the manattan projects

On the off chance the words I write here spur you to actually check out Jonathan Hickman's new comic series The Manhattan Projects (Image), I don't want to say too much about it. Alternate histories of World War II are well-worn territory in science fiction and comic books, from Captain America to Crytonomicon. Somehow, TMP manages to be fresh, at least based on the first two issues. The premise is that the public purpose of the Manhattan Project (to build the first atomic bomb, in case you missed that history class) was actually just a cover for much more interesting stuff. The main characters are the most famous physicists of the 20th century, fictionalized in a pretty entertaining way: Robert Oppenheimer (has a bit of an evil twin problem), Richard Feynman (hilariously vain), and Albert Einstein (kind of a badass, it turns out) to name a few.

Check it out.