Review by Booklist Review
It's 1964, and Bobby Bailey wants to join the army. After being told he is unable to serve as a soldier, he is recruited into the top-secret Prometheus project, where he is subjected to an evil experiment that began with the Nazis in WWII. Through fate and supernatural forces, we follow Bobby's tortured childhood and all of the people, good and bad, who touched his life. Themes of life on the home front and suffering in the aftermath of war play large roles in the story, with many recurring characters and a complex story line that jumps between the 1960s and the 1940s. The illustrations are in black and white and finely detailed, with shadows enhancing an ominous tone, and readers of political and supernatural thrillers, sf, and historical fiction with a vein of forbidden love will all enjoy this book. The name of the project, Prometheus, is fitting and may stir thoughts of Frankenstein, so pass this along to those who sympathize most with the monster.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Eisner Hall of Famer Windsor-Smith (the Conan the Barbarian series) began this obsessive epic in 1984 as a concept for a Hulk comic; over the next three and a half decades, the 22-page story mutated into an ambitious behemoth packed to the gills with graphic violence and body horror. Feckless young Bobby Bailey is recruited for the Prometheus Project, a secret military supersoldier program. He becomes an enormous, malformed monster ("He can crush a tank with one goddamned hand!"), then escapes and is pursued across the country. Much of the narrative focuses on two of Bobby's allies: Sgt. Elias McFarland, haunted by guilt and psychic visions, and officer Jack Powell, who knows about Bobby's traumatic childhood with an abusive father with PTSD. The story keeps moving back in time, uncovering layers of trauma, constantly changing tone, and flying off on unpredictable tangents that include ghosts, psychic projection, Nazi mad scientists, and cosmic coincidences linking the characters' fates. Fans will pick up the book for Windsor-Smith's ornamental artwork, which, though deeply disturbing and frequently beautiful, sometimes shows the unevenness of work executed over a 35-year period. Windsor-Smith aims to make grand statements on everything from child abuse to veterans' issues to the workings of fate, but despite impressive scope, the volume has trouble pulling them together into a cohesive story. It's a mess to untangle--gross but gorgeous. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In 1964, Sgt. Elias MacFarland identifies Bobby Bailey as a candidate for a secret military program dedicated to creating superhumanly powerful soldiers using research stolen from Nazi scientists at the end of World War II. After a series of agonizing procedures, Bobby is transformed into a hideously deformed, hulking beast. When he escapes the military facility where he's being held, the stage seems set for a thrilling sf/horror-infused manhunt, but Windsor-Smith (Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection: The Original Marvel Years) defies expectations by flashing back to the late 1940s in order to focus on the abuse Bobby and his mother, Janet, suffered at the hands of his father, a veteran haunted by the atrocities he witnessed during the war. Further leaps back and forth through time detail Tom's wartime experience, reveal the intertwined fates of the Baileys and three generations of the MacFarlands, tracing the tragic arc of a doomed romance between Janet Bailey and a man she meets while Tom is overseas with aching tenderness. VERDICT This exquisitely illustrated epic bursts with emotion, insight, and empathy. Five decades into his already influential career, Windsor-Smith has created his magnum opus.
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