The stories depict a space opera reminiscent of Greek tragedy, and heavily influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune novels.

Every Metabaron is mutilated by his father in his youth so that his endurance to pain is tested, and receives a powerful mechanical body part as a replacement for the destroyed limb.

These battles have taken many forms, from hand-to-hand combat to space duels, and the succession is only achieved once the son succeeds in killing his father.

On the occasion of his son-in-law Othon's succession to the title of Metabaron (intended to be resolved by mortal combat but forestalled by his use of guile to seal victory), Baron Berard of Castaka tells of his caste's lineage leading up to the present.

Omezo, employing guile over the established codes of combat, overwhelmed the Amakuras, but not before Divadal released a bioweapon that rendered every man on the planet sterile.

Oriela, having been shielded from the weapon, gave birth to Divadal's son, Dayal—the last fertile male on the planet, spared in contravention of the bushitaka due to necessity—then committed ritual suicide eight days later, leaving him only a bite on his shoulder as a memento.

His mentor General Pakko matched him with his daughter Antigrea, whom he had conceived just before the assault on the Amakuras, and despite initial antipathy they fell in love.

While they saw the planet as no inherent threat, their concern that an enemy might use it as a bridgehead led them to lobby the ageing Omezo to install planetary defences on-world.

They are ambushed by bandits who seek the planet's hidden treasure, a secret guarded by the giant eagle-like Gangez, and use Antigrea's remains as bait to capture him.

Berard concludes his tale by revealing that he is the child of that union, and he welcomed Othon (a fugitive pirate) seeing in him a trace of his own father.

The existence of the epiphyte has been kept secret by the Castakas for many generations, until its revelation to save the life of Othon von Salza, the son-in-law of Baron Berard.

The Imperial couple, rulers of the known galaxy, are astonished by the achievement of Othon and reward him; and Othon shows them where the epiphyte was hidden in exchange for a percentage of the new market for anti-G Technology, a new planet to which their palace would be transferred, and a gift for his son intended to restore the joy lost with his crippled legs.

Othon thereafter invests a large part of his fortune in the development of the first 'metabaronic' weapons and begins the tradition of cybernetic implants and later becomes a mercenary of extraordinary skill and power.

Disgusted by his incest, Aghnar attempts to kill his son, whom Oda/Honorata gives a cybernetic head to replace his own, for which he is called Steelhead.

In the last chapter of the saga (Sans-Nom, le dernier Méta-Baron), Lothar, the faithful android to whom Tonto is relating the Metabaronic lore in the frame narration, is identified as Steelhead himself, kept alive by his conversion to a robotic existence.

Recovering his personality, but not his full memories, after a brief confrontation in which he gives Nameless the iconic scarring in his eyebrow, he allies himself with a vampiric creature to enact his vengeance upon his descendant.

In February 2019, American black metal band Bihargam[1] released their debut album titled Castaka that is a musical adaptation of The Metabarons.

The series has been published in French as follows: A special volume La Maison des Ancêtres (The House of the Ancestors) was released in 2000 containing interviews with Jodorowsky and Giménez as well as sketches, unseen art and 2 short stories.