Über #0

Über is an alternate-history war comic by British writer Kieron Gillen and artist Caanan White, launched by Avatar Press in April 2013 with a 48-page issue #0 (Über #0). The story rewrites the course of the late Second World War: in April 1945, with the Third Reich on the brink of collapse, Hitler's suicide in the Führerbunker is interrupted by news that a secret military research program has bred the "Übermensch"—enhanced humans later called "Über." They possess astonishing strength and resilience and can unleash a destructive energy field called a "disruption halo." These Nazi super-soldiers fall into two classes: the basic "Panzermensch" (tank class), numbering several hundred at the opening, and the far more powerful "battleship" class, of which there are only three. The three battleships are named after characters from Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen: Siegmund, Siegfried, and Sieglinde. The appearance of the Über swiftly turns the tide of war, halting the Soviet army outside Berlin. As Allied spies carry the technology back to Britain, Japanese super-soldiers on the Pacific battlefield also inflict repeated heavy losses on the US Navy, and the great powers are forced into a super-soldier arms race. This volume, issue #0 of the series, is the beginning of the whole story: it sets out the birth of "Über technology," the classification and naming of the Nazi super-soldiers, and the starting point of the war's turn, laying the grim, violent, non-aligned narrative tone of the entire series.