The Manhattan Projects vol. 5

I realize that my reviews of the past couple of volumes of this series have harped on one particular issue.  That the series, entertaining as it is, didn’t seem to have a direction or gameplan for what it wants to do besides showcasing the questionable decisions made by great scientists and men of power.  Until now, that is.  Moving into the era of the Cold War, the series reveals itself to be a gleefully cynical chronicle of how the unchecked ambitions of several key individuals helped to shape human history.  Complete with aliens, a radioactive messiah, and a “magic” bullet.

After a prologue involving Laika’s exploits in space, the series hits the ground running with the dissolution of the American Manhattan Projects/Soviet Star City alliance.  Yes, the Cold War is turning hot here, but the reason for that is all due to the infection of an alien parasite from the Tunguska incident.  As the alien forces in Russia work to convert the minds of individuals like Lee Harvey Oswald, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro to their agenda, the scientists in America face their own unique challenges.  JFK’s investigators cause Feynman and the Einsteins to leave this Earth to explore others, Von Braun and Yuri Gagarin to explore the cosmos, and prompt Lyndon Johnson to team up with Generals Groves and Westmoreland to seize the reins of power for themselves.

The real-life events chronicled or referenced in this volume — the Cuban revolution, the subsequent missile crisis there, JFK’s assassination — all have a great deal of unknown factors about them if not outright secrets.  That’s what makes them perfect for the kind of historical revisionism that Jonathan Hickman engages in here.  If we’ll never know the whole truth behind these events, then why not have some fun by making up outrageous lies about them instead!  I mean, doesn’t the idea of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a front for human/alien hybrid and Soviet Chairman Leonid Brezhnev to slip into that country and re-wire the minds of Guevara and Castro to his agenda sound a lot more fun than its real-life story as a near-miss nuclear armageddon scenario?

Your response to that will likely determine how enjoyable you’ll find this volume to be.  As no doubt will your reaction to the series takes on the above-mentioned historical figures.  “The Manhattan Projects” is no stranger to irreverent depictions of historical figures (Remember dedicated Freemason orgy master Harry Truman from the first volume?), though Hickman takes things a bit farther than before with the issues collected here.  JFK’s depiction as a paranoid coke fiend reaches new depths here, as we see him turning the oval office into his own private party den and hanging out with women who think that zeitgeist is German for “We need more heroin.”  Guevara and Castro are amusingly played up as high-rolling capitalist scumbags before their socialist conversion while Johnson is played up as an independent thinking Texas shitkicker.  I found the way these people were characterized to be funny more than anything else.  In most cases they’re so far removed from how they’ve been documented by history that you can’t help but laugh at them.

To be honest, all of this historical revisionism is much more interesting than the full-on science-fiction elements pursued by the rest of the cast.  Seeing Feynman go off with the Einsteins across the multiverse is interesting mainly because of how it sets up Feynman’s “Clavis Aurea” diary that the series has been quoting from since the beginning.  The fact that he is revealed to be “full of mischief” is also telling, but I’m also wondering at which point (if ever) this thread will wind up intersecting with the rest of the story.  I’m less concerned about the exploits of Laika, Von Braun and Gagarin since they’re still in the same universe.  Laika’s solo issue is particularly engaging in the way that it expands on alien life, and sets up Von Braun and Gagarin’s own journey quite nicely.  Now that I think about it, there’s actually a lot going on in this particular thread and if Von Braun’s adventure goes the way I’m expecting it to then there’s going to be some real fireworks when everyone makes their return to Earth.  Feynman and the Einsteins need to pick up the slack on their end!

The visuals, courtesy of regular artist Nick Pitarra and regular guest artist Ryan Browne, remain quite inventive and memorable overall.  Regardless of whether you find all of this irreverence more amusing than depressing, Pitarra’s rendition of JFK’s oval office is something that won’t leave your head anytime soon while his “Cowboy Johnson” look fits the former Vice President to a “T.”  He also gives Guevara and Castro the look and style of two dudebro action heros that’s immensely fun while it lasts.  Browne has the more esoteric challenge of further defining the look of the aliens that inhabit this universe as well as their tech, yet he pulls it off quite well.

With the series moving into the Vietnam Era from here, I look forward to finding out what Hickman has as the real reason behind that war in his world.  Some can argue that his take on history is less irreverent than disrespectful, but that’s the edge playing up the crazy science fiction of this world gives him.  How can you argue that presenting JFK as a paranoid coke fiend and showing his assassination in all of its gory glory is disrespectful when it’s taking place in a world with Russian chairpersons who are alien hybrids, lying robots, Presidential A.I.s, and Einsteins from multiple universes?  The answer is that you should be taking it as seriously as anything else in this series, which is not very much.  Even so, the history presented by “The Manhattan Projects” here has become so gloriously bizarre that I’m once again eager to see where it goes in its next volume.