American Way: Those Above and Below

The Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave returns for an all-new chapter in his alternate history of The American Way! In 1962 Jason Fisher was given astonishing powers by the United States government-powers he used to defend the nation as the New American. He and his teammates in the Civil Defense Corps were real-life superheroes. Except that it was all a fraud. A conspiracy. And now, 10 years after the CDC was torn apart by racism, infighting and murder, the Corps’ surviving members find themselves pulled in very different directions. Missy Devereaux-a.k.a. Ole Miss-is transitioning from the First Lady of Mississippi into a candidate for governor and defender of a vanishing and hateful way of life. Amber Eaton-formerly known as Amber Waves-has become a domestic terrorist, using her powers to infiltrate and destroy the country’s centers of power. Somewhere in the middle stands Jason Fisher, who has remained a crime-fighter even as evidence mounts that he is accomplishing nothing besides propping up a system that’s rigged against him as a black man in America. In a nation being torn apart, what does it mean to fight for the American way? A decade after the debut of their groundbreaking WildStorm series The American Way, Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, American Crime) and artist Georges Jeanty (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8) revisit their parallel Earth for a look at its gritty 1970s-a time frighteningly like our own-in The American Way: Those Above and Those Below. Collects issues-6.