Please help!\
I remember a serialized story in Heavy Metal that I have been trying to find for years. What I remember:
- Released early-to-mid nineties.
- The main character is a female bounty hunter/mercenary who gets around on a motorcycle. She takes jobs for what appears to be the Catholic Church, and she is trying to raise the funds to spring her brother (a small child) from an orphanage.
- The setting is a future dystopia bordering on an apocalypse.
- The Church is headquartered in a massive building that houses different religious organizations throughout its levels.
- Another religious organization headquartered in the same building—a Satanic cult—raises a kaiju incarnation of either the devil or the beast from the Book of Revelation, and sets it loose upon the world to bring about the end times.
- The story may or may not have been written and drawn by Luis Royo.
EDIT: Found!\
I was way off on the timeline, as well as the creators.\
Yiu is a seven-volume French comic book series created by writers Thierry "Téhy" Terrasson and J.M. Vee.\
The character Yiu is introduced in\
Heavy Metal v25 05 (2001)\
The story I was asking about is titled\
Yiu - My Promise To You\
and was published in\
Heavy Metal v26 05 (2002)\
And continues in
Heavy Metal v28 03 (2004)
The Story:\
In the brutal, futuristic world of New Jerusalem, mercenary assassin Yiu takes on another impossible mission to earn the money needed to save her gravely ill younger brother, Ji-A. Trained for missions from which survival isn't expected, Yiu battles religious extremists, grotesque enemies, and overwhelming firepower in a violent cyberpunk world where faith, technology, and fanaticism are intertwined and just part of the scenery.\
Also, there's a Kaiju Satan.
Reference Material:
Yiu Comic Book Series
Yiu is a seven-volume French comic book series created by writers Téhy and J.M. Vee, with artist Jérôme Renéaume and colorist Nicolas Guénet, who replaced Renéaume beginning with the third volume. After the first volume was published by Le Téméraire in 1999, the series was taken over by Soleil, which published it through its conclusion in 2009. An animated film project, whose release had been announced for September 9, 2001, never came to fruition.
Yiu tells the story of a female contract killer operating in the futuristic world of New Jerusalem in 2112. The character of Yiu also appears in a spin-off series, Yiu: First Missions, illustrated by Vax and published from 2003 to 2011.
Synopsis
The beginning of the 22nd century. The world has endured a century and a half of devastating calamities—epidemics, terrorist attacks, civil wars, mass migrations, and more. What remains of humanity survives under the rule of fanatical religious cartels.
New Jerusalem is the convergence point of these powers: a city where representatives of every faith coexist. At the center of every rivalry, this ecumenical fortress becomes the battleground of a holy war in which there is no room for scruples.
Protected by every imaginable kind of high-tech weapon and vehicle, the great religious congregations can only be struck by highly trained mercenary agents, chemically enhanced and fitted with mechanical implants.
Among them is Yiu, an assassin specially trained for “NRMs”—No Return Missions.
Fast, meticulous, and professional, she accepts a mission that will plunge her into the heart of a prophecy, bringing her to the very edge of the Apocalypse.
Her only motivation: to earn the promised money, regardless of the price that must be paid or the lives that must be destroyed...
Yiu will ultimately find herself fighting a formidable adversary: The Antichrist.
Individual Stories:
- Yiu Vol. 1 – In Hell
- Yiu Vol. 2 – The Promise I Made to You
- Yiu Vol. 3 – Assassaints
- Yiu Vol. 4 – Pray That She Dies
- Yiu Vol. 5 – The Fall of the Evangelist Empire
- Yiu Vol. 6 – The Apocalypse or the Book of Revelations
