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Underground > Comic Books >

Ex Machina

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01:54 / 18.12.04

Again, while Vaughan shows that he has done his research on American political history and millennial technology levels he really seems to lack an ear for dialogue - in fact some of the dialogue is so unsubtle and expository in nature it hacks off your ear with a rusty razor. I'm thinking here about the hundred talking about Bluetooth as being 'tech that is barely on the market' especially but most Ex Machina scripts are peppered with little fun facts that appear to have been cut and paste from wherever Vaughan found them seemingly without him even rephrasing them.

Added to this was the kung-fu German's who appear have a habit of attacking American technologists on the off chance that new technology might threaten the German economy - who knows? Maybe they are also artists in their free time?

17:23 / 18.12.04

Still reading it and not enjoying it, huh Sleaze?
Flamin' masochist.

18:22 / 18.12.04

I picked up the complete run of this at my local comic shop today. I thought both the art and the writing are good, and the last page of #1 was excellent. The characters seem to leap off the page and I especially like Hundred.
I don't really like the design of the Great Machine, though I guess it's more realistic than brightly coloured lycra tights.

Bots'wana Beast

22:46 / 18.12.04

This ish started to go for the jugular a bit more, something Human Target is still not quite managing (though Cameron's guest spot was a nice treat,) a bit late for a few.

But I thought it was well worth the wait.

17:55 / 15.02.05

Apparently Tony Harris likes to draw stories with fortune tellers in them (from STARMAN)...

>> EX MACHINA #11

Written by Brian K. Vaughan
Art by Tony Harris & Tom Feister
Cover by Harris
In this special stand-alone issue - a perfect jumping-on point for new readers - Mayor Hundred's administration wages war against the countless fortune tellers who cost gullible New Yorkers hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. But when a mysterious palm reader knows intimate details about the super-heroic Great Machine's past, the Mayor must make a difficult decision about his own future.

On sale May 18 o 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US o MATURE READERS

17:13 / 02.05.05

Vaughn is keeping me guessing with the nature of the alien glyph and whatever gave Hundred his powers...from the last issue, it seems that they might have been aliens who were intent on taking over people's minds via the glyph, and they were upset that Hundred didn't spread the glyph around to everyone when he discovered it...

05:30 / 03.05.05

I've been enjoying this more and more, and it is one of my favorite books on the stand right now. I feel like the storylines have just begun to grow, but things are happening at a pace where I am not suffering the decompression blues. I am also not bothered by the dialogue, which some consider a little too talky. Ellis might be known for transcribing New Scientist articles, but Vaughn transcribes your history textbook in a way that is interesting. Of course, the FBI agents, doing their talky bit in the past couple issues felt very very very out of place.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

07:14 / 03.05.05

I like the book, but it is starting to feel like Vaughn is unable to get a decent ending to his stories...the first story arc's "art" subplot had a letdown of an ending, and this issue utterly defused its own ending by having a "big twist" with the super-hero stuff.

If he could put together a better ending on his stories, I'd be thinking of this as one of the best books on the stands, but as is, I always feel like he's just missing the mark by enough to disappoint.

11:43 / 03.05.05

Yeah. My interest's waining a bit. Still a really solid and different book, but the sermonizing is getting more heavy-handed, and the pay-off last ish seemed sort of *pffeh* after the threatening build up.

16:50 / 23.05.05

The new fortune teller story seems a bit weak -- the old 'fortune teller foreshadows what will happen in 20 issues' bit has been done a lot. Although the notion of Hundred's misplaced anger at a psychic who may have predicted 9/11, when placed against the very real notion of even if psychics did predict it, who would have believed them (the fortune teller comments she just would have been placed under arrest and questioned ad naseum, as if she were a terrorist or a planner or knew those who planned it)...

broken gentleman.

01:57 / 24.05.05

on the plus side, the costume he's shown in during the fortune teller's prediction looks beautiful, very pulpy. i had sandman mystery theatre flashbacks.

23:11 / 05.07.05

so the book is chugging along, last few issues have been, ok, entertaining but not fantastic. Mayor Hundred on jury duty with some guy about to seemingly attack him should be fun, plus a twist on the famous 'new twisted super vigilante' in town plotline.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

03:09 / 06.07.05

Yeah, that's definitely how I'd describe it. Chugging along. I still enjoy it quite a bit, but it's not killing me like it used to.

01:34 / 30.10.05

Still chugging along; I still find the series entertaining but not stellar...I like the 70s road trip image on the cover of the latest issue. And...Mitchell's mother killed his dad? What's up with that?

Cletus Van Mist
(prev. Mist, the devil´s avocado)

08:47 / 30.10.05

Normally, I like every issue, but the new one was a bit boring. I don´t like it, that the next issues seem to be about the hero´s family life; that´s always boring to me. I want to see more of the "I´m a mayor, not a superhero anymore, oh no, now I have to use my powers!".

And it´s a city comic not a road trip comic, he seems like a fish out of the water.

18:38 / 15.11.05

from a recent DC news conf. in Canada, courtesy of Newsaram:

>> Chris Sprouse will step in for a two issue fill-in on Ex Machina, spelling off regular series artist Tony Harris sometime after issue #20.

It'll be interesting to see a guest-artist on the book...I do love Sprouse, I wonder how his style will fit with the series...

18:29 / 28.11.05

2 notable things about this book recently:

1. Vaughn has Mitchell Hundred say "I met George W. Bush...I disagree with him on a lot of issues, but he's a good man." This to me sounded like Vaughn's attempt to make sure the readers know that Hundred is independent and has some Republican (or at least Civil Libertarian) leanings. Although it seemed odd to me given how liberal democrat Mitchell comes off in general.

2. For the first time in the recent issue, machines (in this case, guns) give Mitchell a bum steer - a shotgun tells him it's empty when it in fact has shells in it. Da-DUMM!!!!

22:36 / 28.11.05

and glad to hear the sales are good.

02:43 / 18.06.06

Out of curiosity - anyone still reading this? I'm not, but is it still interesting?

03:47 / 18.06.06

I still enjoy Ex Machina in monthlies for an interesting portrayal of a gay/bisexual main character in these circumstances, and for Harris' art and the occasional fun turn of the screw in the plot; but the more superhero it gets, the more I lose interest.

Still buying monthlies. Still hoping it picks up some more.

18:14 / 18.06.06

The Chris Sprouse-drawn two-parter has been fun, although the idea of an evil counterpart whose voice controls animals instead of machines is a bit weird in the mostly-realistic Ex Machina world...I can buy a guy who is wired into machines through alien tech. more than I can a guy who is wired into animals. Then again, I read lots of superhero comics where any ludicrious power can happen, I just mean it seems odd in the more-real-world-than-not-world of Ex Machina's New York City.

Fly Beezy (War Minister)
(prev. Y SO ALT?)

01:04 / 19.06.06

I take the opposite view from LDones: the two-part 'special' has been better than the main series has in a while, precisely because the regular series has not been 'superhero' (or rather science fiction) enough for a while. Vaughan is not a good or sharp enough political commentator to make Hundred's career as mayor interesting in itself, and the characterisation in this book never seems to work unless the plot is actually progressing. The pacing just seems totally shot to me - although to be fair to Vaughan, he's writing two other monthly titles which are consistently great (Runaways & Y). But he needs to get back to the weird shit like 'Tag', and stop doing fairly bland sub-West Wing stuff.

01:32 / 19.06.06

'Tag' is easily the series' best storyline, in my reading.

I look at the creepy Sci-Fi as the actual thrust of the story, and the West-Wing-lite as take-it-or-leave-it color-commentary. What I'm referring to as 'getting superhero' is the more obviously protagonist/antagonist crime-stopping behaviors in costume, which feel so out of place beyond the framework of gritty, half-goofy flashbacks, where the logic of it all is more easily thrown to the wind.

When they said Hundred would 'suit up' again in that gypsy issue I cringed. I want more talking to machines and encountering the freaky consequences thereof, though Hundred's deep-seatd guilt-complexes over his power and his relative inability to affect change with it in the world are also interesting.

I think we agree on the fact that it needs more plot movement on the creepy sci-fi front. I do enjoy the trashy satisfaction of the teases about Mitchell's sex life here and there. Vaughn's either taken a healthy approach to keeping his protagonist's sexuality decentralized in the story, or he's spinning his wheels on what may end up a dissapointing 'big reveal' down the line.

After getting caught up on Runaways I'm inclined to put my trust in his plotting, though.

02:40 / 19.06.06

I gave up on this long ago, after giving the title far longer than I would usually.

16:46 / 17.05.07

anyone still reading? It's taken a bit of a turn into parallel reality/future world stuff, all by way of (finally) beginning to explain Hundred's special machine powers.

I still find this title enjoyable, though it did lose of some of it's extra-special steam there for a while. I'm in it for the long haul.

Fly Beezy (War Minister)
(prev. Y SO ALT?)

17:48 / 17.05.07

Yeah, I think Vaughan (can we fix the topic summary?) kind of cocked up the pacing of this one and also misjudged what he is and isn't good at - I should check if I'm repeating myself, but characterisation and mysteries and cliff-hangers he does pretty well, political comment he does not, especially when he indulges his tell-tale dialogue tick of having one person say a commonly held assumption and having the other correct them with an obscure historical fact. Which is weird because given the profession of a lot of the characters in Ex Machina you think it'd work fine: instead it comes off a little too much like wannabe West Wing.

I can't complain too much because up until recently Vaughan was writing two excellent other books - it's probably no coincidence that Ex Machina is picking up a bit now that he's done with Runaways...

17:10 / 19.05.08

don't know who's still reading, but I am, and the 'Hundred Visits The Pope' storyline was pretty cool. I keep trying to figure out whether BKV is an atheist or not, since the story seems to hint at the writer's perspective being that 'there is a God, Hundred just doesn't believe yet.'

The bombshell that Hundred has a vision about his political future at the end of the Pope storyline was pretty wild. We're at issue 34 or so out of what I believe is a finite 60 or maybe 80 issue storyline BKV has in mind. This title isn't flashy but it is usually quite consistent and strong. I know it was far eclipsed, in terms of having a fan base, by Y: THE LAST MAN, of course.

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