I had lightly thought of saving this bad boy for next week’s Off The Cape, but it looks like I’ll have to be clever next week since this is the only book I feel like talking about right now.
Find out why after the cut.
When Ex Machina #1 opens, we’re greeted by the sight of a triumphant hero bravely taking on the skies in a powerful pose, a jet stream behind him from his rocket pack blaring fire out below. In the background, a plane soars towards him, matching him in scope and cutting him down to size, yet not diminishing the iconic look of this hero springing into action. We are given no other information here, and all we can assume is that this is a man who has found a way to defy gravity. It’s a beautiful illustration, spell-bindingly crafted by Tony Harris, and perhaps one of the best opening scenes to a comic ever.
A turn of the page, however, and we meet Mitchell Hundred, the former mayor of New York and one-time superhero known as The Great Machine. He sits alone in the dark, speaking to nobody in particular, noting that what you are about to read is the story of his four years in office from 2002 to 2005. “It may look like a comic,” he remarks, “but it’s really a tragedy. That’s life, huh?” 20 or so pages later, and already we have learned that in this series, everything is different, and it can never end well.
From there, the 50-issue series by Brian K Vaughan and Tony Harris (with an additional two issues by John Paul Leon and and two by Chris Sprouse) chronicles the life and times of the political office for a superhero-turned-mayor. Mixing elements of the pacing for the West Wing and the inherent morality play of perhaps any superhero story you’ve ever read (and I’m not the first one to make that comparison, I assure you), Ex Machina is perhaps one of the finest comics produced from the Wildstorm imprint before the doors of Wildstorm closed.
While Ex Machina may look like a superhero title on the surface, it truly couldn’t be anything but. Sure, there are elements of the dashing industrialist vigilante, but told almost entirely through flashbacks. Instead, the series follows the aforementioned Hundred during his role as a retired hero, fully committed to the role of mayor and vowing never to put on his suit again, and to only use his powers for the benefit of the city that he happens to be governing. You see, Mitchell Hundred, one time comic book lover and former engineer, was involved in an accident that left him with a strange and unexplained gift, and with a fresh new scar on the side of his face Hundred can now talk to machines.
From here, the book leads him along a politically charged path that tears open issues of race, religion, gay marriage, animal rights, environmental rights, the legalization of marijuana, journalistic integrity, former president George Bush, former dictator Saddam Hussein and a bevy of other hot-button topics and tackles them in a way no other superhero based comic has had the guts to since the early days of the Authority. Vaughan and Harris approach the title without an ounce of fear, unafraid to cross unstated taboos when necessary to illustrate a point. The first storyline, for example, finds an artist putting up an exhibition featuring a painting of Abraham Lincoln with the n-word emblazoned across his face. In turn, Hundred has to walk a tightrope of political allegory as he debates if free speech should be constitutionally be protected here or if its more important to appease the general public and its impassioned hate towards the use of the word.
Not since Aaron Sorkin found a way to make politics intriguing has a story of this caliber been so well conceived. Truthfully, Ex Machina is about as close to a prime-time television drama as you could ever hope to see in a comic book. Clearly using his time on LOST as an influence (especially noticeable with the flow of plots against subplots alongside the use of illuminating flashbacks), Vaughan crafts the books political nature through a science fiction lens to heighten the drama, filling the book with self-proclaimed “useless factoids.” It’s interesting to observe here that, despite already being an accomplished comic creator with a noted tendency of bringing heavy sociological and political overtones into his work (Y the Last Man being the obvious choice, but his short run on Swamp Thing shows it off nicely as well), Vaughan’s employment of a new methodology of writing helps Ex Machina to stand out from his catalogue as he evolves as a writer, bringing a brand new written mentality as his most overt weapon of choice.
Continued belowHowever, if we are to ascertain that Ex Machina is essentially a television show contained within the confines of a comic (and make no mistake — the first issue is called “the Pilot” for more than one reason), it’s Tony Harris that leads the charge. Harris is an incredibly underrated artist with a keen eye for design and detail that truly brings New York to life. His art, with inks by Tom Feister and Jim Clark and colors by JD Mettler, often comes off looking more like photography than it does sequential art, and not to the extent where it appears phototraced like other artists; rather, these are artistic talents so refined that they can capture the oft-missing human element within the confines of a single panel, and layer it accordingly to capture three or four moments of life at a time. In one of my favorite issues of the book, both Vaughan and Harris appear as themselves within the confines of this fictional universe to discuss their roles in creation of comics. Harris shows off some of his illustrations to a character in the book, who notes that all Vaughan does is put words in bubbles and that Harris’ name should come first, to which Harris retorts “ehn, it’s all political.”
There is plenty in Ex Machina that I’m not discussing in this piece. Truly, there is a lot contained within the title that can’t be explained in saying “this is a book about a mayor that is once a superhero”; I’m barely scraping the tip of the iceberg overall. However, to be fair, to discuss the book in any further detail would truly take away a lot of the magic of the title. The way that the story evolves is exemplary, and Vaughan and Harris’ ability to show you so much without letting on what is hidden up their sleeves should more than titillate even the most jaded of superhero-based comic fans (the first issue is a stunning tease of what to expect from the entire series, truthfully, both in content and execution).
More than anything, though? Ex Machina is a love letter to comics in every way, shape and form, and it’s a visceral and beautiful ode to post-9/11 New York, a city which despite being knocked down is still very much the capital of the universe. At the end of the day, anyone who loves either of those two things needs to have Ex Machina in their repertoire. Without it you’re missing on what can be done by folks who truly love all aspects of the medium.
