The American Way


By John Ridley (W) and Georges Jeanty (A)

Published by Wildstorm, 2006, originally as eight issues. $19.99

Last year, I deeply considered picking up the first issue of The American Way, a mini-series from Wildstorm. After the first issue, I heard so much positive press that I decided to give it a try, but by that time the first issue was sold out and I never followed through. I finally found out what I’d been missing when Wildstorm released the eight issues collected (coming out tomorrow).

Photobucket - Video and Image HostingThe Plot: The story takes place in 1961. Kennedy is in power. The Cold War is hot. Civil Rights battles are breaking out. And the United States is held together by a superhero team aligned with the government. Through the eyes of Wes, an auto promoter turned government shill, we’re taken inside this superhero team. And we learn that it’s mostly bull flop – real heroes fighting fake villains to keep the populace feeling patriotic. Think Marvels meets Watchmen meets New Frontier meets X-Statix meets Astro City. (Don’t take my word for it. read author John Ridley saying as much.)

The Positives: Looking at the list of influences above, it’s pretty obvious that The American Way is trading in high intellectual currency, at least when it comes to comics. The story is essentially a metaphorical (and sometimes literal) examination of the Civil Rights movement, as a black superhero is incorporated into the team, which also contains some southerners who are not at all happy to have him around. In many ways, the story rises from its influences into new ground, and especially in the look it takes into race relations. The true battle of the book is over race (although there is a “big bad” inserted), but the sides don’t break down to black vs. white or north vs. south. Yet, it’s also a superhero book and manages to keep up a pretty steady pace, which isn’t a surprise considering Ridley also wrote the excellent movie Three Kings. And while all the characters are archetypes, they’re still made into individuals. My favorite is the rendition of Lois Lane.

Penciler Georges Jeanty and inker Karl Story also deserve a good word. While their art isn’t so groundbreaking as Ridley has claimed, it is very traditional hero stuff (think Invincible meets Ultimate Spider-Man), which is perfectly fitting for the story. The book is also laid out very nicely. Nothing radically new, just strong.

The Negatives: Looking at the list of influences above, you can tell that a lot of what’s contained in this book is rehash. Yeah, it’s been shaped in a new way, but it’s still old territory (that whole “real look at superheroes thing”). The “big bad” also leaves something to be desired. He’s just kind of stuck in there, like a random cog kicked into play so the gears of the plot have something to catch on. He’s evil personified and has wholly unknown powers, okay? Speaking of which, for some reason it really bothers me that the story is written to set in this world where everything happens exactly as it really did in history. Except, there are superheroes. I guess the problem is that after reading something like Watchmen, you expect these sorts of books to show that the presence of heroes has impacted the course of the world. Here, it hasn’t.

There are also some moments of flawed logic. For no real reason, there’s a character who sees the future, except he refuses to do anything with that only power of his, when the fate of the world is on the line. There’s another hero that’s a super intellect, and he apparently solves the mystery that comes into play in the last act, and he makes only the smallest of efforts to prevent trouble, when it’s implied that he could’ve saved the day. I think the problem might be that the story is just too big for eight issues. Given how much happens (it’s a LOT), it easily could’ve handled another couple of issues for room to breathe.

Grade: B+ It’s a flawed book, yes. But it’s still enjoyable, interesting and exciting, a trifecta that many books fail to achieve. A slight bummer is the near complete lack of any special features (not even an introduction), but the story stands up on its own. Which is to say, if Ridley ever decides to return to the material, I’ll make sure and pick up issue one.