Welcome to our Summer Comics Binge of “The Manhattan Projects” by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra. I’ve read work by both creators before, namely Hickman’s X title relaunch and half of “East of West” (that’s on hold until I finish “The Manhattan Projects”), and Pitarra’s short-lived “Leviathan.” I’ll be reviewing a volume of the series every week. Be warned, this review does contain spoilers.
Cover by Nick PitarraThe Manhattan Projects Vol. 4
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Illustrated by Nick Pitarra (#16-18, #20) and Ryan Browne (#19)
Colored by Jordie Bellaire
Lettered by Rus WootonIt’s the fourth volume of the world’s greatest secret science history, THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS. “The Four Disciplines” follows our fractured cast as they focus on their own diverse, secret experiments and global power plays resulting in inevitable betrayal.
With every volume of the series, it’s grown more and more apparent that the scientists’ goal of fully fledged space travel is a potential end point for the series, rather than a point of success to be explored during the series. With this latest volume, I’ve become really torn about how I feel about that; on one hand, this volume is another strong entry to the series and it gave me the most laughs throughout, instead of having standout moments, but, on the other hand, I really want more space travel. These characters are certainly not the best suited for the colonization of the solar system but I’d really like to see what would happen anyway. I expected that they would have been attempting to by this point in the series with them clashing against the existing empirical territories. Who knows, maybe that will come with the next volume.
Anyway, away from what the comic isn’t, and onto what the comic is. What the comic still is, is a lot of fun. The volume resumes with the scientists still imprisoned under the rule of General Westmoreland following Oppenheimer’s betrayal. I really liked the portrayal of Westmoreland in this volume because it makes Groves’ caricature look so tame. Westmoreland is absolutely obsessed with violence and he’s unashamed of it. He struts round with his necklace of ears and has no care whatsoever for science because he’s got a machine gun. Who can disagree with that logic?
The science can, that’s who, which takes the form of a great big blue alien, an amalgamation of two (or more) species that the fake Einstein (more on that in a bit) and Feynmann have spliced together in Project Gaia. This alien is engineered to supersede expectations and it does on multiple levels in the comic. Firstly, even before being spliced with another alien, when Hickman and Pitarra end issue #16, it feels like the alien being introduced is going to be on par with the Predator and, shortly into #17, that expectation has been (you guessed it) superseded. This ‘predator,’ rather than ruthlessly killing its prey understands the scientists and is hurt by the fact that they’re calling him names. Hickman’s dialogue for the alien (who is served the injustice of never being formally named, I might add) completely stifles the expectations by characterising it like a, uh, caricatured surfer dude, who’s, like, uh, simply been stuck on a planet wanting to escape, man. Secondly, Pitarra’s design for the character works so well with Hickman’s script. On its approach, the strange tendrils that extend out of the aliens joints are weird and certainly alien, whilst the tendrils on its jawline pay homage to the Predator. It’s bulging bug eyes remove such an important point of human connection and interaction too, ensuring that in the panels before its full reveal, it looks menacing, only for this to be a great misdirection.
Once this alien’s head, with four brains inside, is planted onto the body of another, it makes for the ultimate superseder of expectations and when this seemingly unstoppable force collides with the immovable object that is General Westmoreland, the outcome will surprise you.
There’s so much humor generated through the scenes with the two aliens before being spliced together and it permeates throughout the opening three issues. The undercutting of expectations with the ‘predator’ seems to reinvigorate the series which had seen lots of its humor run a little dry with regularity. At the same time as the amalgamated alien anarchy, Oppenheimer injects Groves with multiple truth serums to get him to tell him the access codes for Project Vulcan. Groves under the incredibly strong influence of the serums, slurring his words and still trying to evade Oppenheimer, is one of the series’ highlights so far.
Continued belowNot long after this, Hickman gives the series its biggest death by having Oppenheimer killed moments after Robert gains control. Bellaire’s color work marks this moment, whether fully intentionally or not, by introducing a purple hue to the series’ palette. It was a subtle wash for the background of the panels to isolate Oppenheimer, which ties to a purple machine in the scene, but it gives the series a little moment of freshness that did not go unnoticed. Personally, I was glad to see Oppenheimer written out of the story as I felt that his multiple personalities had run their course, although, in doing so, the issue that follows, #19, feels hollowed out.
Ryan Browne takes the artistic reins again for the Oppenheimer Civil War issue, which is the penultimate of the volume, rather than the final. It depicts the final scenes of the War, showing how it has grown in scale, with Robert’s blue forces regrouping on the moon. Like his previous two issues, Browne fuels the action sequence with so many uniquely designed Oppenheimers, its staggering that they don’t appear to be repeated. Another neat design addition this week was in the restoration of Robert’s horse, who, having roamed around decapitated for so long, now has a robotic head crowned with a machine gun. All of these designs give the issue its epic, yet absurd style, worthy of the finale of the War, but is undermined because the outcome is void (unless Oppenheimer is resurrected) and it feels like a disservice to Browne’s efforts.
The final issue of the volume explores where Albert (not Albrecht, who we have been following) Einstein has been all of this time. He escaped from the somewhat parallel universe that Albrecht trapped him in and has been hopping through to others. It goes without saying that Pitarra’s panels depicting the travels are great and he even shows us Einstein doing his Aquaman impression; wielding a trident and riding a shark. (Yes, this comic will give you everything you never knew you needed.) I was left wanting more of these strange and bizarre alternate worlds and, by the end of the issue, with the scientists left, once again, merely with the ambition of travelling into the frontiers of space, time, and beyond, but I can’t help but question whether those ambitions will ever be realised.
Overall, “The Manhattan Projects” volume four is the funniest entry into the series that’s filled with more great artwork by Pitarra and Browne.
