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Brian K. Vaughan: Ex Machina (Volumes I - VI)
Jul. 31st, 2009 06:11 pmI finally got around to starting this series, which has been recommended to be before, and promptly kicked myself for not reading it earlier. It's excellent, and feels like The West Wing if Aaron Sorkin had been into superheroes.
How is it excellent? Firstly, while it uses a well-worn premise, the Mr.Smith-goes-to-Washington one, where an outsider gets into politics, it does so in a believable way within the parameters of the world it operates in; Mitchell Hundred might not be a member of either party, but he's not naive; when he supports gay marriage, he's aware he'll promptly be suspected of being gay himself, very publically dates a journalist before breaking the gay-marriage-news and deservedly gets slapped for it when she figures out the reason for the date. Also, given that his superpower is talking to machines and influencing them, within this universe you can believe that someone stopping the second air plane from hitting the Towers at 9/11 and thus becoming so popular that he can get elected Mayor of New York City without having the support machinery of either party. Moreover, this AU (in which only one of the Towers falls) is not a rosy-coloured wish fulfillment one; the ensuing political development in the US, including the Iraq War, still happens, and gets explored.
Secondly, Ex Machina is a great ensemble story. (Otherwise there would be no West Wing comparison.) My personal favourite is Police Comissioner Amy Angotti, who is that rarity in comics, a woman closer to 50 than to 40, with a figure that's totally un-model like but very realistic, and no one's mother or love interest. (Not that Mitchell Hundred's mother isn't a great character as well, being an old hippie, ex-alcoholic and all around tough bird.) She's very distrustful of the new mayor due to his vigilante past, seeing superheroes as worse than useless, but they establish a great working relationship. Then there's Vaughan's great twist on the mentor figure every superhero must have; a Russian mechanic from Coney Island nicknamed Kremlin, who is deeply distrustful of the system and considers Mitchell Hundred's decision to abandon superheroics in favour of politics as a deep betrayal. Usually mentors are either saintly and promptly get killed off, or they're exposed as corrupt and untrustworthy and promptly either killed off as well, or banished. As far as I've read, Vaughan hasn't done either to Kremlin. Then there is Hundred's No.2, Wylie, who managed his campaign and basically is his Leo. (And also has a brother who's gay, which is where the marriage plot came in.) And Bradbury, who together with Kremlin used to be Hundred's sidekick in his superhero days and now his his security chief. And Candy the PR woman (another middle-aged female character lacking a model figure.) And of course Mitchell himself, who so far managed to steer the line between idealism and pragmatism in a very entertaining way.
Thirdly, it's a good examination of ongoing questions in many a superhero comic. Because the narrative by no means unambiguously declares either Comissioner Angotti (if you want something from the system, work with the system; superheroes are vigilantes, which means criminals) or Kremlin (it's no use working with the system because it inevitably corrupts if you play by the rules, effective protection of the people and people saving can only be done by the heroic individual outside the system) to be right, and continues to give both angles arguments. It both plays by comicverse rules (of course Mitchell has an arch nemesis whose powers mirror his own in a twisted way, and of course he sort of created that arch nemesis) and subverts them (Pherson's variation of that power are more what we'd expect the hero to have, and Hundred ultimately goes against a basic thing of what you expect an established hero to do in order to defeat him).
And fourthly, the dialogue is great. Vaughan hasn't disappointed in this regard yet (I've read Runaways), and like I said, the political chit chat makes me all nostalgic.
In conclusion: don't make my mistake and wait until you read the series. Start now!
How is it excellent? Firstly, while it uses a well-worn premise, the Mr.Smith-goes-to-Washington one, where an outsider gets into politics, it does so in a believable way within the parameters of the world it operates in; Mitchell Hundred might not be a member of either party, but he's not naive; when he supports gay marriage, he's aware he'll promptly be suspected of being gay himself, very publically dates a journalist before breaking the gay-marriage-news and deservedly gets slapped for it when she figures out the reason for the date. Also, given that his superpower is talking to machines and influencing them, within this universe you can believe that someone stopping the second air plane from hitting the Towers at 9/11 and thus becoming so popular that he can get elected Mayor of New York City without having the support machinery of either party. Moreover, this AU (in which only one of the Towers falls) is not a rosy-coloured wish fulfillment one; the ensuing political development in the US, including the Iraq War, still happens, and gets explored.
Secondly, Ex Machina is a great ensemble story. (Otherwise there would be no West Wing comparison.) My personal favourite is Police Comissioner Amy Angotti, who is that rarity in comics, a woman closer to 50 than to 40, with a figure that's totally un-model like but very realistic, and no one's mother or love interest. (Not that Mitchell Hundred's mother isn't a great character as well, being an old hippie, ex-alcoholic and all around tough bird.) She's very distrustful of the new mayor due to his vigilante past, seeing superheroes as worse than useless, but they establish a great working relationship. Then there's Vaughan's great twist on the mentor figure every superhero must have; a Russian mechanic from Coney Island nicknamed Kremlin, who is deeply distrustful of the system and considers Mitchell Hundred's decision to abandon superheroics in favour of politics as a deep betrayal. Usually mentors are either saintly and promptly get killed off, or they're exposed as corrupt and untrustworthy and promptly either killed off as well, or banished. As far as I've read, Vaughan hasn't done either to Kremlin. Then there is Hundred's No.2, Wylie, who managed his campaign and basically is his Leo. (And also has a brother who's gay, which is where the marriage plot came in.) And Bradbury, who together with Kremlin used to be Hundred's sidekick in his superhero days and now his his security chief. And Candy the PR woman (another middle-aged female character lacking a model figure.) And of course Mitchell himself, who so far managed to steer the line between idealism and pragmatism in a very entertaining way.
Thirdly, it's a good examination of ongoing questions in many a superhero comic. Because the narrative by no means unambiguously declares either Comissioner Angotti (if you want something from the system, work with the system; superheroes are vigilantes, which means criminals) or Kremlin (it's no use working with the system because it inevitably corrupts if you play by the rules, effective protection of the people and people saving can only be done by the heroic individual outside the system) to be right, and continues to give both angles arguments. It both plays by comicverse rules (of course Mitchell has an arch nemesis whose powers mirror his own in a twisted way, and of course he sort of created that arch nemesis) and subverts them (Pherson's variation of that power are more what we'd expect the hero to have, and Hundred ultimately goes against a basic thing of what you expect an established hero to do in order to defeat him).
And fourthly, the dialogue is great. Vaughan hasn't disappointed in this regard yet (I've read Runaways), and like I said, the political chit chat makes me all nostalgic.
In conclusion: don't make my mistake and wait until you read the series. Start now!
