Customer Reviews

Ex Machina, Vol. 5: Smoke, Smoke

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As any lover of Brian K Vaughan could tell you, this guy is a genius. Whether it's a group of misfit, teen-age, evil-villian-parent-murdering crimestoppers; a family of bomb-dodging lions that escape a half-demolished zoo in Baghdad; a man named Yoric who survives a "plague" that wipes out every male on earth (except him and his pet capuchin Ampersand); or, in the case of Ex Machina, a hero-turned-polictician who just happens to be able to communicate with machinery, Vaughan delivers, every time. NOBODY who calls themselves comic book geek can live without reading this series. END OF REVIEW :):)

I love good art.
I love a good story.
this has neither.
it has GREAT ART and a GREAT STORY!!!!!
the characters are believable, flawed with good intentions.
the dynamics of the art and the story are just shy of utter perfection!
every issue was amazing and wish brian vaughn had more resources to continue making creations like this

The Ex Machina series is Brian Vaughn's well-written story of Mitchell Hundred, former superhero and now New York City Mayor. The award-winning writer has followed up his "Y-The Last Man" with this fast-paced series of stories. Fans will notice the same sharp, edgy dialogue, literary allusions, and jumpy use of time. The series is one of the finest in the "superhero" genre today. Vaughn is heavily influenced by Watchmen writer Alan Moore. Like most good Sci-Fi, he approaches real issues - would a superhero make a good mayor? How would a superhero mayor deal with everyday issues like getting the garbage picked up? How would he handle his personal demons and his uncertain past?

The drawing and inking are unparalleled in this series. The use of color is fantastic and the book is printed on good quality paper that showcases it well. The artists achieve the level of painstaking detail they create through enacting certain scenes out physically before drawing. The book is hyper realistic, and thought provoking.

Volume 5 has one larger story arc and one small one. The main story, comprising the first four chapters, is Vaughan at his best. He puts Mayor Hundred through the wringer: this time he's not dealing with the gay marriage issue, it's the legalization of pot. This 4-issue story arc blew me away. This story is a molotov cocktail blend of interesting characters, action, and hot-button social issues. Chapter 5 of this book was not as good as the main story and felt a bit like filler.

Of course, in typical Vaughan fashion, there are always loose ends that he never ties up. These "plot cul-de-sacs" are a bit disorienting. Vaughan doesn't believe in the Hollywood movie rule of "economy of character" because he insists on bringing in interesting minor characters that don't always move the story along and disappear later.

If you have not picked up a comic book for a few years since you were a kid, start here. Brian Vaughn is one of the medium's great talents and this series displays them all.

Brian K. Vaughan, Ex Machina: Smoke, Smoke (DC Comics, 2007)

Vaughan continues to impress with everything he puts out. The most recent Ex Machina collection takes on the thorny (well, where legislators are concerned) topic of drug legalization. A new character pops up: January Moore, the departed Journal's sister, who Hundred appoints to step into Journal's shoes. As usual, there's a relatively dismissable mystery arc, but they're starting to tie in much better with the overarching themes found in each book. I wasn't entirely sure about this series to start, but it's getting better with each release. ****

I thought volume 5 of Ex Machina was actually a step back in the series. Volume 4 was by far the best, and I had high hopes for this one, but it was a little disappointing. It wasn't bad by all means, but after volume 4, Vaughn had set the bar pretty high for the series, and this one kind of failed to reach that bar. Also, it wasn't as exciting as all the other volumes of the series have been.

For anyone who grew up with comic books and love the medium, this is the perfect series to graduate to. It is stunningly beautiful and the writing is topical and smart. It's such a cliche, but it feels like an HBO show done in comic book form. Mayor Mitchell Hundred deals with tricky political situations with integrity, but never finds an easy time of it. He has a wisdom about him, but isn't above revisiting his ethics and decisions as he does in this volume with his arrest of a small-time pot dealer.

Trade paperback is the ideal format for Ex Machina, as the collected issues focus on themes and a collection of storylines. It's far more satisfying than reading it in monthly comics form. I highly recommend this volume and this series!

Ex Machina is my favorite indie series currently running.(Vaughn and Harris are masters of their crafts) As great as it is it tends to take breaks and go off on side stories that don't really add to the main plot. Smoke,Smoke(Vol.5) is one such side story. "Smoke" takes place after the tragic gas attack that took the life of Mayor Hundred's temp Journal. Journal is replaced by her younger sister January who doesn't arrive with the best of intentions. Hundred has his hands full in this volume but his problems are pretty silly. A robber masquerading as a fireman is tricking people into letting him into their homes where he proceeds to assault and rob them. It turns out that he has no real significance to Mayor Hundred and is just a lowly chronic masturbater. The most important story is when Hundred discovers that a kid that he captured(back in his crime fighting days) for selling pot is stabbed and killed in jail while trying to break up a fight. The kid's mother is grief stricken and decides to set herself on fire Buddhist monk style in front City Hall. Hundred blames himself and almost decides to combat the city's drug laws but is talked out of it realizing that it would be political suicide. Smoke is a good read I just think that it doesn't move things forward, but it does have some important events. When Hundred is told that the kid he captured was killed in jail the stress causes him to black out, get a nosebleed and cause a transformer to explode. Strange.. Also January's mysterious relationship with Hundred's old chum (And his mother's boyfriend) Kremlin begins. Good read, just not the best Ex Machina has to offer.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 4 volumes in this series, but this one disappointed me a bit. It didn't really seem to progress the story behind The Great Machine's origins as much as the past few entries in the series. It seemed a bit more caught up in the political issues facing Mitch as mayor in the "current" timeline.

Love this comic series! I hope it is never spoilt into a crappy movie saga...
Best regards from Barcelona,
Sergi

This book felt like Vaughn's prepping you for some big event later on. The story moves but it just seems to sit between Journal's death in the last book and whatever is brewing for the next.