Director David Galán Galindo writes the script for the first adventure of ‘El español de Pro’, a comic about guilt, memory and Spain’s impossible relationship with its past that is masterfully drawn by Manuel M. Vidal
«Do you know what the scariest thing is? Not knowing your place in this world, not knowing why you are here. The phrase is heard in The protected, Shyamalan’s film that, in a way as brilliant as it was cruel, exposed the paradoxical condition of the superhero, condemned to make the glory of his exploits coincide with the obvious destruction that the archvillain’s existence always brings with it. In reality, his doubt is everyone’s: what are we doing here? However, as there are degrees in everything, the anguish could be even greater. Just make the question longer: What do we do here, in Spain? What if, furthermore, the superhero in question was Spanish and his most intimate enemy, consequently, was any other Spaniard with a Twitter account? “Every Spanish comic fan, at some point while reading them, has wondered why there isn’t one from here, a superhero born in Spain and whose adventures take place, in fact, in Spain,” he comments. David Galan Galindo to try to explain the place in the world not so much of himself as of his work PRO (Panini) just published. A disconcerting fact: Galán is, at the same time as a writer of vignettes, director of films such as Secret Origins, also with superheroes involved, and Methuselah, where he once again works with a super-actor with a lot of power called Resines.
In fact, El Español de Pro (this is his full name) is already the first (or almost, with permission from the people of Iberia Inc.) of the superheroes with the superpower of being Spanish. Which is not little. «The problem is that here we have a hell of an identity problem. An American from the ghetto understands Captain America perfectly and if he goes out into the street to protest anything, he comes out with his United States flag,” Galán continues on his slow path towards the abyss of all his terrors. And ours. And he continues: “Captain America goes to Germany and punches Hitler and then later cries bitterly when Watergate is discovered. I asked myself: what represents us Spaniards the most as a whole? And I came to the conclusion that it is our very toxic relationship with our past. That is to say, that had to be the condition of the possible Captain Spain; a hero whose greatest effort is dedicated to denying himself. “I don’t think there is anything more Spanish than that.”
And just like that, this is how the super-Spanish Pro was born. As it could not be otherwise, the comic goes back to our Civil War to imagine a superhero by force. Pro is not a Francoist, but Francoism uses him as a propaganda weapon. And he agrees to such a maneuver worthy of MAR to keep his kidnapped brother alive. His superpowers make him do good (he saves people from the catastrophes that arise), but the publicity of his exploits gives luster to a brutal dictatorship. And it is in that contradiction where the author places his protagonist. History travels through time from back to forward with the same ease that makes past coincide with present and future with our most intimate uncertainty. They talk about what happened and the way in which what happened was sold. It reflects on memory and the way to match memory with, in effect, the most basic justice. It’s a comic about something as extravagant as a superhero (and a Spanish one at that) and, well, it ends up being a faithful, ironic and deeply intelligent portrait of all of us.
In truth, and to confuse everything even more, the protagonist is not Pro but the young Galilea Gil who, since our days, has been trying to understand who this strange subject or, better, supersubject, was. «She is a disbelieving young woman who wonders, as we all do now, why we are still mired in something that happened 90 years ago. And little by little, she discovers that what she doesn’t care about should matter to her,” says Galán. Again, the horror of discovering our place in the world.
And then there is the wonder of drawing. And here, Manuel M. Vidal. The comic is itself a time journey not only from the plot but from the structure and formal presentation itself. At times it reminds The masked warrior; At times it takes us to the universe of Captain Thunder; never loses sight of being that, a superhero comic with all its possible styles, from Jack Kirby to Carlos Pacheco through Watchmenand, at one point (when he travels to the future), he dares to be manga.
Vidal died, due to a second stroke, the day after delivering Pro to the printer. Pro is his legacy and his cathedral. But the astonishment and enthusiasm are even greater if one takes into account that the cartoonist had to relearn his craft after being the victim of a first stroke that left his left hand with which he worked, ate and everything else useless. He put his talent to work again and did it to the brilliant paroxysm that is Pro. “What happened to him, you see it in a movie and you don’t believe it,” says Galán and perhaps in his comment (and in his sadness) he leaves the key of all this: the true superhero is, we have arrived, Vidal. And his legacy cannot be anything more than his particular way of making it clear to us what the place in the world is for all of us, Spanish or not.
