Review: Ex Machina (spoilers)
Sep. 15th, 2008 09:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalEx-superhero Mitchell "The Great Machine" Hundred, who can control any piece of machinery with the power of his voice after an encounter with an alien artifact, has just been elected the first Independent mayor of New York City, riding a wave of popularity after saving Tower Two on 9/11.
Ex Machina has a lot going for it. The art is crisp, the writing is smart and Mitchell comes across as a genuinely smart and earnest guy who in the first two softback compilations I read is starting to get into stuff that just doesn't fit his engineer's mindset. In the Volume One, "The First Hundred Days" he has to simultaneously deal with a serial killer who is murdering snow plow drivers while trying to figure out how to defuse tensions when a racially explosive (and worse, publicly funded) painting is debuted at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In both cases his old powers come into play, but they aren't central to the story.
Things turn to a more X-File-ish plot in the second volume "Tag" where we learn more about his relationship with the Federal government (who were understandably interested in his powers) and get some hints as to the nature of the artifact that gave him his abilities. Oh, and he also has to deal with the fallout of agreeing to perform the first gay marriage in NYC history (three years prior to San Francisco's brief legalization in the real world).
Overall it's a good story. Occasionally the language can get annoying ("Fuck" is used a bit too frequently, and there's a conversation between two city subway maintenance guys that just disgusted me) but that's a minor distraction.
One thing I can't really buy is Mitchell getting elected in the first place. Admittedly he has the status of being the world's first superhero and a 9/11 hero, but on the other hand one of his best friends is a die-hard communist, and he's "ambiguously gay" (unmarried, snappy dresser and doesn't date) which is pointed out more than once in volume two. Never mind being a former vigilante. The Republicans would have grabbed onto this and eaten his campaign alive. But if you can suspend your disbelief there, it's a pretty darned good story.
Ex Machina has a lot going for it. The art is crisp, the writing is smart and Mitchell comes across as a genuinely smart and earnest guy who in the first two softback compilations I read is starting to get into stuff that just doesn't fit his engineer's mindset. In the Volume One, "The First Hundred Days" he has to simultaneously deal with a serial killer who is murdering snow plow drivers while trying to figure out how to defuse tensions when a racially explosive (and worse, publicly funded) painting is debuted at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In both cases his old powers come into play, but they aren't central to the story.
Things turn to a more X-File-ish plot in the second volume "Tag" where we learn more about his relationship with the Federal government (who were understandably interested in his powers) and get some hints as to the nature of the artifact that gave him his abilities. Oh, and he also has to deal with the fallout of agreeing to perform the first gay marriage in NYC history (three years prior to San Francisco's brief legalization in the real world).
Overall it's a good story. Occasionally the language can get annoying ("Fuck" is used a bit too frequently, and there's a conversation between two city subway maintenance guys that just disgusted me) but that's a minor distraction.
One thing I can't really buy is Mitchell getting elected in the first place. Admittedly he has the status of being the world's first superhero and a 9/11 hero, but on the other hand one of his best friends is a die-hard communist, and he's "ambiguously gay" (unmarried, snappy dresser and doesn't date) which is pointed out more than once in volume two. Never mind being a former vigilante. The Republicans would have grabbed onto this and eaten his campaign alive. But if you can suspend your disbelief there, it's a pretty darned good story.
