the Book of the Year Award by the magazine Lire. 

In "Cold Equator" the story is further complicated as Nikopol's son boards a train bound for Equator City, an African metropolis afflicted with a freezing micro-climate of minus-six degrees, but surrounded by desert and surrealistically populated by sub-Saharan wildlife. 

Intricate plot twists and stunning color artwork mark this work as both an extraordinary comics literary achievement and a crackling good story.

The Nikopol Trilogy is a series of three science fiction graphic novels written in French by Yugoslavian-born Enki Bilal, published between 1980 and 1992.

The original French titles of the series are La Foire aux immortels (1980), La Femme piege (1986), and Froid Equateur (1992), which in 1995 were collected together in a single volume entitled Trilogie Nikopol. 

The individual stories were translated into English and published by Humanoids Publishing under the titles Gods in Chaos, The Woman Trap, and Cold Equator.

In 1999, the trilogy was also published in English as a single volume, The Nikopol Trilogy.

The central plot of the trilogy, set in 2023 Paris, follows Alcide Nikopol who returns from a 30-year sentence spent orbiting the Earth under cryopreservation to find France under fascist rule following two nuclear wars.

The books have been adapted into the video game Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals, published by White Birds Productions, and a movie, entitled Immortal.

Exterminateur 17 And The Carnival Of Immortals  HERE