I'd like to do a brief review of Brian Vaughan's Ex Machina (Vaughan, you may or may not remember, is the man behind Y: The Last Man). Ex Machina follows Mitchell Hundred's rise from engineer to ill-conceived superhero (The Great Machine) to Mayor of New York City. It re-imagines life in NYC after 9-11, if a semi-superhero had been able to save one of the towers then ran for--and became--mayor.
It's a strange kind of comic book, part cape and cowl, part political drama. In the first arc, we get to see the city government's response to controversial artwork at the MoMA--not exactly the usual superhero fare. But, at the same time, we get to see the guilt and ambivalence of a more human superhero. This, of course, is nothing new, but it's the pairing of this post-human superheroism and mundane, political superheroism that makes for such an interesting read.
The first for trades are out, and it's still running. I'd recommend heading down to Infinite Monkey, or your local comic shop, and picking this up.
On a personal note, let me just tell you that this quarter will be a bit more work. I have a rather large paper due on Intelligent Design and scientific demarcation; I have a long-lead article for The Wilder Voice, In Search of a Value-Neutral Media; I have my editing and layout duties for both The Wilder Voice and The Grape, I have work at the writing center, and I have--that's it, thank God, I think.
The point is, things may be coming slower now. Tomorrow? The Month in Review
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