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Last week we explored the major themes in Jonathan Hickman’s East of West. This week we continue with another Hickman series, The Manhattan Projects, and this time the main theme is deception. Hickman does also include his usual themes of hubris, love, and family relationships (particularly the paternal), but deception is the engine that drives this story. Last week I made the superficial comparison between East of West and The Manhattan Projects in that they both deal with alternate histories. The main difference at this level is that the former diverges after the Civil War while the latter diverges during World War II. But that’s where the similarities end. East of West is self-serious and the pencils and colors reflect that seriousness. The Manhattan Projects is, in a way, dark slapstick and the caricature pencils that mirror some of the Underground Comix looks of the 70s and 80s along with a light palette reflects the comedy. Nick Pitarra, on pencil and ink duties, does a wonderful job setting the tone with all the little details in his work. Last week, I compared East of West to Kill Bill. The Manhattan Projects is like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. In fact, the comparison is spot on (including an ex-Nazi with a mechanical arm) - if you liked the tone of Dr Strangelove you’ll enjoy The Manhattan Projects. (And in issue #20 there’s a reference to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) In the first scene General Leslie Grove’s office is littered with weapons everywhere. His desk even has bullet holes and he wears a grenade on his chest

Most writers have themes they return to time and again, each time looking at a different way. This also is true of many of the most lauded comic book writers. Alan Moore is fond of using public domain characters and exploring politics and the deconstruction and reconstruction of super hero tropes. When working with established characters, Grant Morrison can’t seem to get enough joy out of mining a character’s past continuity to find new ways of making what is often a discarded, silly part of the Golden or Silver Age canon bring new light and understanding to a character. Morrison also likes to explore the metaphysical, leading to dense comic writing that can be hard to get through, but rewarding if you get all the references and points he’s making. He also likes to look at the future consequences of today’s actions, most famously during his runs on New X-Men and Batman. Mark Waid has become the master of exploring the consequences of lies and the truths we withhold from each other. His heroes have secrets even from each other and that can lead to dire consequences. Finally, we have Jonathan Hickman who seems to have two primary themes that run through his work. The first is about the role of fathers and the effects of having/not having a father and having/not having a family. He has explored this in more than one comic, but it is the central theme of his excellent run on Fantastic Four and FF. I would love to see another writer run with the fact that Hickman has Valeria choose Dr Doom as her father figure. Hickman also enjoys exploring how a cabal of very intelligent people can radically change the world. This was a minor theme during his run on Fantastic Four, but it is a central theme in S.H.I.E.L.D., The New Avengers, The Manhattan Projects and East of West. The Manhattan Projects, which we’ve covered before in the old challenge format of this site (and a commentary will appear next week), is a world in which the development of the atomic bomb was the least important and least radical thing being done by the group of scientists in the south west of the United States. Things continue to spiral into a radically different version of history as the scientists discover space travel, teleportation, and AI. East of West is starts off with normal history and then, during the American Civil War, a meteor strikes Earth. Control of the USA splits into seven nations - Union, Confederacy, Texas, Chinese (PRA), Native American nations (The Endless Nation), African American (The Kingdom), and I’m slightly unclear if Armistice is considered the seventh. A cabal of leaders - mostly the leaders of the Seven Nations at the time of the armistice - also write The Message. The Message is a Revelation-type prophecy for bringing about the Apocalypse. For some reason the cabal sees this as a desirable thing

A few weeks ago She-Hulk made headlines for all of the wrong reasons. David Goyer, writer of the upcoming movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, made some truly indefensible and ignorant comments about her on the Scriptnotes podcast. He glibly insulted her by reducing her entire character down to a sex object for the Hulk in much less polite language than I’ll use here (for more details you can read this article on IGN). ...

We are used to comics containing metaphorical representations of puberty. With the X-Men it is no coincidence that the mutant powers kick in when the characters reach puberty. There’s no better metaphor for the inexplicable changes the body partakes during puberty than to suddenly start shooting lasers out of your eyes. Let’s not forget Rogue’s power. Her near killing of a boy when acting on the urges that come from puberty is the perfect metaphor for promiscuity. Elsewhere in the Marvel Universe, we have Spider-Man. He is doing stuff in his room that he doesn’t want his Aunt May to discover. And, I think it’s pretty obvious what Spidey’s webbing is a metaphor for. With Matt Fraction’s Sex Criminals the puberty metaphor is completely stripped away although new metaphors about sex come to the fore.

I couldn’t attend Baltimore Comic-Con last year because of family commitments, but I did attend in 2012 and had a blast. If you’re in the region, I highly recommend attending. As you’ll see below, you get the same top talent as you would at New York or California Comic-Con, but it’s WAY less crowded. Also, the focus at Baltimore Comic-Con is on comics. I still would like to attend both California and NY Comic-Con one day, but it’s pretty awesome not to have to battle for space with people who don’t care for comics. This year Baltimore Comic-Con has expanded to three days and takes place over the weekend of September 5-7, 2014! Who will be there?

If you’re into digital comics and you’re on a budget, I’ve got two great pieces of news for you. The first is that comixology is doing a Summer Reading List giveaway. Each day, they’re giving away a different comic, completely free. Each free deal is only good for a day, so you do have to log in each day to get your freebie, but they have an email list that’s free to join for daily reminders. So far, they’ve given away Detective Comics #871, which is the first issue in The Black Mirror, my very favorite Batman story of all time; Magnus: Robot Fighter #1: Digital Exclusive Edition, which is the first issue of the relaunch of Magnus: Robot Fighter from earlier this year; My Little Pony: Pony Tales Vol. 1, which collects the first six issues of the My Little Pony comics for over 150 pages of Ponies; and Lumberjanes #1, which I’ve already spoken about at length and highly recommend to everyone who hasn’t yet picked it up.

Time once again for a roundup of upcoming Images series so we can find out how Image Comics will get all our money. Wayward The subject-line for the press release for Wayward claimed, “The perfect new series for wayward Buffy fans.” I’m currently working my way through Buffy Season 9 (article forthcoming), but after the insanity of Season 8 (which did have lots of high points), there are many Buffy fans that have become disillusioned. My wife is one of these - she loved the TV show and gave Season 8 a chance, but refuses to read Season 9 after what happened last time. The fact that Buffy was on UPN/WB/The CW kept me from watching it at the time. However, I did really enjoy it on DVD, so I’m excited to see another story in the same vein. I’m not really familiar with the output of the creatives, but I definitely want to give it a chance, especially since it mentions Japanese mythological monsters. My time with manga as well as some recent Japanese sci-fi short stories has left me wanting to explore that part of Japanese culture a bit more.

X-Men: Days of Future Past opened in theaters across America this weekend. The movie is a strong installment in the X-Men franchise and manages to fix some of the continuity errors and poor decisions from past movies that have frustrated fans of the series. There are a lot of good things about the movie and it is very entertaining; however the decision to retell the comic story Days of Future Past in the movieverse that FOX has established led to some questionable changes.

Saga resumes today and, combined with the Humble Bundle sale which included Volumes 1 and 2, I think it’s as good a point as any to examine what Brian K Vaughan is saying with Saga as it moves into its next phase in which our narrator is a toddler. After all, Y: The Last Man, Vaughan’s previous original story, is no more about a world in which one man is left alive than The Walking Dead is about zombies. In fact, I’m behind on The Walking Dead, but at the point at which I’ve stopped, no one knows why it happened and Kirkman seems in no rush to tell us, if at all. Similarly, Y: The Last Man left the reason behind the deaths up to the reader.

It’s the middle of May, which means that the TV schedules for fall have been released. There are seven – count them, SEVEN – live action comics-inspired television shows set to air on cable networks this fall, and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited. It’s no surprise to anyone at this point that ABC’s hit Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was renewed; its numbers have been solid, even if the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier did leave a lot of people wondering what, exactly, that show was going to be about. As it turns out, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with the fallout in a way that will make for an action-packed second season – and, by the end of the season, had redeemed itself somewhat in my eyes from some of the mistakes it made earlier on.