Customer Reviews

Livewires Vol. 1: Clockwork Thugs, Yo

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

 

 

I really like Livewires. I like it so much that I have all six issues of it. I really wanted to give this edition 5 stars but Marvel's horrendous choice of going with the digest format has ruined this wonderful book. The pages are shrunk to about ¾ the original size and the print quality of the details really suffers, especially the light line-work of the dialogue boxes. Despite this, I heartily recommend this to any anime or espionage fans.

In this book Adam Warren goes wild with science fiction concepts and crazy comic book science. A group of robots - the products of a black-ops top secret experiment - travel the country seeking out and destroying other black-ops top secret experiments.

The problem is the characters never really come to life. Except for their new member 'Stem Cell' the others all speak in the same sort of lame hipster, rapper-wanna-be voice and have the same too cool for school attitude.

And once Stem Cell grows into her role... she starts speaking the same way. It's not a bad book but it hardly left me wanting more.

A comic shop near my school was having a big sale. Manga, comic and graphic novels were 70% off. So when I saw this I thought I would give it a try. I'm very glad that I did. When I was done reading it was like "Wow. That was awesome." I love the set up and characters. The only complaint I have is the fact the series is so short. The should of at least made it 2 books/12 comics long, if not more. That way the readers can get to know the characters better and care for them more. If there's ever a 2nd series, I will be picking it up. This comic is worth a chance.

Livewires was a product of the ill-fated Marvel Next imprint, meant to showcase original material aimed at a teen audience. Whereas Runaways relied on teen drama, and Spellbinders explored the magical element of the Marvel Universe, Livewires was an action miniseries involving artificial intelligence and top-secret quasi-government tech projects.

This six-issue miniseries was written by Adam Warren, better known for his own comic Empowered. Warren's ideas are a breath of fresh air for the Marvel Universe, starring not traditional superheroes but five "mecha" (they dislike the term "robot") whose sole purpose is to hunt down and destroy rival robotics projects. It's told mostly from the perspective of Stem Cell, their newest recruit, who is meant to replace the team's recently destroyed tech specialist. Warren's dialogue might seem odd at times (it might just be Cornfed's midwestern colloquialisms), but he manages to keep the reader engaged with both action and a steady stream of ideas up until the end. The art, although not Warren's (who is a good artist in his own right), is a manga-inspired style that's still pretty darn good, despite the bland cover art on this volume. Stem Cell in particular has a cute, farm girl look, whereas Gothic Lolita sports the fashion sense that is her namesake.

The weaknesses in this volume come from the fact that six issues was not enough to fully explore the concepts presented. We never find out who is funding Project Livewire and why. Besides Stem Cell, the Livewires themselves aren't explored in depth. We're never told how they feel about their line of work; they seem to enjoy it, but from the beginning we find out that they lose members fairly quickly (they started with more than ten), so the Livewires fight until they're dead for no other reason than they were programmed to do so.

All in all, Livewires is a fun ride. Adam Warren claims he has pitched a sequel several times, but since this miniseries didn't sell very well, Marvel has not picked it up, which is unfortunate because this volume does leave you wanting more. If you want more out-of-the-ordinary Marvel comics, I'd suggest Runaways and Nextwave. If you want more Adam Warren, you can check out Empowered, which he wrote after Livewires.

Yet another snarky, bleeding-edge take on the frightening possibilities of modern science, shown in the bright and shiny mirror of the Marvel Universe's backdrops.

Adam warren makes me happy on the pseudoscientific, elementary level. That, and I like viscious AI-driven robots.

Marvel attempts to do manga. It's not a bad idea, a robot special-ops team, but then that's when the good idea stops. The characters have a ton of potential, and the art is pretty good too. But, it seems like the story was written before there were any characters created. "Hey, here's a cool story, now I need to come up with some characters to put in there. Hmm, who can I create to further my story's plot?" I do look forward to seeing more of these characters, but only if there is some character development along the way.