Appleseed: The Scales of Prometheus ( Volume 3 )

Functional simplicity, structural complexity: the best life for all. That's the maxim of Olympus, the utopian city that sprung from the ashes of World War III. But Deunan and Bri, a young woman and her cyborg companion just entering the rose-tinted society, find that so long as there are different kinds of people there will be differences among them. Such is the story of Appleseed, the masterwork of manga storyteller Masamune Shirow. Beautiful art and a complex and fully realized future world rank this title among the best comics available.

The island state of Olympus was established after WWIII as a utopia; their slogan: "functional simplicity, structural complexity, the best life for all." But things are rarely that simple, as ESWAT operatives Deunan Knute and Briareos have found out. Mostly a collection of side stories, this volume of the acclaimed science fiction comics epic moves away from the main story line of the first two books to focus on the minor characters in this detailed fictional world. Book Three of Appleseed Book Three marks the beginning of Masamune Shirow's handling of all the artwork without the aid of art assistants: from the layouts to the inking to the halftone screens, it all comes from the hand of Shirow.