Welcome to The Multiversity Projections, our monthly column focused on the Image Comics series “The Manhattan Projects” from Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra. Each month, we’ll be taking a look at the most current issue of the series and comparing notes from actual history and the alternate version presented in the book, and trying to use actual historical data to predict where the series is going next. This is a spoiler-heavy column, so if you have not yet read the most current issue of “The Manhattan Projects”, be warned that many major plot points will be discussed.
The column logo is designed by the incredible Tim Daniel, whose work can be found here.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in either science or history; all of the information I will be using in this column is either easily found on the internet or is purely my opinion.
If you’ve been granted security clearance, read on for your briefing.
This issue is the final part of the Ryan Browne-illustrated trilogy of installments that take place inside Oppenheimer’s brain. As we will see, the landscape of Joseph’s brain has changed quite a bit – and will continue to change as the issue progresses.
“Clavis Aurea: the Recorded Feynman” is excerpted three times per issue. The Golden Key (the English translation of the book’s title) deals with those quotes.
“The great eye of Joseph watched over them all until the megamid fell. This was the apocalypse.”
This is the first quote of the book, and it is attributed to Oppenheimer. For reasons that will be revealed later, that seems unusual.
A sign of true intelligence is the ability to simplify something to its most straightforward, uncomplicated solution. As Robert shows us, as complicated as bombs and lasers can be, sometimes, rocks just work best.
The “Joseph” that has been running around inside his own brain is just a projection of the actual Joseph’s brain. It is here that we see the brain itself, Joseph’s avatar in his world, meet his brother face to face, for the first time since killing and eating him all those years ago.
So, once Robert gets close, he manages to perform “surgery” on his brother, which leads to (not to toot my own horn), exactly what I predicted last time.
My theory? The voice heard at the end of this issue is actually Robert (the “blue” Oppenheimer), having defeated his evil brother, finally taking over the body by ridding itself of all the red monsters within his brain. Of course, the assassin doesn’t know this and ends his victory celebration quite quickly.
Again, why that celebration was short lived:
But Robert’s plan worked – he was able to take over Joseph’s brain, and take his place, at least until he was shot. More about this later, but this may not be the end of Oppenheimer after all.
While it would have been fun if I were right about this, too (it’s not Lee Harvey Oswald, sadly), the answer is even more exciting:
Albert’s back! And next month (or, really, in a few paragraphs), we get to see how exactly he found his way home.
“They cast out the great eye of Joseph, and in its place lifted up themselves. Robert received exactly what he deserved.”
This quote, too, is attributed to Oppenheimer. However, as we know, Oppenheimer has a hole in his head. Could this have also been a prediction I got correct back in the 14th installment:
Continued belowCharon – to grow all the personalities/free himself from their bondage?
We still have seen precious little of Project Charon, but we know a few things so far:
1) It is secret
2) It is the most important to Oppenheimer
3) It is being worked on by “other” Oppenheimers (we see constructs in issue #13 physically working on the tubes)I have theorized that Oppenheimer wants to eliminate everything else from the world, remaking the world as his consciousness, full of infinite Oppenheimers. So, given that logic, could these large-enough-to-fit-a-human-sized tubes be a way for Oppenheimer to let the various personalities within him gestate before become living flesh? I think so – if you recall from a few installments ago, Charon in mythology is the ferryman who brought souls into the land of the dead. Well, reverse that – Project Charon brings the “dead” Oppenheimers to life. We’ll see if this project ever gets off the ground and, when it does, if it is indeed a way to populate the world with Oppenheimers.
So, is the Oppenheimer quoted above one of the “new” Oppenheimers? Time will tell.
First up, I talked with Ryan Browne about wrapping up the Oppenheimer saga.
A mecha-headless horse shooting head lasers – that might be the most Ryan Browne panel in any of the three issues of “The Manhattan Projects” that you’ve done so far! After doing three issues of the book, all confined, more or less, to Oppenheimer’s brain, was there any satisfaction taken in blowing it to smithereens? And I have no idea if you can reveal this or not, but is this the last we’ll see from you in “The Manhattan Projects” world for the time being?
Ryan Browne: Yeah I think Hickman put the horse in the original issue because he knew I liked drawing animals. The first thing I asked him after reading that script was “what if the horse doesn’t die when it’s head get’s cut off?”. That set the tone for our working relationship. He’s been great with working any weirdo idea I have into the final script. That said, I was extremely happy to blow it all up. I pretty much never want to draw another Oppenheimer as long as I live!
I am actually just putting the finishing touches on issue 21 which will hit stands in June. It is the continued story of Laika’s adventure into deep space. It picks up right where the last time we saw her–being greeted by a large alien space ship. Spoiler alarm, I get to draw some aliens in that issue!
I think I have another issue on my schedule after that, but I’m not sure when that will fit into the story.
Oh one other thing of interest with this issue; when I was trying to come up with all the Oppenheimer variants, I took to Twitter to ask people of ideas. It was a fun crowd sourcing experiment and it lead to at least 20 of the Oppenheimer types being direct ideas of twitter followers.
COMICS!
(Editor’s Note: Sadly, he didn’t take my tweet suggestion:)
Next up, I asked Jonathan Hickman about the end of this era:
So, this issue, seemingly, ends the first big chunk of the book – it started with Oppenheimer, and this issue ends Oppenheimer. How differently did the first 19 issues of the series look versus how you envisioned it when you and Nick started working on the series? What is the one major difference in the plan versus the execution?
Jonathan Hickman: Actually, everything gets tied together next month with issue #20. It’s kind of a cull circle thing where at the end of it, everyone has to figure out what’s next…it kind of leads into “the further adventures of the Manhattan Projects” — which is really the story we’ve been waiting to tell.
It’s all very exciting.
Anyway, back on point…
And as I’ve said before, “Manhattan Projects” is the one book where I give myself (and Nick gives himself) the luxury of deciding where the story is going month-to-month. Now, as I stated above, there was a point I wanted to get to, but we’ve taken much longer getting there than I initially thought we would (I thought this is where we’d be at the end of 10 — not 20!). I’d call that a major difference.
Oh, we also killed Fermi off A LOT quicker than I thought we would, but that’s because we’ve got something much, much cooler up our sleeve.
Okay, back to comics!
Issue #15 was the second of three Oppenheimer stories – the parallels are pretty clear, I’d think.
Next month is now!
This issue is, essentially, a look back at where Einstein has been since his exile in issue #4.
“What is the greater purpose of an experiment?”
A broad question beings the issue, and the questions don’t get much easier as the book moves on.
Continued below
We see Albert, just moments after Albrecht knocked him out and pushed him through the portal. What begins is a travelogue across the multiverse, seeing the scientists of the Projects somehow always drawn together, in interesting pairings. I present now, with limited commentary:
“What is the greater purpose of a life?”
Returning artist Nick Pitarra and Hickman give us a really fun romp through various worlds, some looking quite familiar.
Above and to the left, we have what appears to be a facsimile of the sandworms from Beetejuice, next to Einstein as a conquering He-Man (perhaps from the same planet as von Braun He-Man, perhaps not).
Here we have both an MC Escher inspired world, and something that appears to borrow a page from Hickman/Pitarra’s previous book together, “The Red Wing.”
Personally, this is the world I’m hoping for a return to the most – Pitarra’s detail-rich style on an underwater issue sounds like a dream. A wet dream, perhaps. (Jeez – hanging out with Pitarra at Emerald City has influenced me more than I had realized. Why do I want to arm wrestle you right now?)
Issue #1 features two Oppenheimers who couldn’t share the same world any longer, and so one destroyed the other. Issue #20 features two Einsteins, one of who has a legitimate gripe against the other, and for whom violence would not have been surprising, coming to live together in the same world. The red ate the blue; the white creates the black.
It is a bold new world for these men.
“Are they not the same thing?”
This quote actually helps us understand Einstein’s forgiveness a little more. He sees all of this as a test of will, of intelligence, of perseverance. Albrecht did what he needed to in order to escape; Albert did the same. He thinks he can learn from his duplicate. We shall see.
1. The Scientists are very clearly ok with accepting Albrecht, now that the know his secret.
Look, I’m a guy who loves to grill – I’d invite near anyone to a BBQ at the Salvatore homestead. That said, if I found out one of my coworkers was being impersonated for the past decade or so, I don’t know if I’d necessarily be grilling up a hot dog for him.
But that seems to be the M.O. for these guys – everything is fair game if it is scientifically useful. And having two Einsteins, at the very least, can be dubbed as useful.
2. What of the military?
When we last saw our science-heroes captured, Groves had aligned himself with Westmoreland to take down the projects. Well, here we are, and the scientists are free and clear. Were they liberated by Einstein(s)? Did Harry irradiate them?
My guess? Einstein(s) took ’em out – but we’ll see.
3. More mirrors
The series has always been about mirror images, and now moreso than ever. The Einsteins. Harry and Dmitri. von Braun (man who builds rockets) and Gagarin (man who rides rockets).
What does this mean for the series as a whole? Well, if Groves and Westmoreland are still around, perhaps they will build their own gang of military men, set out to take down the scientists. Depending when we are (see below), perhaps they’re going to take on some of the more violet men from the Vietnam war to create the reflection of evil soldiers reflected back from the evil scientists?
4. When are we?
Continued belowI would think that we are on the precipice of the Moon Landing – an iconic scientific event that would be greatly changed by the Projects. I could be wrong, but I can’t imagine we are much further into time than 1969.
(Note – I wrote this part over a week before getting Jonathan Hickman’s answer to question 5 in my mini-survey below)
5. Which Oppenheimer kept popping up?
We see a “King” Oppenheimer show up on one of the parallel Earths, and it had me wondering: if Oppenheimer was a twin on all of these planets, then which twin are we seeing? Is Robert always the one who loses?
I would think so – Einstein has no love lost for the Oppenheimers of other planets, and so it makes sense that they, too, would be the evil twins.
So, now the question remains: if 93% of the Oppenheimers from inside his brain were created in Project Charon, how many of them were the blues versus the reds?
Since this issue wraps up the initial chunk of the series, I thought it would be fun to ask Nick Pitarra and Jonathan Hickman a few questions, closing out the first 20 issues and previewing the next batch.
1. What character has changed in the most unexpected way since #1?
Nick Pitarra: I’d probably say Harry, we first see him in issue 2 or 3 and he wants to eat Plutonium …he hungers for it. By issue 5 he melts an alien race (against his will), by issue 11 he really wants ice cream, and ultimately gets betrayed by his best friend. I like how the embodiment of the core idea of The Manhattan Project …the guy walking around as an irradiated skull in a hazmat suit…quickly became the most human member of The Manhattan Projects.
Jonathan Hickman: Visually, if you’re talking about the horrific, awful change that Nick has wrought, then it would have to be Von Braun, but, yeah, it would probably be Harry for me as well.
2. Jonathan, who is your favorite character to write? Nick, who is your favorite character to draw?
JH: Oh, I really liked writing Oppenheimer. Oppenheimers. Whatever.
NP: I love(d) drawing Masonic Truman. It was Jon’s idea to give him that big Galactus hat , so I in turn had him parade around in underwear …to match Jon’s design sense. I think he’s a good example of what the book is…crazy over the top takes on historical figures. When he first showed up…I think that was the first bit of Marvel style script/slightly looser script I got …so he kind of represents trust in our creative relationship. Basically Jon knows that if he trust me too much…I’m going to draw everyone in their underwear.
3. What was something you wish you could have worked into the first 20 issues, but weren’t able to?
NP: I’m still mad Jon won’t squeeze in Jack Parsons. He developed the rocket feul for Von Braun’s rockets, and believed he could create a life out of chemicals …a Moon Baby or something. He blew himself up in the lab trying to do it (or did the Government kill him? Or the church?) I want to draw a mutant lump of living flesh called Moon Baby hanging out w the MP team. How cool would it be to have Harry burping and bottle feeding a mash potatoed lump of flesh. Really cool.
JH: I really wanted to get into the Japanese side of things that we hinted at in issue #1. There’s probably an argument to be made that we actually ripped too fast through the post-WWII period stuff, but, as people will see in this next arc, there’s actually a much more interesting place that we want to get the entire book to. Someplace way more interesting than stupid fucking Jack Parsons.
4. Which bit that the other did (something Nick drew or Jon wrote) was your favorite surprise to see come to life?
Continued below
NP: As far as coming to life…the whole thing. Too see where the idea started with Jon calling me all excited about it…years ago…a year or more before we ever started actually. I was still in school …had an office desk job making $11 bucks an hour. To where we are now. Nominated for Eisner awards, making the New York Times best sellers list a few times, we were quoted in USA today. We’ve made all these fun characters our own and I’m making a living as a comic book artist (my childhood dream job) all because of Jon and his crazy ideas and work ethic and belief in me as an artist. Thinking about that 1st phone call from Jon …to where we are now…it’s been crazy to watch it all come together.
JH: Sure. The book is a process. It’s really the only thing I do that is completely organic, which means some months we create this weird, beautiful thing and some months we fall a little short. But, without fail, I feel like the book absolutely feels like a jazz show at a speakeasy where they serve everyone too much booze. Which is what we want, and wouldn’t stand for it being any other way.
5. If you had to tease the next 20 issues using a maximum of 5 words, what would you say?
NP: I’ll describe what I’m drawing right now, ‘guy with unibrow and squidarm’.
JH: ’70’s one-shots with futuristic sensibility.’
Issue #16 was all about pulling the curtain back on the projects – this issue is about pulling the curtain back on Albrecht.
Laika! Ryan Browne! Yay!
Thanks again for reading the column! I hope to get back to a monthly pace starting with #21. As always, agree, disagree, recommend recipes or tell me how surprisingly good the Mets pitching staff has been in the comments, or email brian@multiversitycomics.com!
