Jonathan Hickman returns to Image Comics for another round of creator-owned comics. This time teaming up with Red Wing collaborator Nick Pitarra. In typical Hickman and Image fashion, Manhattan Projects has an immediate hook. What if J. Robert Oppenheimer had a twin brother we never heard about and the Manhattan Project was a cover up for something more sinister than the atomic bomb? I’m a devout fan of Hickman’s creator-owned work so this book is pretty much an auto-buy for me. I was sorely disappointed with Red Wing but have been blown away so efficiently by his work in the past that I was still very much looking forward to this series. With Manhattan Projects #1, I’m not disappointed. Sort of.
The opening sequence is a well-framed main character intro. A well-armed military authority speaks with Roosevelt about the world war. This character is a cigar smoking, no-nonsense, military man. He discusses conspiracies with J. Robert Oppenheimer and welcomes him to the Manhattan Projects and reveals that there is much more to the project than a bomb. Artificial intelligence, pan-dimensional space, telepathy; these are all part of the project. Oppenheimer is expected to add his acumen to the endeavor. Contrary to a certain Albert Einstein, Robert may go about his research without being locked up.
The rest of the book is mostly made up of a combat sequence involving Zen-powered Death Buddhist robot minions and back story on Oppenheimer (throw in a sentient origami reference for good measure). The twist here is that Oppenheimer’s twin brother Joseph, was a psychopath who ate his victims in order to absorb their soul “so that they might live forever within him”. Voila! A villain “tout prêt”. To further compound the problem, there appears to be the existence of parallel universes in which multiple copies of Oppenheimer exist and the implication is that Joseph ate several of them or in some other way managed to amalgamate them into himself without anyone else knowing.
As you can see, this story falls back on the trusty gimmick of taking history and its characters/archetypes, shoving them in a fictional setting then wiring the whole thing into the pop-cultural zeitgeist. “Cowboy Ninja Viking”, “Jesus Hates Zombies”, “Marvel 1602” all examples of this elevator pitching type of comic book. What makes these fail or succeed according to me, is how well the disparate elements are balanced according to their respective intent. Hickman is one of the best at this, creating believable contexts for his parallel histories, grounding them firmly in a solid kind of fictional logic.
Manhattan Projects is a disheveled type of sci-fi alternate history-world, the best kind of far-out Hickmanism. However, I’m starting to think that without Jonathan’s trade-mark design-heavy visuals and infographical style of story-telling, his vision is not sufficiently well-presented for it to be as engrossing as I’d like it to be. Pitarra is an excellent illustrator, no doubt about it. His european tone is one which appeals to me. It’s got some Hergé in there and some Geoff Darrow even a little Moebius. The coloring is an improvement over Red Wing this time around as well. But there’s something kind of goofy about his character design. As if they are caricatures of what they should be. Nick’s story-telling is serviceable and clear, probably even innovative if it were paired with a different kind of story. But with this script, it does not seem an ideal fit and, in a way, weighs down the rampant cerebralism of Hickman’s concepts. To the point that the visuals seem to awkwardly call attention to the inherent weirdness of the premise. I guess that, having fallen in love with Jonathan’s trail-blazing visual narrative approach, to see something else going on here feels like a let-down.
Ultimately, with just one issue in, I support the series and recommend it. Especially if you are unfamiliar or perhaps even put off by with Hickman’s usual design/illustration in Nightly News and Pax Romana as this is a change of pace. Mechanically, there’s nothing “wrong” with the book. I’m just not feeling it as much as I would like to.
Script: 7/10 a promising setup
Art: 7/10 good on its own, but perhaps this script is not its ideal context
Parental concern: Bloody violence, mature subject matter
Manhattan Projects #1 is in stores March 7th
