Super-Powered Comics: Ex Machina

The book will soon come to an end with a final issue shipping this July. So I thought it would be great to take a weekly look back at a truly great series Ex Machina.

Created by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, the series continues Vaughan’s evil knack for taking great concepts that no one thought of before. Well, except for me, of course. I came up with the idea of a story focused around a super-powered mayor just months before Ex Machina first debuted. Yet another reason to kick myself for not being a voice in comics yet, but I digress.

The first five issues collect in to a trade aptly titled “The First Hundred Days”. We focus on the first hundred days of Mitchell Hundred as he takes on the daunting task of mayor of New York City. The independent minded Hundred is surrounded by a strong supporting cast of staff members and friends. But as I mentioned before, Hundred isn’t just a normal guy. He possesses the ability to talk to and control machines thanks to a mysterious bomb that embedded a strange layer of wires beneath parts of his skin. He used these powers to become a rather inefficient hero named the Great Machine, but quickly realized his superhero career would take him nowhere fast. He decided to run for mayor as an indepedent, a proposition that would have taken him nowhere if it wasn't for September 11, 2001. For in the world of Ex Machina, a man able to talk to machines could arrive on the scene fast enough to stop the plane from crashing in to the second tower. With hundreds saved, Mitchell was a shoe in for the office.

His first few days don’t go as easily as he might like, as a controversial art show and a mysterious murder spree put a crink in to his position, all while a terrible snowstorm occurs outside. Vaughan gives us everything we need to know to understand Mitchell as a man and his history as the Great Machine, while also leaving dozens of questions still open. It is much the same tact, he took with the early issues of Y: The Last Man, but the more focused narrative of Ex Machina makes it feel less blatant.

Tony Harris comes from the school of photo-referenced art, but unlike some of the more modern purveyors of such art, he seems to be clearly still putting pencil to paper. While his poses and his motions always show amazing human grace, they never suffer from the photoshopped filtered look of many recent artists. Much like he did a decade before for Starman, Harris sets out to make this book his own. It shows on every page.

If it hasn’t been made clear, I love this series. Great story, great art, and a clever concept all combine to make one of the most compelling comics of the last few years. Give it a try. Highly Recommended.

Comics of Yesteryear: Starman volume one

Comic connoisseurs have fond memories of James Robinson’s excellent nineties series Starman. I loved it too, but at the same time, it offered a hint of sadness for me. You see, Jack Knight was the replacement for one of the first DC heroes I fell in love with as a ten year old: Starman.



He had no relation to any previous incarnation to Starman. He didn’t need it. Much like DC’s Silver Age characters featured new heroes with old names, so did Will Payton. Instead of any kind of cosmic device, he gets hit by a ray frm the sky that apparently kills him. He wakes up in a morgue, unharmed, and with great levels of power. With his sister’s encouragement, he uses his stellar powers to become Starman, hero of Denver.

Written by Roger Stern, fresh off of his Marvel runs on titles like Avengers and Amazing Spider-Man and soon to be Superman writer, and illustrated by Tom Lyle, contributor to Impact’s The Comet, John Ostrander’s Punisher, and numerous other short runs on various books for the next decade. They weren’t out to innovate the way the later Starman’s creative team was. They wanted to complete a successful superhero book and that they accomplished with gusto.

To modern readers, Starman’s first couple issues might seem right at home, but at the time I thought they were rather strange. The first two issues were spent doing little more than learning his powers (flight, energy projection, super strength, facial reconstruction) and how to use them to fight crime. Issue three finally brings his first super-villain, the rather lackluster Blue Devil foe Bolt. The end of that issue does show us his first villains uniquely his own: the Power Elite. They attack just as the Invasion crossover starts. (And this is where I first bought the book back in the late eighties.)



The story gets thrown to the side for a two issue team-up with Firestorm that leads to Starman taking a major role in the battle against the Dominators’s invasion force. I ate it up as a kid, but I can clearly see now where Stern’s plans get back-burnered in favor of a crossover event. But they still maintain the fun, exciting spirit set up by the previous few issues.

After Invasion, the Power Elite storyline returns. This is when the book really shines. Issues seven and eight wrap up the Power Elite story with a (literal) bang. The team of Stern & Lyle really come together with these issues. They would continue for another dozen or so issues before Lyle left for greener pastures. Stern would disappear a few issues later.

I really don’t want to go in to too many details about this book. While it does get in to the angst that started to really bury comics in the late eighties in to the nineties, Starman still carried the fun but semi-real style that DC cultivated post-Crisis. Sadly, DC has yet to add (or even mention it as a potential addition) to its Showcase line of black and white reprints. You can still find most of these issues for a buck or under in any number of back issue bins. You should go check them out. You might just like ’em. Recommended.