| Point Blanc | |
|---|---|
First edition cover |
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| Publisher | Walker Books (UK) Philomel (USA) |
| Date | 3 September 2007 |
| Series | Alex Rider |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Antony Johnston |
| Artist(s) | Kanako Damerum Yuzuru Takasaki |
| Original publication | |
| Language | English |
| ISBN | 1844281124 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Stormbreaker |
| Followed by | Skeleton Key |
Point Blanc: The Graphic Novel (known as Point Blank: The Graphic Novel in North America) is a graphic novel written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by sisters Kanako Damerum and Yuzuru Takasaki.[1]
It is based on the novel Point Blanc, written by Anthony Horowitz in 2001. The graphic novel was first released 3 September 2007 in the UK and was published by Walker Books[1] (the same day as the novel in 2001). It was later released in the USA on 27 December 2007, and was published by Philomel.[2]
Contents |
Alex Rider is assigned by MI6 to investigate the deaths of billionaires, Michael J. Roscoe and General Viktor Ivanov. Each of them had a son attending Point Blanc, an academy in the French Alps run by a South African scientist, Dr Hugo Grief, and both died under mysterious circumstances. Alex's cover is that of the son of a supermarket magnate, Sir David Friend. Alex is taken to a hotel on the way to Point Blanc, where his dinner drink is drugged. His bed is then transported where Mrs. Stellenbosch (the lady who took him from Mr. Friend's house) strips Alex and photographs his entire body. After the examination, Alex's clothes are put back on and he is returned to his hotel room. Upon arriving at Point Blanc, Alex befriends a student who goes by the name of James Sprintz. James thinks something is wrong with the academy because the other boys were rebellious before and then suddenly became complacent. One day, James is taken and replaced with a look-alike who is no longer rebellious. The following night, Alex examines the forbidden third floor to find replicas of the boys' rooms upstairs, with TV screens monitoring the boys' behaviour downstairs. Following later investigations, Alex's finds the real boys locked in a basement jail. Alex sees James and tells him the truth, his identity and the reason why he was sent to Point Blanc. A teacher named Mrs Stellenbosch is told this after someone overhears it and knocks Alex unconscious, captures him and turns him over to Dr. Grief, who then reveals his plan to take over the world, named "Project Gemini". In the 1980s, Grief cloned sixteen copies of himself in his home country of South Africa (where he greatly supported the apartheid regime). While the real boys are at Point Blanc, a plastic surgeon named Baxter surgically alters Grief's 14-year-old clones to resemble them. Soon, the clone and the real boy are swapped. The replica rooms are used by the clones to imitate the boys' behaviour so the parents will not notice that they have been swapped. When the parents die and pass on their inheritance, Dr Grief will take the assets from the clones. Eventually, he will be the most powerful man in the world, and reinstate apartheid globally. Grief imprisons Alex, planning to dissect him alive the next day for a biology class. Alex uses his exploding ear-stud that was given to him by MI6's gadget genius Smithers to escape his cage. He fashions a makeshift snowboard to escape, but crashes and Alex faints and is taken to a hospital, where a visiting Mrs Stellenbosch is told that Alex has broken several bones, fractured his skull and died. However, MI6 then sends him out again with a team of SAS soldiers (among them is Wolf, an SAS soldier introduced in Stormbreaker) to help liberate the school. As Dr Grief attempts to escape, Alex kills him with a snowmobile by driving it up a ramp and crashing it into Grief's helicopter, jumping off at the last minute. In the final chapter of the novel, Alex goes to his school to find a clone that resembles him, who avoided capture and escaped. The clone and Alex fight, starting a fire in the science building, ending with one of them falling to his death. It is left ambiguous as to whether the clone or Alex survived, though at the beginning of Skeleton Key it is revealed that the clone was killed and the real Alex lives.
Walker Books had given the Graphic Novel two covers, one British and one American. There is only one difference between them; in the British version, Alex's hair is longer (his normal look), and in the American version, Alex has had most of his hair shaved (the look he was given to disguise him as Alex Friend).
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