Welcome to the year 2014, when even the weather consistently sucks. (A tethered weather satellite is supposed to control it, but it, like everything else, is falling apart.) Chicago is a radioactive wasteland after a nuclear accident. The United States is in the midst of a second civil war; the country has fractionalized into various territories overseen by the likes of redneck Texans, Southern feminists, a militarized hamburger franchise (beef is illegal), and even the surgeon general, who's obsessed with physical and moral cleanliness. The conservative asshole president is standard fare - except his brain is in an android after a failed assassination attempt. America's only hope lies in the wits of a faithful soldier - 19-year-old Martha Washington.
In the earlier, award-winning comic-book series, Give Me Liberty, writer Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City) and artist Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) presented a satiric and disturbing vision of a future America. In the five-part sequel, Martha Washington Goes to War, the computer-savvy heroine (who has eschewed the typical skin-tight costume) seeks answers behind the "ghosts" who are sabotaging the war. Lo and behold, she stumbles upon a Utopian "Eden" in the process.
Publisher Dark Horse is planning on reprinting the five-issue series in a single volume (Give Me Liberty is also available as an anthology from Dark Horse). If you don't like comic books, try Martha anyway. While it has its share of action-packed adventure, it's happily free of the one-dimensional characters and simplistic issues that plague 99 percent of comic books.
Martha Washington Goes to War, by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons, US$2.95 per issue. Dark Horse Comics: (800) 862 0052, +1 (503) 652 8815.
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