The 4003 Patrol Series

The 4003 Patrol is Philippe Ebly’s third (and for the time being, the last) series. It has only five titles. It was first printed within the Masque Jeunesse (The Mask for The Youth) collection (Hachette Publishing), and then reprinted within the Bibliothèque Verte (The Green Library) collection (Hachette Publishing). The series’ main frame is space opera, i.e. future space adventures.

THE NOVELS

*Badgers Forest (1984) ("La forêt des castors")
*Power of the Pirates (1984) ("Au pouvoir des corsaires")
*Cyclops’s Valley (1984) ("La vallée des cyclopes")
*White God Abducted (1985) ("L'enlèvement du Dieu blanc")
*Death Swamps (1986) ("Les marais de la mort")

Some of those novels were published in Spain. There are also two unpublished episodes that are still on the writer’s shelves. According to Philippe Ebly himself, adventure gets more and more dangerous for the main protagonists through each and every novel.

ILLUSTRATORS

There is only one illustrator for these novels, the same for both prints.

*Jean-Marie Vivès

CHARACTERS

There are four main characters, as in The Time Runaways Series, but this time the team includes two girls. Nevertheless, the female characters aren’t so much girly and stick to the usual archetypal routine the writer is fond of. One can also regret the overwhelming presence of the Xoni character, who steals every bit of the heroic stuff, shrinking his heroic team mates to shallow extras

*Dogann
*Xoni
*Hina
*Katia