Before The Incal (Avant l'Incal) by Alejandro Jodorowsky is a 6-part prequel to The Incal detailing episodes from Difool's life prior to the events. It was published between 1988 and 1995. It was illustrated by Zoran Janjetov in a style very similar to Mœbius. (Although the recoloring of the first, censored English release gave it a more distinct look).
Part of the Metabarons Universe.
Before The Incal provides examples of:
- Autocannibalism: A technopriest threatens to skin Luz's father with a kitchen knife and force feed him his own flesh (lightly salted and grilled of course).
- Beast Man: A lot of mutants look like anthropomorphic animals.
- Bird-Poop Gag: Deepo craps on one of the prime minister's goons when rescuing John.
- Body Backup Drive: Diavaloo has countless clones that he can transfer his consciousness into when he dies. The only upside is it's the only way he can orgasm so he wouldn't be annoyed at you for killing him.
- Brain Monster: The Supra-Divinoid is a large cybernetic vmbrain that acts as a central computer for the techno-priests.
- Brother–Sister Incest: A pair of aristo siblings in the hospital are unashamedly having a baby together.
- Chekhov's Gun: The fake aristo halo John's dad invents comes in handy as a disguise later on.
- Chubby Chaser: One of Kaimann's pirates asks for the fattest woman in Diavaloo's harem.
- Colonized Solar System: One of Diavaloo's reports mentions the manager of the Bank Of Pluto misappropriating state funds.
- Cryo-Prison: John's father was offered a choice between going into stasis for 30 years or having his memory erased. He chose the latter.
- Darker and Edgier: Before the Incal as it explores the kind of circumstances that would produce a Nominal Hero like Difool and how he wound up miserable and alone apart from Deepo.
- Deadly Disc: A secret of the aristos is that they can make their halos fly off as deadly projectiles.
- Disguised in Drag: John infiltrates the prostitute baby ring by dressing as a pregnant sex worker with Deepo hiding inside the bump.
- Driven to Suicide: John's mother ends up jumping off Suicide Alley.
- Eye Beams: When Animah takes the place of John's homeo-whore, she has her rat Raphaela blow it up with eye beams.
- Faceship: Diavaloo's harem satellite is a giant recreation of his own head.
- Fantastic Ghetto: Mutants on Terra 2014 live in an enclosed ghetto called the G.T.O. which they don't leave until they're 21 because it's legal to kill them before that age.
- Freudian Excuse: Before the Incal reveals the many horrific and complex roots of Difool's cynicism and selfishness.
- Future Food Is Artificial: After having his memory erased John says he's going home to eat a big, bloody bio-vitasteak.
- Grievous Bottley Harm:
- John's mother narrowly misses him with a thrown bottle when he distracts her when she's with a client.
- When Luz contacts John near the end he hits with a bottle because he can't remember her anymore and thinks she's insane.
- Holographic Disguise: Luz uses one when she first meets John that makes her look ugly.
- Interrupted Suicide: John waits a few seconds to see if anyone stops him from jumping off Suicide Alley. He ends up getting rescued mid-fall by Snailhead.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: A jealous member of Diavaloo's harem keeps referring to Luz as "it".
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The government erases John's memory to stop him telling people where halos come from. He no longer recognizes any of his friends and has to be told where he lives and what his job is.
- Long-Lived: John's nanny Sofiah was a Shellback from Mea-Mex. They can live to be over a thousand.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: The hunchback that drags John off reveals he's John's brainwashed father but his mind won't last much longer.
- Money Fetish: A girl in Diavaloo's harem says she adores being whipped with thousand kublar bills.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: a couple of similar four-armed mutants or aliens called Kaganu and Loh-Loh work in the Red Ring as a bouncer and a pump respectively. Difoll gets punched by both.
- Narrator All Along: The end strongly implies Deepo has been narrating as the last word is his catchphrase "croot".
- New Neo City: Planets called Nova Mars, Nova Pluto and Nova Venus are mentioned.
- Parental Incest:
- John's mother's holographic will strongly implies she has been Animah in other lives. Backed up by
Word of God. - Zig-Zagged when a hunchback drags John off to rape him but admits he's John's brainwashed father and wanted to get him to safety but says his memory is about to go permanently and John needs to run or he will get abused.
- The aristo having her brother's baby is thinking if having her father's next.
- John's mother's holographic will strongly implies she has been Animah in other lives. Backed up by
- Pineal Weirdness: The reason aristos have halos is because pineal glands are removed from the heads of the babies if sex workers and inserted into the brains of baby aristos.
- Planet Terra: The odd time Earth is mentioned, it's called Terra-Prima. Seems to be common to name colonies after it as Difool's home planet is Terra 2014.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: John's trying to find out what happens to the babies of sex workers. Turns out their pineal glands are removed and inserted into baby aristos to give them halos.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Luz's father is assigned to working to gorilla natives of a jungle planet near the end.
- Reincarnation Romance: The prequel implies that Animah's soul knew John in his various lives often as a mother, friend or lover.
- Religious Robot: Kolbo-5 prays for John's safety and quotes fictional holy texts.
- Ridiculously Fast Construction: An army of specialist robots rebuild the prime minister's house in half an hour after Kolbo-5 rescues John.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: John's friends bulky him into getting with a homeo-whore, saying he'll never be a man if he doesn't get laid.
- Sexbot: Homeo-whores are sex robots with mix and match parts that their customers can select.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Luz slaps John after he kisses her then tells him to kiss her again but do it properly.
- Small Universe After All: One of the aristos at a party suggests trying a marsupial pâté from Galaxy 10945 and the president says he's thinking of making his next body an Andromedan dwarf.
- Son of a Whore: The prequel reveals John's mother was one. A rare case of the child being on board with it and guiding upper class tourists to her brothel.
- Space Pirates: Luz gets rescued/kidnapped from Diavaloo's harem by a pirate called Kaimann and ends up staying with him when John doesn't recognize her.
- Stock Star Systems: Aldebaran comes up several times when referring to foreign food or animals.
- Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Luz threatens to cut her throat with her own halo if John gives the psycho-anarchists any information.
- Sudden Name Change: Difool's home planet was referred to as Terra 21 a couple times in the original series but was called Terra 2014 in the prequel onwards.
- Tap on the Head:
- Kaimann knocks Luz out with his tail when he kidnaps her.
- Tanatah gets knocked out by the techno-priests when they betray her.
- Took a Level in Badass: Before the Incal shows how John went from being a helpless orphan to a not-quite-as-helpless Class-R detective. He does this sporadically when he possesses the Incal, but even without it he takes a few on his own by the time Final Incal ends.
- Trauma Conga Line: Unlike the one he undergoes in The Incal, the horrors that befall Difool in Before the Incal aren't nearly as funny. The whole story is about how John becomes the cynical, distrustful, bitter man we met at the beginning of The Incal.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Difool.
- Verbal Tic Name: Deepo is named after a sound his dying mother kept making.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Kolbo-5 is usually monitoring and in contact with John.
- Zero-G Spot: Luz De Garra teases John in her anti-g bedchamber but switchs the gravity back on at the last second.
