Fantômas

Description

Fantômas is one of the most well-known and most popular characters in French detective fiction. Invented by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, the master villain is the protagonist of more than 30 novels written in collaboration by the two authors and of more than 10 short stories written by Marcel Allain alone, the first five novels being collected in this great compilation.

The character of the super villain Fantômas was introduced a few years after another French character, Arsène Lupin had become popular. Fantômas novels take the character of evil one step further – while Lupin is a gentleman thief who never crosses the line of murder, Fantômas is a psychopath who finds sadistic satisfaction in killing people. Fantômas is ruthless, loyal only to himself and he masters the art of disguise like nobody else – so much so that he often assumes the identity of the person he has murdered. He is a sophisticated murderer as well, always inventing unusual methods such using rats infested with the plague virus or huge snakes.

The books reveal only very little about his background – he may be of French or British descent, he is known to have travelled widely, mainly to India, Mexico, the United States and Germany and he operates mainly in Paris. He is pursued by a young detective called Juve, who is not less resourceful and less clever than the master criminal himself, but even so, Fantômas is always one step ahead and is able to escape justice almost every time.

Fantômas is considered by many to be the father of all major literary villains of the 20th century. He is chameleon-like and cruel, rich, sophisticated and able-bodied, so fans of Dr. Fu Manchu and of the most ingenious evil antagonists known from James Bond stories such as Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Superman’s enemy, Lex Luthor, will surely enjoy these stories.
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