shewhodwells's review
3.0
Brian K. Vaughan, author of one of my favourite comic series, SAGA. You bet I now have to go through his back catalogue and I decided to start with Ex Machina, as this is what put him on the map! This is a story all about critiquing superheroes by using superheroes. In here we follow Mitch Hundred who became The Great Machine, a man who can command electronics, after he had an accident. He's a vigilante trying to help the great city of New York but when he has too bad an effect on it, he retires and runs for mayor of the city instead. You bet your butt he becomes mayor. Now we follow him on his adventures trying to juggle his past identity with his new one.
Now, the writing is excellent. It goes into depth on several social issues in New York City and more right after the tragedy of 9/11. As you can imagine, it's very heavy and also very progressive. Mitchell is a conservative on security, progressive on social issues kind of mayor, but he's also impulsive and has plenty heated debates with his team on all kinds of topics. This made the read very interesting, allowing for Vaughan to explore many topics such as institutionalised racism, the war on drugs, gay marriage. Definitely ahead of its time for a 2004 comic, although some of it was a little on the nose and could have been more subtly introduced as well as reinforced throughout the story.
I also appreciated the art style, but Fiona Staples is embedded in my mind at this point when it comes to telling a Vaughan story. With this artist I sometimes struggled to recognise the characters as they would look so wildly different from one panel to the next, and would have to rely on dialogue to figure out alright this is who this is, sure.
Overall, I did find this first compendium a little long and do wonder where the overarching story is going as the intrigue is a bit... lacking? My main criticism for this story truly is that there is no particular plot, mostly a premise, and lots of subplots merging together. I will definitely be reading compendium 2 as I already own it and the last twenty or so pages left me wanting more, but I'm not quacking in my boots, needing to know what happens next.
Now, the writing is excellent. It goes into depth on several social issues in New York City and more right after the tragedy of 9/11. As you can imagine, it's very heavy and also very progressive. Mitchell is a conservative on security, progressive on social issues kind of mayor, but he's also impulsive and has plenty heated debates with his team on all kinds of topics. This made the read very interesting, allowing for Vaughan to explore many topics such as institutionalised racism, the war on drugs, gay marriage. Definitely ahead of its time for a 2004 comic, although some of it was a little on the nose and could have been more subtly introduced as well as reinforced throughout the story.
I also appreciated the art style, but Fiona Staples is embedded in my mind at this point when it comes to telling a Vaughan story. With this artist I sometimes struggled to recognise the characters as they would look so wildly different from one panel to the next, and would have to rely on dialogue to figure out alright this is who this is, sure.
Overall, I did find this first compendium a little long and do wonder where the overarching story is going as the intrigue is a bit... lacking? My main criticism for this story truly is that there is no particular plot, mostly a premise, and lots of subplots merging together. I will definitely be reading compendium 2 as I already own it and the last twenty or so pages left me wanting more, but I'm not quacking in my boots, needing to know what happens next.
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