Alias Enterprises is adapting XIII, the popular European series of graphic novels written by Jean Van Hamme and illustrated by William Vance, for the American market.  The eponymous hero of XIII bears a striking similarity to Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne -- a government-trained assassin who washes up on shore with no memory of his previous identity (just the number XIII tattooed on his body).  But unlike Ludlum's Bourne sagas XIII's adventures take place in America and involve a complicated conspiratorial intrigue with a heavy political dimension that reaches all the way to the White House.  Cinematic breakdowns couple with a lightening-paced, tension-filled narrative stream have made XIII a major hit in Europe, where each new volume sells a half million copies -- and the plotline also made the property a natural fit for a first-person shooter video game, which Ubisoft released in 2003 and which has made the property far better known in the U.S. than Catalan Communication's release of the first couple of volumes in the graphic novel series some fifteen years ago.

Alias Enterprises plans to Americanize the series by cutting the 44-page graphic novels in half to fit them into standard-size serialized monthly editions as well as shrinking the art somewhat for the smaller American comic format.  Alias also plans to edit some sequences to eliminate nudity.  Though the precise nature Alias' editing plans appears a bit murky, Mike Miller, Alias' Executive Director, was clear on the publisher's intent: 'We're not going to cut those scenes, we're just going to edit them.  Nudity in the media is not as big a deal in Europe as it is in the United States, and we have to be sensitive to that fact.  It's been a controversial decision with hardcore fans of the series, but we've opted to err on the side of caution, allowing the American adaptation of XIII to be something anyone can enjoy.'