Project Superpowers
| Project Superpowers | |
|---|---|
Promotional image by Alex Ross.
|
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Dynamite Entertainment |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date |
(vol. 1) January–October 2008 (vol. 2) June 2009 – September 2010 |
| Number of issues |
(vol. 1) 8 (vol. 2) 13 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Jim Krueger |
| Artist(s) | Alex Ross (co-plotter and covers) |
| Penciller(s) | Doug Klauba |
| Inker(s) | Stephen Sadowski |
| Letterer(s) | Simon Bowland |
| Colorist(s) | Adrian Moreno |
| Creator(s) |
Jim Krueger Alex Ross |
| Collected editions | |
| Hardcover | ISBN |
| Softcover | ISBN |
Project Superpowers is a comic book limited series published by Dynamite Entertainment beginning January 2008. It was co-plotted by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross, with scripts by Jim Krueger, covers by Alex Ross, and interior art by Doug Klauba and Stephen Sadowski for issue #0, and Carlos Paul for the remainder of the series. Ross is also art director, which includes sketched pages, color guides, and redesigns of most of the characters.
The series resurrects a number of Golden Age superheroes originally published by companies including Fox Comics, Crestwood Publications, and Nedor Comics, many of whom are in the public domain, including the protagonist, Fighting Yank.
The story is set in a present-day world that is different from our own; it is implied that the absence of the world’s heroes allowed the United States to become a virtual dictatorship, with the Dynamic Forces corporation manipulating world events for the sake of order and profit. The Police Corps consists of armored officers who show no mercy, wars are being waged for nothing more than business reasons, and even free speech is heavily restricted. In addition to all this, a terrorist movement called "The Claw" (which may or may not be related to the Golden Age villain of the same name) is active around the world. It is into this setting that the released heroes first emerge.
Bruce Carter III, formerly the World War II-era hero Fighting Yank, is now an elderly man. As he sits quietly in his home, thinking and wrestling with his regrets, he's confronted by an apparition. Carter mistakes the ghost for that of his colonial-era ancestor, a spirit which guided and advised him throughout his WWII adventures. The ghost, shrouded in an American flag, is instead an amalgamation of the spirits of patriots, heroes, and martyrs who fought and died for their country. The apparition has come to accuse Carter of betrayal and warn him of his impending death. Carter flees from The American Spirit (for that is the name of this Dickensian apparition). Through a series of flashback sequences, we learn Fighting Yank's WWII backstory. In a meeting between an unidentified general, Fighting Yank, Green Lama, Black Terror, The Flame, and “Big Blue” (1), it is revealed that Adolf Hitler has come into possession of a mystical object which is the original source of all the world's evil: Pandora's Box (actually an urn) described in the ancient Greek myth. Bruce Carter in his guise as The Fighting Yank, is tasked by the U.S. Government to parachute into Nazi Germany and steal the urn. Pandora's urn introduced evil into the world, but also released hope; while the Axis powers are the representatives of that evil, the 1940s “mystery men” are conversely the embodiment of hope. The mystical creatures released when the urn was opened are visible as physical entities when special goggles (invented by Alan Oppenheimer and other atomic scientists) are worn. Yank puts on the goggles and is immediately attacked by the creatures. After he removes the goggles, Yank's “spirit guide” (the ghost of his colonial-era ancestor, Bruce Carter I) tells him that since hope was the last thing released from the urn the only way to reimprison its evil is to first trap his fellow mystery men within it.
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