By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
May 21, 2020 — Snowpiercer the series arrived May 17 on TNT, a weekly show set after the end of the world.
While not as depressing as it sounds, it’s still pretty bleak. The premise is a new ice age, and what survivors there are live on a train eternally circling the Earth, its engine a perpetual motion machine that, as long as it’s running at or above a certain speed, generates enough power to keep itself moving, with a slight excess that gives heat and light to the train.
That train, as we are endlessly told, has 1,001 carriages. That sounds like a lot, but it has to provide living quarters for more than 3,000 people, space for agriculture and animal husbandry, and even some entertainment cars, so that everyone doesn’t go mad.
It’s a bizarre scenario, and as you’d expect with words like “carriages,” arises from Europe. Specifically, a French graphic novel named Le Transperceneige (literally “Snow-Piercer”) by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette. It was later retitled The Escape, which is the subtitle of the U.S. version, published by the UK’s Titan Comics in 2013, and still available.
What made the story famous, of course, is the 2013 movie adaptation by director Joon-ho Bong (The Host). Despite being a Korean production, famous faces Western appear in the film, including Chris Evans (Captain America), John Hurt (Alien) and Tilda Swinton (Dr. Strange).
So Snowpiercer has made its appearance in three media, resulting in three versions of the story —always recognizable, but not identical. Still, certain elements tend to remain in all versions.
For one, Rochette remains the artist through the series, despite a number of different writers.
For another, the train is almost always a commentary on socioeconomic class, with the farther forward you live the more luxuries you enjoy. By contrast, the tail section is populated by people that weren’t planned for. Only the rich or those with necessary skills had tickets, but as the train left the station, desperate non-rich people overwhelmed the guards and swarmed aboard. The “Tailies,” as they are called on TV (the nickname in the graphic novel is unprintable), are crammed into the baggage cars in almost unlivable conditions, with no windows, whatever heat bleeds over from the front, and, with only minimal food, some level of cannibalism.
I said it was bleak, didn’t I?
All the concepts involved in the TNT show and the 2013 movie were introduced in Snowpiercer Vol. 1: The Escape. (Cover art by Jean-Marc Rochette, courtesy Titan Comics)
Another element that seems universal is a Tailie who is brought forward for some in-story reason or another, but primarily to serve the narrative as the audience’s POV. We learn about the train as the character does.
In the original graphic novel, the POV character was Proloff, who escaped the Tail by crawling outside the train to a bathroom in the next car and breaking the window. Proloff isn’t interested in revolution; he just wants to get out of the Tail — and took a huge risk doing it. “You’ve definitely got nerve,” says the officer interrogating him. “Luck, too! Many others have died in the attempt. Even wrapped up as you were, you wouldn’t have survived in the cold for long.”
Snowpiercer is really well done, especially with how it handles exposition. While lots of sci-fi graphic novels try to explain everything to you, Snowpiercer gives you its history lessons in snippets of dialogue (which you must piece together), or simply shows you. From religion to history to corpse disposal, you learn the train’s story and eco-system painlessly.
Have the Tailies ever tried to escape before? Yes, in what first- and second-class ticket-holders call “The Wild Rush.” Tailies call it “The Massacre.” Honestly, isn’t that all you need to know?
OK, Spoilers ahead! Because Snowpiercer Volume 1: The Escape comes to a very definitive end. I don’t want to give too much away, but Proloff does make it to the engine room (just like Evans’ character Curtis does in the movie), where some surprises await. And not many of them are good. The ending of Escape doesn’t really leave much room for a sequel.
Or an ongoing TV show. So how does TNT get around that?
Pages 14 and 15 of Snowpiercer Vol. 1: The Escape feature our two protagonists, Proloff (with beard) and Adeline Bellau, an activist for Tailie civil rights. (Art by Jean-Marc Rochette, courtesy Titan Comics)
Well, on TV, the POV is Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs), who is a former homicide detective — the only one still alive. (You’d think with all the cop shows on TV, there would be a lot of them. But no.) So “Voice of the Train” Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly) brings Layton forward to solve a puzzling murder. That’s right: They turned the post-apocalyptic Snowpiercer into a police procedural!
Well, not really, since most of the hallmarks of cop shows aren’t available in “Snowpiercer.” Like forensics. And a police force. And civilization. But this diversion from the source material should give the writers fodder to continue Snowpiercer for as long as the ratings hold up.
Meanwhile, despite there not being any grounds for a sequel, Snowpiercer the graphic novel did have one. In fact, it had two. (And three prequels.) How did they manage that? Well …
More Spoilers! In Snowpiercer Volume 2: The Explorers, we learn that Snowpiercer isn’t the only train! There’s another, named Icebreaker, and our story picks up after the second train has lost contact with the first, and fears the worst. And by “worst,” I mean they’re worried that a dead Snowpiercer has stopped on the tracks, and Icebreaker will crash into it.
Our POV this time is Puig Vallès, who is one of the Explorers of the title — expendable men who are bundled up in formidable weather suits and sent into the icy wastes in search of food, tools or trinkets for the wealthy. Vallès is a rebellious sort, and his adventures allow us to explore this second train.
Which, unlike the first, does leave room for a sequel. When Vallès makes it to the engine room, once again we discover some surprises. Among them is that — Spoiler! — the story of the Snowpiercer isn’t over.
Nor is the story of Vallès and Icebreaker, which continue in Snowpiercer Volume 3: Terminus. This GN packs a lot of adventure, and Vallès’ very long life, into two stories, the “Terminus” of the title and “The Crossing,” which takes Icebreaker across a frozen ocean to investigate a mysterious signal.
And, sorry, Spoilers again: The Icebreaker inhabitants discover that not only are there more trains than the first two, but there are non-train survivors, too, in a train station at the bottom of a skyscraper, whose heat and light is provided by a nuclear power plant. Which is leaking.
Yes, the bleakness continues. This time with radiation poisoning, infertility and body horror. But at least we’ve moved past the cannibalism!
That’s as far as the story has moved forward. The series has mostly been mining the past ever since, with three prequels in print.
The first, Snowpiercer The Prequel Part 1: Extinction, takes place before the catastrophe that brings on a new ice age. As you’d expect, the fault lies with human beings, who can’t seem to master the concept of living in harmony with their environment. “Extinction” shows a race between two competing factions for a solution to environmental disaster. And since one of them is the guy who builds Snowpiercer, you kinda have an inkling where this is going.
The latest graphic novel in the series to reach our shores is Snowpiercer the Prequel Part 1: Extinction. (Cover art by Jean-Marc Rochette, courtesy Titan Comics)
The second prequel, Snowpiercer The Prequel Part 2: Apocalypse, fleshes out what happens immediately after the apocalypse. Yes, as the TV show’s first episode title says, “First, the Weather Changed.” But there should be a lot more to say about humanity coming face to face with its mortality. I don’t know what, though, because Titan won’t release the English version of Apocalypse until Aug. 25.
I know even less about Snowpiercer The Prequel Part 3: Annihilation, which won’t arrive in the U.S. until June 2021. (Pandemic willing.) It takes place after the ice age has begun, and presumably we will see how the rich and powerful manage to re-create the caste system that keeps them at the top, even after the end of the world that they pretty much caused.
Bleak, yes. But instructional, don’t you think?
Snowpiercer airs on TNT Sundays at 8 p.m. CDT. Four of the graphic novels are available in English from Titan Comics at comic shops, book stores and online retailers, with two more scheduled to arrive in August of this year and June of next year.
Find Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), on his website (captaincomics.ning.com), on Facebook (Andrew Alan Smith) or on Twitter (@CaptainComics).
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