Before Ghost in the Shell came Appleseed—Shirow Masamune’s visionary science fiction manga series, now available in Dark Horse’s acclaimed deluxe hardcover format, featuring wrap around cover art, full color end sheets, ribbon bookmark and gilded edges!The year is 2127. In the aftermath of a devastating global war, Deunan and Briareos are just the kind of couple you’d find managing to survive—she’s a former SWAT team member, he’s a cyborg former mercenary. Both of them are found in the ruins by Hitomi, a young woman who recruits them to work for Olympus, an ultra-advanced, experimental city-state that survived the apocalypse.It’s an oasis of peace that now seeks to step outside its protected zone to try to reconstruct the world…but to do so, its philosophers, planners, and scientists will need the support of people who know how to fight. Olympus can offer them a new, safe home—and the chance to use the most advanced weapons tech on earth, including the powered combat armor known as the Landmate.And so Deunan and Briareos are drawn into the paradoxes and power struggles of Olympus: their new job, to serve and protect the people of a city whose secrets they know little about. Protect them both from outsiders, and from themselves—for while Deunan and Briareos may believe enough in Olympus to put their lives on the line for it, they’re far too smart to be satisfied being anyone’s mere pawns, even in the most noble cause…Features:Wraparound six-color cover art, printed on silver foil to express the future aesthetic Four-color end sheetsSewn-in bookmark Color metallic edge gilding on pages.Collects Appleseed Volume 1: The Promethean Challenge, Appleseed Volume 2: Prometheus Unbound, Appleseed Volume 3: The Scales of Prometheus, Appleseed Volume 4: The Promethean Balance.
Contributors: (W) Shirow Masamune (A) Shirow Masamune (CT) Dana Lewis; Toren Smith; Duane Johnson
Shirow Masamune was born in 1961 in Kobe, Japan and attended Osaka University of Arts, where his fellow classmates included Hideaki Anno, the future creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Shirow began his professional manga career in 1985 with Appleseed, which won one of Japan’s top prizes for science fiction, the Seiun Award. Dark Horse first began to publish Shirow’s work in 1992, beginning with his art book Intron Depot and manga Orion and Dominion, followed in 1995 with the first English edition of his most famous manga series, Ghost in the Shell. In 1996, Shirow was the first manga artist to be featured on the cover of Wizard: The Guide to Comics. Through his futuristic designs, dynamic action sequences and visionary concepts, Shirow has become one the most influential manga artists on international creators, counting among his fans the film directors James Cameron and Neill Blomkamp.