Tanguy & Laverdure

This profile has numerous S P O I L E R S, but that’s only germane if you speak one of the language the comics were published in.

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Background

Tanguy

Laverdure

Powers & Abilities

Michel Tanguy and Ernest Laverdure both are exceptional fighter pilots.

They have extensive air combat experience and a deep knowledge of most things related to aviation. They can handle most fixed or rotary wings aircrafts, from ultralights to super-heavy transport planes. They also are very experienced air demonstration pilots.

They also have full parachute qualifications, plus various infantry skills such as demolitions, setting ambushes and general purpose machinegun operation. Since their demolitions skills are more advanced than basic training, they clearly have had additional infantry — possibly airborne or air commando — training.

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They are also fully qualified mechanics. It’s not their normal occupation, but they can do a fine job repairing, maintaining and jerry-rigging airplanes even if the full-time professionals aren’t around.

Both are smart, observant, resourceful men. And if one misses a clue or runs out of ideas the other probably won’t. Though Tanguy is the more heroic and determined of the two, Laverdure is no slouch and certainly can deliver exceptional results.

With their propensity to end in tough situations in exotic locales, Tanguy and Laverdure have become competent and experienced operative types and can reliably beat dismal odds.

And they are actually fluent in English, which is worth noting for French military officers. Pas vrai les gars ?

Other assets

Tanguy’s power of intuition is remarkable. He can reach correct conclusions based on very little information, through hunches and deductive reasoning. Some detail will often gnaw at him. He’ll feel that it’s important enough to investigate, eventually leading him to discovering what is going on.

Tanguy’s intuitions and deductions, combined with his power of persuasion to convince his superiors that his ideas have enough merit to be acted upon, have ruined numerous enemy plans that would have otherwise gone flawlessly.

Michel Tanguy also holds an aerospace engineering degree, and speaks fluent Spanish.

Other other assets

Tanguy et Laverdure often operate with their wingmen Leroux and Mignot, though their role in the story is usually negligible. When they do demonstration flights they have a full maintenance team following them (in the 1960s and 1970s, the technicians and their gear flew in a Noratlas ). It includes some of the best experts in the French Air Force – including Bébert, their veteran armourer.

As a genre convention, Tanguy and Laverdure have aged very little since their debut in 1959. Yet the world around them is a version of the real world that progresses normally through time.

On the other hand, the weather seems to be their personal enemy. Whenever they attempt to do something complicated, it becomes awful and makes flying hideously dangerous.

Armament

The original service sidearm of Tanguy and Laverdure was the beloved (I’m kidding) PA MAS 1950 ((Semi-)Automatic Pistol, Saint-Etienne Weapons Manufacture, 1950 Model). This serviceable 9mm Parabellum pistol remained a mainstay of the French military for 50+ years since handguns have debatable utility in military operations.

Starting in 1992, the French Air Force replaces the old PA with the PAMAS G1 . This is a licenced version of the Beretta 92F.

They will only rarely use heavier firearms, and usually those will be on-site procurement. They’ll thus use common weapons at that point in time, such as Uzis or FN-FALs during the 1970s and 1980s.

Aircrafts

The list of the main fighters they fly is in the History section. But Tanguy and Laverdure are closely associated with the successful (and visually distinctive) Dassault Mirage III multi-role fighter . Thanks to a series of modernisations, the Mirage III airframe served in France for 35 years – and is still active in Argentina and Pakistan.

In the most recent graphic novel, Tanguy and Laverdure were flying an unspecified version of the Mirage 2000.

Their planes are not usually armed. Weapons are normally only loaded when combat is likely, since the ammunition and payload take a lot of space and weight. Even when armed, Tanguy and Laverdure have seldom been in situations requiring the use of missiles. On Mirage IIIs they’re more likely to use the paired 30mm DEFA canons, and pods of 68mm rockets (usually SNEB general-purpose rockets).

History

(The second and third stories in the graphic novel Tanguy et Laverdure T21 – Premières Missions are not mentioned here, since how they reconcile with the continuity of the main graphic novels is unclear.)

Michel Tanguy was always going to be a military pilot. His grandfather was a fighter pilot from 1916 to 1918. His father André fought in 1940 and during the rest of WWII, earning the French equivalent of the Silver Star (Croix de guerre 1939-1945, quatre palmes). Michel was fascinated by airplanes, and learned to pilot as soon as that was legally possible.

On the other hand, Laverdure comes from a completely non-military family. His dad was a cycling champ who won the Bayonne-Carpentras race in 1924, and Ernest’s intent was apparently to become a hairdresser. He may also have considered being a locksmith, since he has some lockpicking skills – possibly from an apprenticeship.

A friendship is born

Tanguy and Laverdure met in the French Alps when they were both students, during the 1950s. Laverdure was vacationing with two friends in an isolated mountain hut. Meanwhile Tanguy was enjoying a summer job at a nearby altiport.

When Tanguy was tasked with air dropping supplies to the hut, Laverdure was accidentally hit. The hot-tempered young man drove all the way down to have an inconclusive brawl with the pilot, then all the way back up.

However, the weather got extremely bad. One of Laverdure’s friends was grievously wounded when the hut collapsed under the wind and rain. The storm then washed away the road.

However, their flashlight SOS was picked up by a shepherd, who warned the altiport. Though the storm was awful, Tanguy took off in the old Stampe SV.4  at the altiport and attempted to reach the hut.

Through a combination of crack piloting, nerves of steel, sheer luck and Laverdure’s idea of filling tin cans with burning kerosene to signal a landing strip, Tanguy made it. He took the wounded man to Grenoble in time to save his life.

Despite their initial feud, the two young men thus became good friends. Impressed by Tanguy’s exploits during the storm, Laverdure asked him to teach him to pilot. He became an excellent pilot in record time.

Les chevaliers du ciel-heu, part 1

The pair enlisted with the Armée de l’air — the French Air Force — a few years later, probably in 1958. After finishing their training as sous-lieutenants (Officer Cadets) at the Salon-de-Provence air base, they were sent to Meknes in Morocco.

Back then, Meknes hosted the French École de l’aviation de chasse (fighter pilots school). The pair graduated from their Fouga CM.170 Magister two-seat jet trainer  to Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star jet trainers .

Their training as fighter pilots at Meknes was eventful. It further took a dramatic turn when an experimental rocket was lost in the Anti-Atlas due to foreign sabotage. The nearby fighter trainees were ordered to do reconnaissance flights to locate the debris.

The trainees soon discovered that unidentified hostile jets were violating Moroccan airspace. These were trying to find the rocket before France could send proper forces. Tanguy and Laverdure ended up engaging an actual jet fighter in their T-33 to save a fellow pilot. After crashing, they defended the lost rocket until pararescue troopers found them.

Les chevaliers du ciel-heu, part 2

After these exploits they resumed their training program. But they ended up in another combat mission before they obtained their qualifications. Their T-33s were scrambled to break a bandit attack on a geological expedition in the desert. Two of the three planes did not make it back.

After qualifying and earning their sous-lieutenant (second lieutenant) bars, Tanguy and Laverdure helped against further sabotage attempts against the French rocket tests in the Sahara. Under the pretense of demonstrating Fouga trainers to the Spanish Air Force, they exposed a jamming station cunningly hidden on a mostly deserted island in the Canaries.

Another clandestine jamming station was soon established in the Western Moroccan desert to replace it. But French intelligence services had Tanguy and Laverdure pass as mercenary pilots to infiltrate the shady air transport companies hired to resupply the station. Though it was a close call, the operation was successful.

Tanguy and Laverdure were among the last French pilots trained in Meknes. Morocco had become independent in 1956, and the fighter school moved to France in 1961.

Dans un bruit de tonnerre-heu, part 1

Tanguy and Laverdure were then detailed to the 10^th Fighter Wing in Creil, specifically the escadron de chasse 1/10 Valois. There they flew Dassault Super Mystère B2 fighters , their first supersonic aircraft, and continued training.

While working in Creil, they defeated a daring foreign plan to take aerial photographs of a revolutionary French VTOL fighter prototype. The young Lieutenants then eventually obtained their chef de patrouille (Flight Leader) qualifications.

In 1964 Tanguy and Laverdure were assigned to the Dijon-Longvic air base. They joined the prestigious escadron de chasse 1 /2 Cigognes (1 /2 Fighter Squadron, the “Storks”). Its history included such famous aces as Guynemer , Fonck (all-time Allied ace of aces) , Brocard, Heurteaux, etc.. The Cigognes also were the first squadron flying the Mirage IIIC — the first European-made Mach 2 fighter.

There Tanguy and Laverdure trained to handle this new high-speed, high-altitude interceptor. They also trained two Australian pilots as part of France’s ultimately successful sale of Mirages to the Australian Air Force. However, they also discovered that the pilots were impostors and part of a daring espionage attempt to learn everything about the Mirage, which they narrowly defeated.

Dans un bruit de tonnerre-heu, part 2

Being elite pilots, actually speaking proper English and having demonstrated superior resourcefulness, Tanguy and Laverdure were tasked with further key missions to sell Mirages to foreign air forces. They acted as demonstrators and if necessary troubleshooters.

In 1965, they demonstrated the Mirage in the Israeli fighter trials. Several vicious sabotage attempts by an unethical American businessman nearly had catastrophic consequences. But the pilots exposed the saboteurs and the Mirages won the trials. As later wars in Israel demonstrated the superiority of the Mirage over contemporary MiGs, this was a huge commercial coup.

The next year, Tanguy and Laverdure were the first non-test pilots to fly the Mirage IIIE. They were part of a project to adapt this cutting edge air-to-ground attack fighter to extreme cold weather. This was done in collaboration with the US Air Force at the Thule air base.

However, ruthless spies were attempting to procure the IIIEs’ avionics. They did not hesitate to destroy the USAF refuelling plane in mid-air to force the Frenchmen to land on the minuscule base at Christianshaab. There, an ambush could be laid much more freely than in Thule.

The spies kidnapped Laverdure and stole his Mirage. But they were then forced to keep the Lieutenant alive. The bad weather made it impossible to fly the Mirage out of Groenland without an expert.

Though Tanguy eventually located Laverdure, he was also captured. But they heroically delayed their captors long enough for their wingmen and the USAF to find them. Though badly wounded, they even saved Laverdure’s Mirage.

A deux pas du soleil-heu, part 1

Due to his sterling record, Tanguy was promoted to Captain. He was put in charge of the entire Mirage III air demonstration squadron – with Laverdure as one of his flight leaders. They toured Central and Western Africa as part of the efforts to continue exporting Mirages.

In Mali, they stumbled upon a plane crash. Their efforts to rescue possible survivors revealed that the plane had been shot down. Investigating, they discovered that the plane had been shot by mistake, as part of a conspiracy to murder the President of Mali. The French Air Force offered to set up a trap that would catch the killers during their next attempt.

The trap was set using a decoy DC6  identical to the Presidential plane. Since the killers flew antiquated Mustang P51 fighters  that were too slow for Mirages to force down, the French pilots procured mothballed Spitfire fighters from their Malian colleagues.

Though extensively rehearsed, the operation went wrong due to severe last-minute weather changes. But the murder plot was ultimately defeated, greatly facilitating the Mirage sale.

A deux pas du soleil-heu, part 2

In 1968, the French government provided several Mirages to a fictional Latin American country – probably an equivalent of Venezuela. The client specifically requested Tanguy and Laverdure to be part of the package as instructors.

When the pair and their usual wingmen arrived, they discovered that the government expected war with their aggressive neighbours any day now. That explained the hurried deal to obtain modern jet fighters.

The situation of the Frenchmen was made even more delicate as the neighbouring state was ruthlessly looking for a casus belli . They lured one of the trainees slightly over the frontier so they could shoot him down. Disobeying orders, Laverdure used a tiny medical plane in a half-successful rescue operation to evacuate his pupil. This denied proof of an airspace violation.

The hostile state resorted to bombing its own infrastructure, using Saab Draken fighters  it passed for enemy Dassault Mirages. However, during his unauthorised air rescue operation, Laverdure had stumbled upon a secret base with Starfighters  and Drakens flown by mercenaries. This allowed the French pilots and their allies to deduce what was going on.

Tanguy and Laverdure flew a night observation raid that captured ample footage of the Drakens still with their fake markings. Though Tanguy was captured, one of the mercs was a former comrade-in-arms who helped him escape, making it possible to steal one of the Drakens.

As the situation was defused, Laverdure and Tanguy obtained that nobody mention their actions to their chain of command.

Vont chercher la lumière-heu, part 1

Further adventures of Tanguy and Laverdure included :

• Surviving and defeating a ruthless campaign of sabotage during the demonstrations to sell Mirage IIIs to India. They also convinced a reluctant Welsh-Indian test pilot of the worth of their warbirds and established a new time record for a high-altitude interception.
• Thwarting a particularly determined conspiracy to turn an atomic test at Mururoa into a catastrophe. In the wake of these events, Laverdure was promoted to Captain.
• Becoming the private instructors of young prince Azraf of one the Emirates. Azraf studied to become a fighter pilot in France until his father was assassinated and he became emir.
  However, the military immediately took power with the backing of a foreign oil company. Captured, the two Frenchmen escaped with the help of an American missionary and ended up rescuing the prince from a military ambush in a stolen Alouette . Though they initially refused to get involved in the civil war, the cold-blooded murder of their missionary friend in a napalm bombing led them to steal back their Mirages and strike a decisive blow as a victorious counter-coup raged.
• Facing the blackmail of the Vampire, a James Bond-grade conspiracy that held France hostage using stolen Harriers  and military equipment to strike with seeming impunity until Tanguy deduced their plans. This exploit led the President to have him promoted to Commander.

Vont chercher la lumière-heu, part 2

In 1972, Tanguy and Laverdure learned that a new effort to overthrow their friend Azraf had engulfed his emirate. A DC8  was sent to recover the numerous French citizens there. Most were working for French oil companies capitalising on Azraf’s Francophile sensibilities.

As the evacuation was underway, Tanguy and Laverdure revealed that they actually been sent to discreetly assist Azraf. The new coup was backed by the same foreign oil company as before, and France did not intend to lose its privileged access to the emirate’s resources.

Though Tanguy was aiming for the lightest possible involvement, seeing the population massacred by the mercenary air force led to a much heavier intervention by the two Mirages. The enemy regained the upper hand by capturing the DC8 with the refugees, but a series of daring stratagems ultimately made victory possible.

In the wake of these events, the two pilots had to be discharged for diplomatic reasons. The idea was to let the international heat pass for a few years before discreetly reintegrating them.

Moitié anges et moitié démons, part 1

Tanguy and Laverdure were then manipulated into working for the French intelligence services – a prospect that they had energetically refused when initially approached. That their strange new employer, Delta Airways, was actually a front for the SDECE  became clear during a chartered flight to Chad. The “photo safari” that was a perfunctory cover for an hostage negotiation.

The hostage being held in a nearly inaccessible area, even by air, crack pilots were necessary to land close enough to conduct talks. That was only feasible using a rugged STOL plane Tanguy and Laverdure already had combat experience with, the Dornier Skyservant .

The hostage situation reached a deadlock. The principal was held by a faction hostile to the Chadian government, a longtime French semi-client-state. Furthermore Chad soon discovered that French emissaries were discussing with the rebels and became hostile.

A combat rescue operation was hurriedly improvised using scrounged resources. Albeit it went catastrophically wrong a half-dozen times, the principal was ultimately exfiltrated back to France.

Moitié anges et moitié démons, part 2

Though they wanted to leave Delta Airways, in 1984 Tanguy and Laverdure were strong-armed into agreeing to conduct another mission. The objective was to recover the body of a former comrade of theirs who had become a SDECE intelligence gatherer. The repatriation was from a dictatorial African state where a semi-recent coup had led to a closing of the frontiers.

Albeit the job seemed relatively tame, Tanguy was intrigued by the use of a high-end Dassault Falcon 50  corporate jet for a simple taxi mission. He soon discovered that it was a camouflaged spyplane.

Though they and their passengers were immediately arrested, that was the SDECE’s plan. Photographs continued to be covertly taken as the Falcon was requisitioned to become the dictator’s private plane.

Exploiting the dictator’s paranoia and with the help of a small local faction, the pilots and the spies extensively photographed the country. Then they faked an accident to photograph the no-fly zone. This zone hosted a secret base built by foreign backers of the dictator, which Tanguy and his allies had to destroy.

The clever escape plan to exfiltrate everyone worked fine, concluding a triumphant mission.

Mauvaises têtes mais gentils garçons, part 1

Commander Tanguy and Captain Laverdure were eventually reintegrated in the French Air Force. The heat over their exploits in the Emirates had died down. They joined the 3/3 Ardennes fighter squadron at Nancy-Ochey, flying Mirage 2000Ds . The pair was thus part of the UN and NATO operations in former Yugoslavia in 1995.

While hunting down a Hind  that had shot and badly damaged a German Transall , Laverdure’s reconnaissance Mirage was shot down by a Strela-3 . Though they successfully ejected, he and his crewman were immediately captured.

Obtaining clearance to investigate alone, Commander Tanguy discovered a thoroughly camouflaged altiport where Laverdure was held prisoner. As he reconnoitered, he ran into a team of French special operation marines who had been looking for this secret base. They agreed to an impromptu combat rescue operation.

The assault went fine. The commando and the two prisoners were exfiltrated by Tanguy flying an old stolen Antonov An-2 , which landed on the Foch .

Mauvaises têtes mais gentils garçons, part 2

In 2001, Tanguy and Laverdure were transferred to a Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron – the ERS 01.091 Gascogne. Several pilots had been injured in a bus accident. But as Mirage III veterans the pair would be able to quickly learn to fly strategic reconnaissance Mirage IVs  and fill the gap.

After 10 days of familiarisation on the M4Ps, they were deployed over Afghanistan as part of Opération Heraclès. They did supersonic low-altitude photography runs.

During these reconnaissance flights, Tanguy and Laverdure stumbled upon a huge opium plantation. It was clandestinely operated by the military on the other side of an Afghan frontier. To prevent exposure and since the French recon planes were not armed, the opium barons sent two MiG-29 s who shot down a French C-135  refueller and forced down Tanguy’s Mirage.

However, Tanguy managed to broadcast his position. Laverdure obtained to launch a combat rescue op with an air commando  squad. Tanguy and his crewmate were found whilst being carried by a camel caravan along with ten tonnes of heroin, which the French confiscated.

Secret negotiations took place in Abu Dhabi. The French offered to swap the confiscated heroin for the captured Mirage and forget the whole thing. However, it was a trap – the heroin bags were actually filled with sand. French naval aviation destroyed the entire air force of the traffickers, then bombed their air base to avenge the crew of their C-135.

Based on the markings on their Mirage 2000s in the story currently being published, it would seem that Tanguy and Laverdure were later reassigned to the Storks Squadron.

Description

Tanguy’s appearance corresponds to a number of signifiers for the archetypal 1960s adventure hero in Franco-Belgian graphic novels. He’s ruggedly handsome, and this, his personality and his intelligence make him attractive to the high speed, low drag sort of women.

Laverdure is unusually tall and lanky. He can have problems fitting his long legs in cramped spaces. If he’s not in uniform, there’s a good chance that he will be loudly, terribly dressed. While he thinks that he has great taste and is a master of matters sartorial, this is absolutely not the case. Even his flight helmet has a non-regulation, garish picture of a pouncing tiger.

Tanguy and Laverdure used to be smokers, back in the 1950s when everybody was. Tanguy fully stopped smoking during the 1960s. Laverdure greatly cut down on tobacco during the same decade, only smoking occasionally.

Personality

Tanguy

Tanguy is a hero with a capital H. He’s nice, highly professional, courageous, disciplined, patriotic, loyal and caring. He’ll always try to help people and do the right thing, and has excellent people skills. As a result he has been nicknamed “the St. Bernard” after the famous breed of Alpine rescue dog .

He comes from a military family, and has strong military and humanist values. Tanguy has a bit of a temper, and will not back down from conflict. If he has to give his word, he will specifically give his word of honour as a French officer, and never violate it.

Laverdure

Though he’s a nice guy, Laverdure has a phenomenal ego. He routinely sees himself as a fantastic ace à la Guynemer. He also fancies himself as a legendary ladies’ man, and never hesitates to date several young women at once. At least until this house of cards inevitably comes tumbling down ‘pon his head.

At the confluence of these two obsessions is his taste for colourful, loud 1930s roadsters, which he has a tendency to crash after but a few months.

Laverdure has a temper, and will trigger brawls if provoked. He’s curious and impulsive, a combination that gets him into a fair bit of trouble.

Finally Laverdure has a phenomenal talent for gaffes, from slapstick to accidental cultural insensitivity.

Tanguy and Laverdure

Though they are so unlike each other, the pair are close comrades who have worked, flown and fought together for decades.

Their speech includes a lot of aviation jargon and French military turns of phrase, with helpful captions providing translations.

DC Universe History

Though the Tanguy and Laverdure stories use tonnes of technical elements and real-life details to present high verisimilitude, their adventures often have a cinematic quality. It can be compared to some pop espionage movies such as James Bond or some action blockbusters such as Die Hard. Albeit not the more over-the-top scenes.

Their presence at the fringes of a comic book universe would thus not be nonsensical. They have clashed with Jamesbondian conspiracies, so having foiled attempts by similar organisations such as Kobra would be credible.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Les aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure Franco-Belgian graphic novels (1961-present). These are classics in several languages, but I don’t think there was a proper English translation.

Helper(s): Dr. Peter Piispanen.

Writeup completed on the 29^th of October, 2013.