The Programme (read the the TPB) 12-issue limited series (published by Wildstorm in 2007-2008) came highly recommended to me by my comic book dealer but I never got around to it until recently. I was not disappointed. Written by Peter Milligan (whom I knew from taking over Animal Man after Grant Morrison left) and drawn by underrated C.P. Smith, The Programme is a mature and dark story about an alternate earth when Russia and the United States created a superhuman arms race during the Cold War back after World War II, but the agents were never used. These “dolls” wake up in present day, and are manipulated by each country.

It has become clichéd in modern comics to show alternate reality tales with no superheroes and the birth of Superman, yet with a different spin, and although The Programme may technically fall into that label, the main focus is the Cold War getting hot and renewed in 2008.

You can tell writer Peter Milligan has a libertarian bent, and distrusts governments. Just like me. Moscow and Washington, DC aren’t really all that different in The Programme, and as a government cynic, I can’t dispute it. The message of The Programme is that the government is corrupt, and run by an elite class of fanatics that hide behind neo-conservatism.

The Russian government in the present day is not in the picture, but the flashbacks from Stalin’s era and even the fact that gulags still exist in Siberia paint an ugly picture. The main Russian villains are four superhumans, lead by an old scientist who had been imprisoned all of these years for a bad joke under Stalin. He has no loyalties for Mother Russia- just for communism/socialism, and the destruction of the U.S. and capitalism.

The bulk of the story is about Max, an American who was programmed back in the day, but doesn’t know it. He acts likes a 1960′s washed up anti-hero, who is actually impotent. A lefty programmer named Mike Hinks had actually programmed him to be a liberal, after the government had requested a patriotic war machine. Max had been born in a Nazi test tube.

Another “good” doll is Senator Joe, perhaps the most sympathetic character in this series. Although at first I didn’t see that he was an African American, when we finally see his origin, it plays a very important role in the story. Our sick government had experimented on blacks, killed his mother, and designed Senator Joe McCarthy’s personality in this poor man. This is an important aspect to the plot because of the Race War that happens later on.

The Russian “dolls” are kinda like the Phantom Zone villains from Superman 2- they wreak havoc in Las Vegas and Washington, DC, instead of Houston and New York City.

C.P. Smith’s artwork is clean and fits the paranoid mood to the tee.

If there are any bad things about The Programme, I guess I could list:

• No captions. This is the modern style for comics- everything has to look like a movie. I had attacked Grant Morrison and JG Jones for this in Final Crisis. For a comic series that flashes back to the Soviet era to today, and had a setting in the Middle East and various United States, sometimes the transitions were confusing.
• Most of the characters aren’t really likable, and I guess Peter Milligan would say “People aren’t likable” or “It’s realistic” or “They weren’t supposed to be likable”, but I am still old-fashioned in that sense. Max was supposed to be likable, but let’s just say he doesn’t turn out to be. There is no good or evil, which can be pretty depressing to read about. Even the fictional president (based on George Bush) admits he is an atheist, and just uses Jesus to get votes.
• Shouting political views. Peter Milligan had a message, but I think it would have worked better if communism vs fascist and liberalism vs conservatism were given balanced reviews.
• The Programme is a smart comic book series, but not as emotionally deep as, say Alan Moore’s Miracle Man or even Mark Millar’s Red Son.

Those criticisms probably prevent The Programme from making my Best Comic Book Mini-Series of All-Time List…or maybe not. I haven’t constructed one yet. The bottom line is that I couldn’t put these comics down, and the story was intriguing, and dare I say original, even though some concepts are rehashed (yes, that’s a pseudo-paradox). It was a fresh take on some old concepts, and you can see how these archaic philosophies are still alive today, but just with different word labels.

The sex and violence is not overbearing at all- in most cases minimal and not that overt (definitely not like Garth Ennis or Mark Millar’s comics). The Programme is a great series for mature audiences, and I highly recommend it. I want there to be a sequel. The Programme would make a nice addition to your comic book collection or bookshelf. Check it out