Critically acclaimed novelist and screenwriter John Ridley (THE Authority: Human on the Inside, Three Kings) and artist Georges Jeanty (Majestic) offer a unique vision of U.S. history in THE AMERICAN WAY, a thrilling 8-issue miniseries! The 1960s were a decade of incredible change for America. It was a time of innocence. It was a time of optimism. It was a time of heroes. In the early '40s, the United States government hatched a plan to create the Civil Defense Corps: a group of 'super-heroes' who could fight alien invasions, evil super-powered beings, and communism, all in front of an adoring public, courtesy of television. But that dream was far from reality by the '60s, as new C.D.C. Marketing Director Wesley Catham is about to discover. How far will America go to protect its dream of a better tomorrow?
The Civil Defense Corps (CDC) are America's super-team. Inspiring in Americans hope, justice and the American Way in the face of the growing communist threat, they are invincible and have overcome all challenges.
Like very other American, Wesley Catham is astounded by the feats of these supermen and women. A salesmen in a failing company, his strength lies in the fact that he believes in his product. When he's offered a job to work for the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration (FDAA) to market the CDC, Wesley is of course excited. What a better honor than to spread the exploits of the greatest heroes of his generation?
While he knew that the CDC was government sponsored, he didn't know that they were also government manufactured. While the heroes are indeed superpowered and real, everything else is fabricated. Battles, villains, origins. All tested and marketed to convince the people that America is strong.
Wesley, with a wife and soon to be child, grudgingly takes the job. The CDC are still an inspiration. But when one of the CDC dies from a heart attack live on national television during a staged attack, everything changes.
