The American Way

Ridley's densely packed action-thriller plot zooms along in tandem with his jabs at the racism and xenophobia that underscored the myth of Camelot. He literalizes the era's ideological conflicts as costumed brawls; the story culminates in a series of enormous fight scenes and a touch of nuclear terror, all set into motion when the New American goes after a serial killer who has attacked a bus full of Freedom Riders. Georges Jeanty and Karl Story's slick, bright artwork is mostly in generic superhero-comic mode, which allows Ridley to pile up his satirical double meanings with a straight face -- a Human Torch-style, flame-covered quasi-Klansman is called Southern Cross.— The Washington Post