My favorite way to spend my one hour, unpaid work break is to read comics. Thirty minutes is plenty of time to delve into a story without feeling fatigued. My comic back log is slowly decreasing as a result of my comics reading at lunch. Included in this backlog was the first volume of Image comics Manhattan Project series. I was able to snag this at Convergence a couple months ago when one of my favorite comic book stores appeared as a vendor. They were doing a buy one get one 50% off which to a comic book reader, is the perfect deal. This trade is equally intriguing, historically accurate and entertaining.

Imagine if the Manhattan Project was more than creating the atomic bomb, but to cover up the fact the U.S. was collaborating with aliens. The inventors or contributors to the Manhattan Project are as follows:

Joseph Oppenheimer: physicist, multiple personalities, slightly psychotic

Albert Einstein: German, beer drinker, physicist.

Richard Feynman: Genius, narcissist, slightly annoying

Harry Daghlian: super genius, fried in a radioactive accident, consists of a skeleton with black smoke around his head.

Wernher Von Braun: Nazi, rocket scientist, fake arm.

Leslie Groves: Recruiter, smokes, enjoys bombing other countries

FDR A.I: Yes, this actually exists.

Harry S. Truman: Illuminati?

This first volume details how all of these people interact with each other along with the alien species they cooperate with. What’s so intriguing about this novel is how all of these characters are real people with a twist. Harry Daghlian was a physicist who unfortunately died because of accidental exposure to radiation which I never knew about. Joseph Oppenheimer is a real physicist who is apparently not a serial killer. I felt this novel allowed me to learn more about U.S. history in an interesting way.

The Manhattan Project was written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Nick Pitarra. Hickman has been Eiser-nominated for a couple of other indie series such as Nightly News, Transhuman and Pax Romana however, he’s also known for writing at MARVEL on books featuring the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Pitarra has completed covers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, God Hates Astronauts and Judge Dredd. Both of their talent is being utilized in this ongoing series which has 6 volumes total chronicling U.S. history, science and the supernatural.

Honestly, this trade is fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed how each of the characters introduced were actually a part of the real Manhattan projects and I like the twist on each character especially the design of Harry Daghlian.  Who knew learning about U.S. history could be so enthralling.