Ex Machina...
As my friend Mike suggested this comic book series to me since I read Y: The Last Man and Runaways are by the same author, it took a while but I got around to reading it.
Basically said, it's a story of man who becomes the first and only superhero in the world called the Great Machine. His super power is to be able to communicate and command technology even non-digital technology like a gun. However seeing how his powers seem useless, he runs for Mayor of New York after the wake of 9/11, and officially hung up his super hero costume. As I continue to read it it still follows the same Vaughn wit and ability to write the mundane into something extraordinary.
As I finish reading through the first few story-arcs, to tell the truth much of the the comic reads like the West Wing or any other Presidental movie you've seen. You get to see behind the hard choices people have to make in positions of power and sometimes the most simple answer isn't the best one. But what I found engaging about this storyline isn't because there is a lack of superheroism...which there is a great lack of. But that it envokes an old comic idea so well, it's like a new generation of it.
If we go back a few decades or so, we can see people picking up the Spiderman comics. One of the greatest appeals of Spiderman at the time was that even though Spiderman was a great superhero, his alter ego faced the pitfalls of growing up in a teenage world, responsibilities of a teen, awkwardness with women and even trying to make ends meet with a measly paying job. The fact that the superhero was humanize in such a different way, that basically a kid was a superhero with real life problems seemed to have resonated with fans.
To tell the truth I missed the boat on that era. I still see Spiderman as a hero first really, Peter Parker second. As other teenage superheroes appeared to try and bank on the same formula, with comics such as Speedball, Darkhawk, and even the Marvel's response to the Teen Titans...The New Warriors; I didn't really bite. It seemed a bit stupid to me to have a teen fight adult villains or any villains in general while balancing homework or continuing some pathetic excuse for a soap opera amongst the team members. What was really wrong with the whole problem was that there really wasn't enough humanizing, or at least quality humanizing at all. I think the main point that people were missing was...you don't fucking need children or teens to have the human part of a superhero.
Ex Machina grasps the concept very well, so well I imagine for a smarter, more learned generation to embrace the concept like our forefathers did with Spiderman in their childhood. I find it great that in humanizing the character, they never do it in such a way where they seperate the hero from the character in the traditional sense. Usually when the hero uses his/her secret identity, they minimize the use of their superpowers. If they have to use it under their alter ego, they do it in secret.
However with Ex Machina, Vaughn has made it so the main character actually uses his superpowers on a day to day basis, but not as a superhero, not even as a mayor, but as a human being with the ability. The fact that a character could use his superpower fairly openly and most important...practically, impresses me to no end. It's not like having Cyclops toast his bread, shut off his lights, open a door, act like a stoplight all with his optic blasts. Vaughn doesn't write situations in which it says "ho ho ho...look at what I'm doing. I'm using this super power IN A CASUAL MUNDANE WAY." But instead it creates a world where you can say...yeah he would use it that way. Yeah that's what I would do have I had that power.
Another great aspect is how it shows the implications of superheroism or the collateral damage it could create. In Spiderman, instead of being blindly praised, the newspapers label him as a menace, only adding to the constant troubles and feelings of apprehension with Peter Parker. However where that was a blatent attempt to antagonize a character for something he's obviously doing right, Ex Machina results in a character that is hated or disliked by everyone for good reason; and most of it being justified. In some respect showing the aftermath or implications of superheroism reminds me greatly of an old comic series "Damage Control" which was a series that explored a company that was hired to fix up parts of New York City after super hero encounters result in major property damage.
In the end I like this series a lot. I like the fact that the superhero past and origins always come back to haunt the main character, so much so that it satisfies my superhero cravings. It's a series that I suggest to read.
Basically said, it's a story of man who becomes the first and only superhero in the world called the Great Machine. His super power is to be able to communicate and command technology even non-digital technology like a gun. However seeing how his powers seem useless, he runs for Mayor of New York after the wake of 9/11, and officially hung up his super hero costume. As I continue to read it it still follows the same Vaughn wit and ability to write the mundane into something extraordinary.
As I finish reading through the first few story-arcs, to tell the truth much of the the comic reads like the West Wing or any other Presidental movie you've seen. You get to see behind the hard choices people have to make in positions of power and sometimes the most simple answer isn't the best one. But what I found engaging about this storyline isn't because there is a lack of superheroism...which there is a great lack of. But that it envokes an old comic idea so well, it's like a new generation of it.
If we go back a few decades or so, we can see people picking up the Spiderman comics. One of the greatest appeals of Spiderman at the time was that even though Spiderman was a great superhero, his alter ego faced the pitfalls of growing up in a teenage world, responsibilities of a teen, awkwardness with women and even trying to make ends meet with a measly paying job. The fact that the superhero was humanize in such a different way, that basically a kid was a superhero with real life problems seemed to have resonated with fans.
To tell the truth I missed the boat on that era. I still see Spiderman as a hero first really, Peter Parker second. As other teenage superheroes appeared to try and bank on the same formula, with comics such as Speedball, Darkhawk, and even the Marvel's response to the Teen Titans...The New Warriors; I didn't really bite. It seemed a bit stupid to me to have a teen fight adult villains or any villains in general while balancing homework or continuing some pathetic excuse for a soap opera amongst the team members. What was really wrong with the whole problem was that there really wasn't enough humanizing, or at least quality humanizing at all. I think the main point that people were missing was...you don't fucking need children or teens to have the human part of a superhero.
Ex Machina grasps the concept very well, so well I imagine for a smarter, more learned generation to embrace the concept like our forefathers did with Spiderman in their childhood. I find it great that in humanizing the character, they never do it in such a way where they seperate the hero from the character in the traditional sense. Usually when the hero uses his/her secret identity, they minimize the use of their superpowers. If they have to use it under their alter ego, they do it in secret.
However with Ex Machina, Vaughn has made it so the main character actually uses his superpowers on a day to day basis, but not as a superhero, not even as a mayor, but as a human being with the ability. The fact that a character could use his superpower fairly openly and most important...practically, impresses me to no end. It's not like having Cyclops toast his bread, shut off his lights, open a door, act like a stoplight all with his optic blasts. Vaughn doesn't write situations in which it says "ho ho ho...look at what I'm doing. I'm using this super power IN A CASUAL MUNDANE WAY." But instead it creates a world where you can say...yeah he would use it that way. Yeah that's what I would do have I had that power.
Another great aspect is how it shows the implications of superheroism or the collateral damage it could create. In Spiderman, instead of being blindly praised, the newspapers label him as a menace, only adding to the constant troubles and feelings of apprehension with Peter Parker. However where that was a blatent attempt to antagonize a character for something he's obviously doing right, Ex Machina results in a character that is hated or disliked by everyone for good reason; and most of it being justified. In some respect showing the aftermath or implications of superheroism reminds me greatly of an old comic series "Damage Control" which was a series that explored a company that was hired to fix up parts of New York City after super hero encounters result in major property damage.
In the end I like this series a lot. I like the fact that the superhero past and origins always come back to haunt the main character, so much so that it satisfies my superhero cravings. It's a series that I suggest to read.
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