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Manhattan Projects #10 Advanced Review

By Andy Frisk
March 5, 2013 - 20:07

Those of you who've been following Jonathan Hickman's mind bending, and downright strange (and at times seemingly drifting) Manhattan Projects know that Robert Oppenheimer had a twin brother who had multiple personalities and cannibalistic tendencies, and that said multiple personality and cannibalistic twin brother ATE Robert and assumed his identity within the Manhattan Projects. It was only a matter of time though before Robert's personality would eventually return or "wake up," as Hickman has him do so...inside the mind of his insane brother. What follows is an incredible trip of an issue set within an already incredibly trippy series.

Of course Robert Oppenheimer really didn't have a psycho twin brother in real life. Joseph Oppenheimer is a figment of Hickman's incredibly creative and cosmically aware mind. Hickman thrives with stories that bend the rules of science fiction (and in some cases invent new ones). Grant Morrison might be the king of the cosmic comic book trip, but Hickman is thoroughly on his way to dethroning him. The trip that Robert takes through his psychotic brother's mind is nothing short of...well...I honestly can't find a word to describe it. Yes, it's quite "trippy," as I described it earlier, but it's more than that. It ranges from the cosmically infinite to microversally finite, but like the Marvel U's microverse, Hickman's story takes you somewhere ultra-dimensional with its strangeness that when viewed en total is incredibly tight and focused thematically. Manhattan Projects' narrative might drift and appear aimless at times, but it is so thematically and visually packed that it would tie up students in a graduate course on sequential art in endless debate for a whole semester...and that's what makes Manhattan Projects so attractive.

Speaking of attractive, Ryan Brown's art, while not as quirky as Nick Pitarra's, is sufficiently quirky enough to suit Hickman's tale, but is a little more sharp than Pitarra's. He manages to bring to horrifyingly sublime life the ravages of Joseph's mind, and his pencil and ink work is super detailed...something that I absolutely love to see in any and all comic books that I have the pleasure of reading.

The strange trip that has been Manhattan Projects continues, and it's one of those rare trips that you should be taking monthly with Hickman.

Rating: 8.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12