The Manhattan Projects Vol. 1 Science Bad

Softcover 2014

Jonathan Hickman had a great run writing The Fantastic Four for Marvel the last few years. As good as some of those stories have been, though, they pale in comparison to his original series The Manhattan Projects, a collaboration with up-and-coming artist Nick Pitarra published by Image Comics. As the title suggests, the series is set in the 1940s around the Manhattan Project with a cast of characters that includes Robert Openheimer, Albert Einstein and Harry Truman. However, despite the presence of familiar people and and events, this series is far removed from the standard alternate-history approach. Put another way, Hickman is not dealing in what-ifs but rather WTFs. It's hard to summarize without spoiling the story, but a keyword is "multiple". The scientists involved are engaged in multiple projects beyond the atomic bomb, we encounter multiple US presidents and Doctor Openheimer has multiple personalities to name a few. Comparing any new series to one of comics' landmark series is going out on a limb, but this comic bears comparison to Watchmen. Though Pitarra's art is a very different style to Dave Gibbons' work on the older series, it certainly fits the tone of this book. As for the story itself, its intersecting plot threads traversing time, place and mental space may be even more complex than the relatively simply parallel structure Alan Moore used for Watchmen.