Appleseed: The Promethean Challenge ( Volume 1 )

Description

Paradise ain t easy! In the future utopian metropolis of Olympus, a blazing beacon of humanity amidst a post-global-war wasteland, ESWAT agents Deunan and Briareos have fought tooth and nail to keep the peace and prevent Olympus from sliding back into chaos. When Olympus intelligence learns of a giant Landmate powersuit being built in secrecy, and on the threshhold of a top-secret international conference of the highest importance to be held in Olympus, ESWAT is mobilized to crack the mystery and disrupt a terrorist operation that could turn the fragile peace into World War IV!
From the imagination of Ghost in the Shell creator Shirow Masamune comes the manga masterpiece Appleseed, an epic cyberpunk vision deftly balancing hardcore techno-science, wry political commentary, and explosive action. A visionary work that inspired the wildly popular animated film, Appleseed is now presented for the first time in America in right-to-left reading format, as originally published in Japan.Even if Masamune Shirow is more widely known for creating Ghost in the Shell, it is for his magnum opus Appleseed that he became known as a master comics storyteller. And it s easy to see why. The fiction world that Appleseed takes place in--a near-future, post-WWIII utopia--is exquisitely crafted and detailed. Into this new utopia come Deunan Knute, a nomad street-smart soldier, and her cyborg partner, Briareos. This book moves at a leisurely pace as we are introduced to the characters and their new home on the island of Olympus. But once the stage is set and the pieces are in place, an action scene erupts that carries through the rest of the book. From here the central thematic conflict of the series is established: the human race s two options of (1) pursuing their every desire, thereby dragging their whole world into destruction, or (2) changing their very nature to preserve the present sterile utopia forever. This is essential reading for anyone interested in science fiction.