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One Shot for the week of March 7th

By Troy-Jeffrey Allen
March 12, 2012 - 18:25

What if J. Robert Openheimer, physicist and father of the atom bomb, had an evil twin? A mummudrai whose very existence was fueled by consumption and destruction. What if that evil twin got invited by Uncle Sam to join the Manhattan Project? "What if everything...went wrong?"

First of all, I want you to read The Manhattan Projects. At the risk of spoiling my own review, I'm stating upfront that it is quite unique and very much worth the purchase. Then --- after you've read it and noted its originality --- I want you to try and imagine it being re-purposed into another medium. Try it. Try to animate it for a PG audience that wouldn't understand it. Put it on a TV screen or movie screen with your hottest TMZ personality and slap a WETA effects budget on it. You can't. I know I certainly can't. But why?

Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra's The Manhattan Projects is straight up madness --- a reworking of historical events from the mind's eye of a conspiratorial nut (which Hickman has shown signs of being at times). It's the type of broad imagination and daring-do that makes comic books a superior medium and couldn't possibly be properly duplicated by Hollywood's craftiest producers. It's bold, somewhat controversial, referential (I paused several times while reading it to run to Wiki), and silly. It isn't trying to be a screenplay or an event book. It's bizarre, filled with ideas, and impossible to pigeonhole.

Basically, it is everything a comic book should be.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12