Publisher's Weekly Review
Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ridley has created a thrilling sequel to his 2007 graphic novel, The American Way, a superhero saga based on the racial conflicts of 1960s America. That work, while not requisite reading to dive into this volume, is helpful background, as it sets up the scenario: that a secret program in the U.S. government created an all-white group of superbeings who fight staged battles designed to deceive the public about the administration's ability to respond to supervillain threats. This "wag the dog" spectacle helps keep the government in power. When the President decides to add a black superbeing, Jason Fisher, to placate civil rights leaders, the scheme collapses into a horrific superbeing race war. The sequel picks up in the 1970s, as Fisher remains a supervigilante, though now perceived as a governmental Uncle Tom by other black Americans. Some of the superbeings, such as Amber Waves, a Green Lantern-like heroine, are now disillusioned and refuse to continue acting as government dupes. She turns to violent protest, leading a guerilla war for racial justice. Other recurring characters-like the Secret Agent, a sharpshooter, are still with team government, and Ole Miss, who can manipulate time, is now a Mississippi politician reluctantly campaigning on a racist platform-are joined by new faces like Nikki Lau (daughter of slain Asian-American villain Red Terror), a young revolutionary seeking answers about her father's death. Jeanty's drawings are skillful and dramatic. Ridley has pulled off an action-packed, yet thoughtful, continuation of this powerful series, centered around a cast of superheroes trapped and demoralized by the deadly consequences of their acts. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* DC's Vertigo imprint earned its sterling reputation by plunging deeply into themes and ideas seldom explored in mainstream comics. Here, Ridley, author and Academy Award-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave, returns to his 1960s-set saga of troubling racial politics and troubled superheroes. We catch up with several of them in 1972. Missy Deveraux, a southern conservative, is driven by a diagnosis of terminal cancer to make a run for governor. Amber Eaton, hooked on heroin, is the figurehead of a radical group that's been infiltrated by a government spy with her own complicated motives. At the heart of it, though, is Jason Fisher, a black man whose government bosses have imbued him with invulnerability but left his pain receptors on as a means of control. Fisher's struggle to fight the good fight, even in the face of racism and the anger of his own community, gives a powerful focal point to an examination of racial dynamics as painfully relevant now as they were in the 1970s. Jeanty, also returning to a narrative he cocreated, builds a world of impossible choices out of shadowed urban spaces and forests lit by flames and gunfire. He also etches the agony of moral compromise on his characters' faces as effectively as he envisions grounded and exciting superheroic action.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The first volume of this gritty, realistic series (reprinted last year in a tenth-anniversary edition), set in the 1960s, revealed the fate gone awry of a federal Civil Defense Corps for superheroes. Now it's the 1970s, and superheroes Jason Fisher ("The New American"), Missy Devereaux ("Ole Miss"), and several others pursue conflicting agendas for serving community and country. (Xpress Reviews 5/17/18) © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.