In contrast , recent comics and graphic novels offer grim , violent , and sardonic versions of the Manhattan Project tale . For example , Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons ’ epochal graphic novel Watchmen ( 1986 , 2014 ) discusses the atomic bomb project from the point of view of the character Dr . Manhattan , who asserts ,
Never before has man pursued global harmony more vocally while amassing stockpiles of weapons so devastating in their effects . . . . The wars to end wars , the weapons to end wars , these things have failed us . . . [ n ] ow we have a man to end wars . . . . The technology Dr . Manhattan has made possible has changed the way we think about our clothes , our food , our travel . . . Our entire culture has had to contort itself to accommodate the presence of something more than human , and we have all felt the results of this . . . . We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan . ( pp . 139-42 )
The word Manhattan stands for the Project , the bomb , and the realities of nuclear power . Watchmen illustrates with imagery and language the dismal aftereffects of the
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