American Way: Those Above and Below — John Ridley

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 #1-6.