Uber Vol. 5

Uber is an alternate-history military comic created by British writer Kieron Gillen and drawn by Caanan White, Daniel Gete and others, launched in 2013 by the independent comics label Avatar Press. The story begins with the Battle of Berlin in April 1945: just as the Third Reich is on the verge of collapse, a secret research program produces superhuman soldiers known as "Über"—beings of astonishing strength and durability who can unleash destructive energy called the "distortion halo." These enhanced humans are divided into numerous "tank-class" and only three "battleship-class" operatives, codenamed Siegmund, Siegfried and Sieglinde, after Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The appearance of the Über turns the tide of the Battle of Berlin, prompting the US, Britain and the USSR to launch their own enhanced-human programs, and the war becomes an arms race of superweapons. This volume is Uber Vol. 5, collecting issues 23–27 plus the 2014 Free Comic Book Day special, the fourth story arc of the series. By now the Nazis have launched Hitler's "Great Burn," reducing Europe city by city and nation by nation to scorched earth; in despair, the Allies pin their hopes on Stephanie and the monstrous machine codenamed "HMH Churchill." On the battlefield, the clashes of super-soldiers escalate the war to apocalyptic scale, while the enhanced humans themselves, in the process of being thoroughly objectified, gradually lose their humanity. At 160 pages, the volume continues the series' unflinching realism and dense historical research.