Customer Reviews

Ex Machina, Vol. 3: Fact v. Fiction

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris continue to impress with the third trade paperback of the Ex Machina series. In this installment, a new hero emerges in New York City calling itself the Automaton. This being claims to have been made by Mayor Hundred when he called himself The Great Machine. However, there is more at work here than there seems.

The second half of the volume deals with Mayor Mitchell Hundred heading west to visit his mother as she finds herself in a spot of trouble. This storyline is a bit more enjoyable for me as it gives us some insight into Mitchell's upbringing and his relationship with his mother.

While I greatly enjoyed Fact vs. Fiction, the stories did not compare to the first two volumes of this series. However, as I found those collections stellar in execution, perhaps that is only to be expected.

I will say this, while Vaughan's stories are just a bit under whelming compared to his usual outstanding work, the artwork of Tony Harris more than makes up for it. Harris is a master of his medium, and while he certainly knows how to draw superheroes, it is his attention to detail in clothing and facial expression on normal, everyday people that amazes me. You must remember, Ex Machina is more political drama than superhero adventure, and so therefore the artist must be especially talented to keep readers coming back for more. Harris fits the bill and then some.

So, while I don't think Fact vs. Fiction was as good as The First Hundred Days or Tag, I certainly think it is still better than much of what's on the market. I cannot recommend Vaughan and Harris' Ex Machina highly enough.

By the way, is it me, or does Mitchell's friend Ray look suspiciously like one mild mannered news reporter?

~Scott William Foley, author of Souls Triumphant

In Brian K. Vaughan's third trade paperback of his excellent sci-fi/political series, Ex Machina, Mayor Mitchel Hundred participates in something most Americans try to avoid like the plague: jury duty. Hundred is upset that, due to a technicality from when he was the Great Machine, someone that he put behind bars is going free. After receiving some advice from a friend of his (who is also an attorney), he decides that he must "help the system if he wants the system to help him", and when he is selected for jury duty, he decides to go through with it. Meanwhile, a new vigilante, calling itself Automaton, is roaming the streets helping people and claiming that it was built by the Great Machine. If that wasn't bad enough, a hostage situation occurs while Hundred is deliberating with the rest of the jury. In the second story-arc, Hundred visits his mother who reveals a huge truth from his past. When he asks her why she lied to him for so many years, she replies that everyone lies at some point for various reasons. Later, Hundred is lied to by some machines that he is communicating with, which rattles him with the revelation that his mother was right; EVERYTHING lies at some point.
As usual, Vaughan's writing continues to be superb and Tony Harris' art is great. The story arcs in Fact v. Fiction are entertaining, and some previously hinted-at plotlines are once again referenced, and we also see glimpses of other possible plotlines to come. Ex Machina seems to keep getting better as the issues go on.

The Ex Machina series frustrates me because it is such a great high concept, with so much promise. The art is interesting, drawn in a realistic style that feels cinematic, almost like a movie storyboard. The art is very "literal" in this respect, without any of the impressionistic or surreal aspect of recent comics. The writing by Brian Vaughan is good when it comes to plot and character, but weak when it comes to dialogue. Somebody please tell him that old ladies do not talk with the same profane slang as 22 year-old men! The dialogue in all of his work is edgy, profane, and cool, but does nothing to distinguish the characters from each other. In "Y the last man" this sin was forgivable because there was no wide variety of characters anyway - but in Ex Machina it only serves to make the whole series feel like a seventeen-year-old male fantasy of what life would be like as a mayor of NYC with superpowers. Maybe this is the point, and I'm missing the joke. But Vaughan's attempts to address political and social issues make me think otherwise.

A decent book, with cool art, not the best out there.

Good chapter in an interesting series. I like the fact that that focus is on the job and the challenges it has in addition to drawing on past episodes in his life so that it show his influences and the consequences of past actions. Also the writers have a secret agenda of persons unknown that gives it some mystery. The is he gay or not storyline has moved from being amusing to annoying however. I will buy further issues - it is more than just beating up the villan of the week - there is a broader context missing in other graphic novels.

The third Ex Machina graphic novel unfortunately trots out the tired old story of an imposter of the Great Machine running around New York. Fortunately that isn't all this volume has. The story of Mitchell serving Jury Duty is an excellent plot that helps make up for some of the obviousness of the imposter story.
The volume also includes a two part story where we meet Mitchell's mother and learn about the death of his father which sheds some new light on the background of our protagonist. Not the best of this series by a long shot but still worth reading.

The key developments in the stories collected in this edition are not those of the Mayor serving jury duty (frankly, I would think a Mayor's candidacy for the jury would be challenged during voir dire by one, if not both, of the attorneys in any criminal trial). Rather, the key developments concern the two-part storyarc "Off The Grid" that is included in this volume. In this arc, we plumb some of the depths of the relationship between Mitchell and his mother, Martha Hundred and the events surrounding the death of Mitch's father, Thomas (yes, Brian K. Vaughan likes to insert some of his comics knowledge into his stories--Mitch's parents are named Thomas and Martha, like the parents of a certain dark knight detective we've all read about, and yes, Mitch's friend Ray does remind of a certain mild mannered reporter). We also get a second glimpse into Mitch's sexuality during conversations with his mother, furthering some of what was hinted at in the TAG volume. All in all, continued brilliance from Vaughan and Harris.

There is a trend in modern comics that I've really come to like. Around the third or fourth collection, a lot of regularly arc-oriented comics hit readers with a few shorter tales. One-shots, shorter arcs, whatever the case may be, it happens a lot, and I love it. Gaiman did it with The Sandman, Willingham did it with Fables, Mignola did it with Hellboy, Whedon is getting read to do it with Buffy, and Vaughan does it in this volume of EX MACHINA. We take a break from longer story arcs to get a one-shot, a three part mini, and a two issue mini. Each of these are consistent in the quality of the material, which is no less than what we've come to expect from Brian K. Vaughan.

Vaughan continues this character study of Mitchell Hundred, who is as much Clark Kent as he is a The West Wing character. Hundred has to make tough decisions, both in his political career and personal life, and it's engaging watching the directions the character is being taken. The weakness of this volume is that the supporting character don't get much screen time, and in a series that is still as new as this one, doing that sort of makes the reader forget that character a bit. I'd like some more Dave scenes than this book offered just to keep the character active, but other than a few nits I've picked, the book is very solid.

Tony Harris's art is wonderful and very realistic, which vibes well with the story. Vaughan's writing is as consistently entertaining as it always is, but this story has still yet to register the same emotional significance as Vaughan's other stories have. That being said, it took four volumes of Y: The Last Man for that to happen, and I now consider that one of the best comic series of all time. I know one day Ex Machina is going to stop entertaining me and start WOWing me.

8/10

For those who've grown beyond "Hulk smash" and "With great power comes great responsibility" comes ex-machina; an alternate history story about a NYC mayor who happens to to be able to talk to and command any machine to do anything. Meanwhile, he also has a city to run, which makes for amusing and thought-provoking fun. The characters are well-drawn, the dialogue is crisp and the art is direct and good. The series shows every sign of being consistently good (I've read the first four graphic novels so far) and unique.

Brian K. Vaughan, Ex Machina: Fact v. Fiction (Wildstorm, 2006)

Mitchell Hundred keeps trying to run New York City his way, and people keep wanting him to stop. As usual, there's a mini-mystery running through the volume (and, as usual, it's the weakest part of the book); it's predictable, and you can ignore it, but the rest of the book is just as interesting as the series has been so far. Vaughan continues to impress me with his ability to take the much-overdone "post-9/11" genre and make something worthwhile of it. ***

The third volume of Ex Machini is consistent with the first three. The hostage situation was extremely intriguing, but the whole thing about Hundred and his mother was a little boring to me. I am, however, a big fan of Ex Machina, and Brian K. Vaughn, and will definately continue reading each volume.