Wednesday 28 August 2013

So I Read The Manhattan Projects: Volume 2

A 250 word (or less) review of the second collection of The Manhattan Projects
By Jonathan Hickman, Nick Pitarra, and Jordie Bellaire ; Image Comics 


I am a professional Scientist. My research department was founded by an actual member of The Manhattan Project. (Dr. Douglas Harold Copp, look him up.) As such I should be deeply offended by The Manhattan Projects, a comic that implies that the brilliant Scientists of the real life Manhattan Project are a bunch of cannibalistic, murdering, amoral sociopaths performing the Maddest of Sciences. A comic that is deeply insulting to my heroes and my vocation. But, once again, despite myself, I absolutely LOVE this comic. In The Manhattan Projects: Volume 2, the Scientists of The Manhattan Projects encounter their Mad counterparts from the Soviet Union: another secret Science project rife with Nazi prisoner/rocket Scientists, brutalist automatons, squid-aliens from the Tunguska Event, talking Space Dogs, and Communist brains. And instead of fighting the Red Menace, The Manhattan Projects do something ingenious, something that offends the secret cabal of the True world government and leads to a power struggle for the Earth itself. It's more worryingly insane fun from Jonathan Hickman that walks that perfect line of aching sincerity and eyebrow-shrugging fun, which is drawn with the crazy, playful line of Nick Pitarra and coloured with the psychedelic fever hues of Jordie Bellaire. Basically, The Manhattan Projects: Volume 2 is more Bad Science done right. It’s deeply insulting to Scientists, but damn if it isn’t incredible fun.


Word count: 225

Previously:

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