Hello and welcome to Comic Book Herald’s Hickmania, a series running through 2022 where we’ll be reading and analyzing the creator-owned works of writer Jonathan Hickman, from his debut The Nightly News through to his most recent output. We’ll be reading one creator-owned work a month through 2022, and each month I’ll release a new analysis with a new guest discussing the comic!

Previously: Past episodes of Hickmania

Hickmania on Youtube

Today we’re talking Pax Romanaand I’m joined by Chris Eddleman and Robert Secundus of ComicsXF. We’ll analyze the work in depth, so expect spoilers! Topics today include:

• How does the time traveling religious crusade and society building in Pax Romana hold up almost 15 years later?
  
• How does Hickman incorporate science fiction and alternate history elements into the comic?
  
• Do we wish Pax Romana had run for more than four issues so the world could have been explored in more detail?
  
• How does the shaping of societies compare to Hickman’s work on X-Men in House of X / Powers of X.
  
• How effective is the use of text conversations to convey larger ideas in the comic?
  

“Pax Romana’ takes place in a future when Islam has overrun Western Europe and monotheism is on the wane in the East and the West,” Jonathan Hickman told CBR News. “There’s a breakthrough. They discover time travel in a scientific lab that’s secretly funded by the Vatican. The pope sends a private army back in time to conquer the world and maintain the dominance of Catholicism.”

Pax Romana is:

Everything: Jonathan Hickman

Publisher: Image

Referenced interviews:

https://www.cbr.com/hickman-saves-the-future-destroys-the-past-in-pax-romana/

https://www.academia.edu/14656528/Jonathan_Hickmans_Pax_Romana_and_the_End_of_Antiquity

Schedule:

January 2022 – The Nightly News

February 2022 – Pax Romana

March 2022 – Transhuman

April 2022 – A Red Mass For Mars

May 2022 – The Red Wing

June 2022 – The Manhattan Projects

July 2022 – Secret

August 2022 – God is Dead

August/Sept 2022 – East of West

October 2022 – The Dying and the Dead

November 2022 – The Black Monday Murders

December 2022 – Decorum

December 2022 – 3W3M

The post Hickmania #2: Pax Romana (W/ Chris Eddleman & Robert Secundus) appeared first on Comic Book Herald.