Archangel
William Gibson & Michael St. John Smith, creators; William Gibson, script; Butch Guice, art
IDW Publishing, 2017
Renowned science fiction writer William Gibson makes his debut in comics with this series. The story revolves around time travel and alternate time lines: the sort of things that occur in his novels, although this story is more fantastical. It begins in 2016, with the Vice President of the United States assuming the identity of his grandfather. After a quantum transfer he and his team are in the Pentagon in 1945, paying a visit to the grandfather, who is a Major in the Office of Strategic Services. Back in 2016, Torres--the operator of the quantum facility called The Splitter--has initiated a countermeasure to the VP's plans. The fight for the past (and the present, as a direct result) has begun.
Back in 1945 we meet another major player: Naomi Givens, a British intelligence officer based in Berlin. She is charged with investigating a mysterious event in the air, which turns out to be part of Torres' operation, and she calls on her ex Vince, an American OSS officer. He gets her in to see the Pilot, a nameless US Marine from 2016. There are a lot of moving parts.
The big picture is revealed gradually. The US government has taken control of the entire world, but at the expense of massive radiation which is poisoning the environment. The operation which Vice President Henderson is running is an attempt to change the timeline in an alternate universe: Archangel is a Russian site that would have changed the results of World War II.
In the notes to the series, Gibson points out one connection with his then-current novel The Peripheral and the novel he was working on: the drones in the size and shape of a fly that are present in all of the narratives. He also talks about the ending, a vision based on current politics. This series is a bit convoluted, but still an interesting look at an alternative history.
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