New trailer for the Diabolik film - Who is the "King of terror"?

Recently a new trailer was released in Italy for a film much awaited by the fans of comics and crime books and by the general audience: Diabolik, directed by Manetti Bros. and starring Luca Marinelli and Miriam Leone. Diabolik was and still is a very important part of the history of Italian comics, due to its genre, characteristics and the historical context of its debut years. Created in the early 60s by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani, Diabolik is a very capable thief, incredibly smart and master of disguise, expert in combat as well. Following the trend of spy films (such as the James Bond ones), the thief uses quite advanced devices and machines, some of which soon became recurring elements, such as plastic masks, daggers and pentothal, a powerful truth serum used very often by the King of terror. The thief is accompanied by his inseparable partner and love of his life Eva Kant, a woman just as capable and intelligent as him. Together they steal countless valuable items, always avoiding getting arrested by inspector Ginko.

Diabolik’s official website describes him as follows:

“Protagonist of the series, professional thief. He mainly steals the finest jewellery or huge amounts of money and doesn’t hesitate to kill those who get in the way of his plans. Despite carrying on a definitely illegal activity, he has healthy and deep ethical principles, albeit very personal (honor, protection of the weak, sense of friendship and gratitude, respect of noble souls), and thus he hates mobsters, drug traffickers, usurers and abusers. Surely Diabolik has a name and surname, but no one, not even him, knows it.”

Cover of Diabolik n.1 (1962)

Diabolik developed his moral principles after the first issues, in the story thanks to Eva Kant’s positive influence and narratively in order to give the protagonist's personality a multifaceted character. Angela Giussani created Diabolik in 1962, after a few attempts to launch a captivating character for her newborn publishing house Astorina, founded with the liquidation of her past job in her husband Gino Sansoni’s publishing firm. It debuted in the newsstands on November 192 with the story Il re del terrore (The king of terror) and the daring subtitle “il fumetto del brivido” (the spine-chilling comic), that would be later changed into “il giallo a fumetti” (the mystery comic).

A revolutionary and successful series from several points of view: the first series among Italian comics of the noir genre; created by a woman, director of her own publishing firm in collaboration with her sister; a customized size known as “formato Astorina”, designed to let travelers read captivating action mystery stories during their journeys; finally, one of the series the fought against the difficulties related to censorship and popular opinion. In the time period of the economic boom of the 60s, the noir genre was very popular in Italy because readers looked for protagonists that differ from society’s patterns with an ingenious and strong temperament. This type of story allowed the reader to explore in a safe and healthy way dangerous situations that they would normally avoid in real life, similarly to the experience of reading horror stories.

Diabolik and Eva (source: diabolik.it)

Also, before the debut of noir comics there wasn’t any comic aimed at an adult audience in Italy, mainly due to the stigma that comics are a genre for kids and they have to be “appropriate”. The truth is that comics are not a genre, they are an artistic medium that can tell infinite stories of any genre for any age! The attempts at censoring noir comics amplified even more the readers’ interest, making Diabolik one of the most successful Italian comics of the contemporary era in Italy and Europe.

Diabolik had its first film adaptation en 1968 with Danger: Diabolik, directed by Mario Bava, more known as one of the masters of Italian horror movies. The film is considered a blend of pop art, optical art, psychedelia and futurism. You can see a trailer for the film here at your own discretion:

Furthermore, in 1999 Diabolik got an animated series as well dedicated to his adventures, produced by Saban International (part of the Saban group, mainly known for adaptations of Japanese series of the tokusatsu genre such as the Power Rangers franchise, based on the Super Sentai series), French M6, American Fox Television and Italian Mediaset. The series, titled Diabolik: track of the Panther, consists of 40 episodes of 24 minutes, and it doesn’t exactly follow the stories and tone of the comic because some details were changed in order to adapt it to a wider and younger audience. Among the more evident changes: Diabolik and Eva are younger, they steal only from villains and Diabolik never kills anyone. However, the mystery and ingenious tricks were kept intact.

Italian opening theme and credits for Diabolik's animated series

Finally, the Manetti Bros. film, which will debut on December 16th 2021, is mainly based on the third issue of the series, L’arresto di Diabolik, in which the thief meets Eva Kant for the first time. Two sequel films have been recently announced, showing the intention to tell a trilogy about the King of Terror.