Truman and the Bomb

[superboyprime]

After FDR passed away, his body was put in cold storage and handed to the Manhattan Projects.



The general has a chat with President Truman.

Comments

[akodo_rokku]

This book has a very Warren Ellis feel, doesn't it?

[mrstatham]

I don't think Ellis would butcher actual historical figures so readily.

[espanolbot]

Well he did depict Winston Churchill in the same way as the Mysterious Council in Poorly Lit Rooms from the Avengers Movie in Ministry of Space...

[mrstatham]

Except I'd argue Churchill was well written, there. And not really close to the butchered depictions of figures from recent history that Hickman has thrown out here.

Again, it's just opinion. But I haven't liked Manhattan Projects at all; It feels very old-hat to have Hickman do yet another history-revision project after SHIELD and Secret Warriors.

[darkknightjrk]

Is it just me, or is Hickman's Marvel work just kicking the ass of his creator-owned work? All this "insert historical figure + sci-fi concept" formula's starting to wear thin on me. This week's issue of FF veered close to that, but it pulled up by doing an interesting reveal.

I just want to see Hickman do something different, do a creator-owned story that doesn't involve politics or sci-fi, and not another, "Alexander Ghram Bell was secretly a cyborg ninja who can command coyotes" malarkey.

That said, the idea of FDR running a shadow government running the US after his death is one of the most frightening fucking things I've heard in a while. Would actually explain a lot, frankly.

[espanolbot]

I just want the rest of SHIELD to be finished. I liked that series. :(

[darkknightjrk]

And that's one thing that's really bothering me about Manhattan Projects--so far, everything about it feels like a half-assed clone of SHIELD. "All these famous historical figures were actually part of a secret society protecting and semi-ruling mankind!"

[espanolbot]

The thing is though, there was a lot of weird crap being done at the time by governments in the hope of winning the War, and then later in the Fifties and Sixties in the hope of quelling any Communist/Capitalist uprisings or fighting the next World War if one was to break out.

The UK had their own atomic weapons programme, but it the equipment and staff were shipped over to the States once they joined the War. Winston Churchill once too part in a druidic ceremony designed as a means of psychological warfare after hearing of the Nazis fascination with the occuult. After the War the Soviets put actual funding into possibly creating an army of human/chimp hybrids as well as psychic research, while the US had MKULTRA and all the experiments going on involving prison inmates and that one thing where they infected African American people with syphilis and didn't tell them out it, in order to study the effects.

Weird, mad sciency stuff did happen... though not just to the extent that this says.

[cainofdreaming]

Stalin's man-apes was covered in one of the Big Books, I think. It wasn't military research, just very weird early genetics experiment. If anything it was used for anti-religious propaganda, not for trying to make soldiers.

Still, iffy stuff. The lead scientist first proposed to use unknowing women as insemination subjects and such.

[espanolbot]

I remember that in the UK there's been a long running court case involve our military exposing soldiers to nerve gas in order to see what the effects are without telling them what exactly it is they were getting dosed with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porton_Down#Deaths_attributed_to_Porton_Down

Though it turned out that the stuff they made turned out to be powerful enough for the US to give us thermonuclear weapon designs in exchange for them (only for the Michael Bay film 'the Rock' to just say that the US miltary invented VX instead, but eh, it's Bay).

I can't help but wonder where we'd be right now if people hadn't wasted their money on the post-WW2 atomic weapons programmes though. I guess we'd either had better tech but social stagnation or tech progresses slower along with society in general.

[cf105]

Not to mention the stuff that the Nazi's did during the holocaust. Some was just plain old cruelty but some was actual science, just without ethics and moral restraint.

My one way of thinking of this is that its not the Feynman, Einstein et al. that we are used too. This is a different universe with different physical laws.

All that being said why not just make up your own fictional ones!!!

It's Science!

[jlroberson]

Well, I guess SOMEONE had to actually do an experiment to find out what happens when you inject gasoline into people's veins. I mean, you can't just assume that'll kill someone and in a horribly painful way beyond torture. I mean, if you found it didn't, then you'd have a new way to transport fuel and that meant a lot to the war effort.

[bewareofgeek]

Hickman does love his secret conspiracies. At least they aren't sitting around a big table in fancy chairs this time.

[jlroberson]

Much harder to explore the overt business done every day over lunch right in our faces. Much more fun to make up secret paranoid stuff that keeps people thinking on a basic, fearful and paranoid level, and LOVING IT.

And that's what all this conspiracy pop amounts to, and it's tired, and needs to be retired.

Though again, for some reason I still like the book. Not Hickman in general, just this.

[jlroberson]

I agree with all these points, and yet I'm also enjoying this book. And I am a history nerd and especially this period of history, and stuff dealing with the Cold War and the Bomb that I've taken classes in. So I should be ashamed and yet I'm not. Maybe it's the fact that usually I don't like Hickman, and so usually avoid him, that this doesn't seem as relentlessly repetitive to me. I do find his approach you describe only bearable on a toy level.

[espanolbot]

What exactly was this universe's version of Truman expecting to happen if the bomb wasn't dropped? The indoctrination of the Japanese public was such that they fully expected that if the US invaded Japanese soil they'd embark on the same kind of atrocities that the Imperial Japanese army did in the coutnries tha they occupied, so as such everyone was expected to keep fighting until their was no one left OR to commit suicide while destroying any left over resources (of which there weren't many of, as a lot of people were starting to starve to death).

The dropping of the atomic bombs were horrible, with the tole it took on future generations of Japanese people in the terms of fallout (coupled with costing us out Shiny Jetpack Future due to all of our governments wasting their cash on M.A.D.) especially, but really, a land invasion of Japan would have been so much worse considering who was in power at the time.

So yeah, although it's being protrayed as something carried out illegally by rogue government personnel, it also comes under the horrific heading of "The Ends Justify the Means" as it would end the war faster and save thousands of lives. Particularly in the universe that this is set, which makes it appear that the Axis Powers had similar esoteric weapons programmes to the one headed by the US here.

[cainofdreaming]

Well, if it's similar to ours then Japan had already tried to sue for peace by this time. And their demands had pretty much dropped to that the emperor wouldn't be prosecuted, which they feared would have lead to uprising (even after the bombs there was an attempt at one when Japan surrendered) if unconditional surrender was accepted.

[deleonjh]

That also figured into the decision to drop the bomb, but don't forget the cynical desire to demonstrate to the Soviets exactly what the US was capable of. Many in the West were already planning what they saw as the coming war against the USSR in the midst of the current war against the Axis. Churchill even had ideas about pushing past Germany toward Russia and using German soldiers, to boot.

[darkknightjrk]

Hell, from what I've read, the fire-bombs that the US was dropping on Japan before the Atomics were actually worse and claimed far more lives and damage than Fat Man and Little Boy did.

[icon_uk]

The military guy is every single tired cliché in one, isn't he? Visually and, at a guess, ideologically.

[arbre_rieur]

Well, considering that this is the kind of figure Leslie Groves actually had...

[arbre_rieur]

He's the one on the right, just to be clear.

[icon_uk]

Ah, I hadn't sussed he was based on a real person too.

Though given that he's a clean shaven, somewhat pudgy figure of later middle years, I'm not seeing much of a link between that photo and the generic-military, steroidal, wearing-a-grenade-belt-indoors, shouty-type carcicature above.

[espanolbot]

Cliche... but there were actually soldiers like than, both then and now.

One US soldier actually went into battle with a sword to stab people with for example, while an English one ("Mad" Jack Churchill) fought Nazis with a claymore sword, bow and arrows... by choice. Churchill was also an avid surfer, which is kind of bizarre.

I remember reading somewhere that Patton actually wanted to arm the Germans who weren't involved in actual war crimes so they could continue the war, but against the Soviets.

[icon_uk]

I'm sure there are, and fine warriors in their way I'm sure.

But would many of them be promoted to be involved as Military head of a project like this one?

[espanolbot]

Well there was a war on, and Patton was like a general or something, so... Yes, providing he could get the job done, I'd imagine that they would put them in charge of a project like this.

Like in a documentary that I watched yesterday regarding Operation Mincemeat (a plan throught up by Ian Fleming (yes, HIM) that involved dumping a fresh corpse off the coast of Spain with falsified military documents chained in a suitcase to his twist) kind of implied that the people in charge of secret projects, at least in the British intelligence services, kind of had a lot of... eccentric people on staff who were noted for having kind of bizarre senses of humour.

[icon_uk]

I'm familiar with Operation Mincemeat (and the film "The Man Who Never Was" was based on it too). And yes, the eccentric approach worked, though in fairness that was far from the first example of that trick, just, perhaps, the most complex and deeply thought out. (I also recommend the excellent book" Churchill's Wizards" about the espionage and counter-espionage techniques that the Allies developed in WWII, many successful, some.... entertainingly less so)

This guy though, seems to have escaped from Dr Strangelove.

[biod]

It was a satire of SOMETHING.

[icon_uk]

Strangelove parodied characteristics and borad character strokes, and took them to absurdist levels.

This is trying to do the same whislt tying itself to actual historical figures and I just don't think it works.

[biod]

In this case I agree with you, but the Wars had their fair share of characters and then some.

[glprime]

My counter would be that Patton had the more responsible and just plain SANE Bradley eventually promoted over him. Patton (and those like him) got the job done in limited circumstances, and weren't good for much else. An insane, maverick of a general doesn't get the kind of autonomy that allows him to push the button without somebody's say-so because everyone knows he's insane.

The top admins are usually very strict, by-the-book types because that's who we want at that level.

Not that you can't write characters like that, but it then does become a highly fantastical character.

[glprime]

Yep. And so many portrayals of General Rippers makes me roll my eyes so fast the spin attunes itself to a parallel dimension and I go on wacky adventures with a revolving number of companions (but I digress...)

Generals don't take the orders of the CIC lightly, and I most commonly see this portrayal by very anti-military authors who don't do a lot of research about actual military hierarchy and procedure. Saying, "alternate history, wartime exceptions, craaaazy conspiracies" still leaves such gaping holes of logic my suspension of disbelief is not broken so much as murdered, revived as an abomination and then murdered again.

But again, "derpy derp, comics don't need logic, wheeee!"

[maseiken]

Truman: My god! That General disobeyed my orders and caused the Mass Slaughter of an ENTIRE EFFING CITY!
I'll have to get busy Never Ever telling anyone that's what happened!

[nyadnar17]

This series should be so much fun, but its just leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Truman made a tough decision. You don't have to like or agree with it, but to just rewrite history and to paint those who wanted to drop the bomb as amoral zealots to boot...I don't like it.

[biod]

I'm a commenter on a comic board, and I endorse this message.

[glprime]

Seconded.

[wizardru]

Yeah, I agree. I'm not sure why it's not working, either. I mean, something's just off about it. Partly, I think, because it appears to be treading well-worn ground and the payoff just isn't as rewarding.

In part it feels like the comic is just trying too hard, IMHO.

[espanolbot]

Ah, some parts seem to be pretty amusing.

[darkknightjrk]

This book seems to have a lot of really stupid takes on historical figures...but Einstein kicking Nazi ass is not one of them.

[maseiken]

Everything, ever being due to a Strawman Military... Guy while you have Feynman sort of follow him around like a lost puppy doesn't help.

[glprime]

Since I'm only following this here, who is Dr. Floating Skull-In-A-Jar?

[arbre_rieur]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr.

[glprime]

Thanks. I was going to say, 'Oh, the guy John Cusack played!' but apparently that was Louis Slotin. They had it right when they called that plutonium sample the "Demon Core."

And apparently, some eager wikipedian has already added this comics appearance to Daghlian's official page (which the sticklers will delete for being "trivia").

[philippos42]

Is this by a pair of Brits or what? Grrr. I don't really quite agree with bombing Nagasaki, but this just doesn't scan. In context, burning down two Japanese cities probably seemed reasonable.