Ex Machina #1

Another fairly obscure comic published during the aughts, Ex Machina printed under DC Comics' WildStorm subsidiary. I don't know much about this one, but it at least reviewed a hell of a lot better than its weeby Marvel contemporary. It seems to be another attempt at a gritty-ish new superhero setting with a geopolitical focus; it's 50/50 odds as to whether this will be a chauvinistic War on Terror American screed, or a reaction against such.

The author of Ex Machina, Brian Vaughan, is a well known and generally well liked comics and TV writer whose name appears on a lot of dumb-but-fun works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Y: The Last Man, Swamp Thing, etc. The lead artist, Tony Harris, has a reputation of being living proof that nerds need to be bullied more, but he at least knows how to draw, which is all that should matter here. A more obscure artist named Tom Feister also took part in Ex Machina's penciling; don't know anything else about him.

So, that's about it for introduction. Begin!


First page gives us a helpful dictionary definition of the term "deus ex machina," and a guy in a Wasp-ish flying armorsuit about to punch an airliner. Okay. The next page reveals this scene to be a framed photograph or painting in the office of a youngish looking guy with iridescent scars on one side of his face. This man blames himself and the public in equal measures for Arnold Schwarzenegger being elected governor of California and for a member of the Bush family becoming a superhero.

He doesn't specify which Bush, but I think the implication is George W. Which is a hilarious, horrifying, and cringe-inducing concept all at once.

Apparently, Webface here was President of the United States from 2002-2005, and this comic - which he tells us he views as primarily a tragedy - will be his memoirs. Those aren't election years, curious. Maybe Bush II abdicated to be a full time superhero after half a term or something, though in that case it should have been President Cheney (yikes) until at least '04. Curious.

With that framing device established, the comic flashes back to future president Webface's childhood in 1976. He doesn't have the weird glowing scars yet, and conveniently we learn that he's named Mitchell. His mother is doing outreach work for the League of Women Voters, which he's disappointed to learn isn't a superhero organization. Also, he tells his mother that he likes Aquaman better than Wonderwoman, and she tells him to just go read his comics quietly in the other room. Can't exactly blame her, given the circumstances (she's in the middle of registering a long queue of female voters). She eventually asks the handyman, a Russian fellow named Ivan who Mitchell calls "Kremlin" to everyone's chagrin, to take the kid out to Coney Island for a few hours to get him out of the way. Ivan owes her a favor, so he agrees.

Also, Mitchell and his mother's last name is "Hundred." Even for superhero characters that's a big wut.

As he leads him away, Mitchell tells Ivan that he wants to be a comic book artist and work for DC (...groan) when he grows up, but that his mother tells him he should use his drawing skills to become an architect instead. Ivan tells him that his mother is right; Mitchell needs to be practical, and to understand that he can't always have exactly the life he wants.

Fastforward 26 years to Mayor Mitchell of New York City addressing the public.

Seems like he's making an earnest effort to improve the city's infrastructure and environment. Not bad show, Mayor Mitch.

Suddenly, an assassin tries to shoot him, screaming wildly about how alien scum needs to die. Huh, he and his mom both look human enough to me, though I think Mitchell does have the weird face marks now. Maybe the mayor of New York is actually the parasitic mass of squiggly lines latched onto Mitchell's face and puppetting his body, idk. Mitchell causes the gun to jam with the alien powers he apparently has (in his own words, the gun was a semiauto, so he could "talk to" it. Weird), and security quickly grabs the would-be assassin.

Mitchell bemoans having barely gotten two weeks into his mayoral career before the first assassination attempt. Oh, he's just STARTING as mayor in 2002? Okay, the intro bit was slightly misleading. Absent context, I assumed that his four year term in office, amid mention of national figures, was a presidential one. Okay, he was just talking about being mayor of NYC, gotcha.

Mitchell and his retinue get into his limo while the police secure the scene. Then his bodyguard, an Officer Bradburry, finally notice that a strange woman has insinuated herself into his retinue and sat down in the limo with them uninvited.

Not very smart of you to do that literally minutes after an actual assassination attempt, Suzanne. Anyway, Mitchell tells Officer Bradburry to lower his gun, and the NYPD never brutalizes a reporter ever again.

Upon being given his reluctant permission to ask a few questions, Suzanne asks him if the assassin's accusation is right; is he an alien? When Mitchell denies it, she plays the improbable superhero last name card, in response to which he just loses it.

Well, that's a better explanation for the surname than I was expecting, so that's cool. Also, he's a literal my-ancestors-stepped-off-the-Mayflower-er, apparently (unless he and his feminist mom really are aliens, of course).

The reporter gets butthurt about his reaction, and he has Bradburry let her out at the next parking spot. Mitchell regrets using the r-word in his outburst, and fully expects to be roasted for it in the doubtlessly unflattering article the Voice will be printing. Bradburry comments on the reporter being hot even if she's a jerk, which just makes Mitchell annoyed with him as well.

I...don't really like this portrayal of the press, in a story told from a politician's perspective. For what I hope are obvious reasons these days.

Jump back in time to October, 1999. As per his mother's wishes, Mitchell became a civic engineer. Bradburry, at this time a lieutenant in the NYC harbor patrol, spotted something really weird in the underwater pylons of the Brooklyn Bridge. It looked like a glowing growth emerging from the side of the pillar, below the water's surface. Bradburry worked demolition back when he was in the marines, and he knew this didn't look like a bomb, so he decided he should get a city engineer who's done bridge maintenance to have a look at it.

Apparently, there are some engineer superstitions surrounding the Brooklyn bridge. The architect who designed it apparently died of tetanus contracted during the building, and his son - also an engineer - died in a diving accident while working on its supports. Huh, creepy.

...

Well, sort of. I looked it up, and while architect John A. Roebling did die in the manner described, it only happened because he was an alternative medicine crackpot who refused professional treatment and tried to cure his tetanus with running water.

So, still creepy, but at least one of those deaths was as much the man's own fault as the bridge's.

...

They get to the site, and Mitchell looks over the side of the boat into the eerie glow coming from beneath. Only, unlike the last time Bradburry parked his boat over it, the "growth" suddenly detatches itself from the pylon and glides through the water toward them. And, when it gets close enough, Mitch can see that it actually is a bomb. A strange looking, glowing bomb flying through the water, and by the time he gets a good look it's already too late. Bradburry, who was standing behind him on the boat, is only knocked down. Mitchell, who had his face right near the water's surface, loses most of his left cheek and eyelid.

Bradburry tries to radio for help, but Mitchell starts grabbing his ears and howling in pain as he does so, screaming about how the radio, the engine, and the city machinery all around them are hurting his ears more than being torn open is hurting his face. They're talking to him, specifically.

Bradburry is unable to shut them up, so Mitchell does himself. All technology above a certain, arbitrary level of complexity near them shuts down. The city lights of northern Brooklyn and southern Manhattan go dark.

He's not an alien. He just got bitten by a radioactive piece of engineering and became technologyman.

Back in 2002, right after the assassination attempt, Mitchell gets his obligatory medical once-over and then returns to city hall. This exchange with his deputy mayor ensues, which...well:

Three years of President Trump have really ruined my perspective on things. Back in 2015, I'd have seen this panel and immediately inferred that Mitchell actually is joking. As it is, when you combine this with his earlier "retarded" comment, I really wasn't sure how I should think of him until I reread the preceding material with an eye for "what do normal people talk like?" So, yeah, pretty sure he really is just joking.

He and deputy mayor Wylie change the subject from today's near-catastrophe and start arguing about some new workplace safety regulations. Before they can get far in that discussion, an intern runs up with a package for Mitchell. It's already been x-rayed and scanned, and should be safe to open. Inside of it is a strange looking helmet, similar (if not identical) to the one that the man implied to be George Bush was wearing on the first page.

Jump back to early 2000, a few months after the explosion. Mitchell's wounds are still healing. One evening he's approached by an elderly Ivan, who offers him an old flight helmet he dug up to go with the ironman suit that Mitch just built while in a power-induced trance.

That's a thing for him, I guess. In addition to technopathy, he also has tinker powers while sleepwalking.

I guess it was him flying around punching planes in the beginning, not Bush. When he was referring to Bush wearing "the suit" I assumed he meant the suit that we'd just seen. Not the figurative "suit of office," lol. I'm not sure if it's my fault or the comic's that the beginning threw me off so much.

Ivan wants him to go out and be a superhero. It's not clear if those exist or not up to this point, but either way Ivan wants him to be one. Apparently, he thinks that these powers were given to him by God for this purpose, which...wait, what???

Well, first of all, Ivan is not a very good Marxist if he thinks that flying around personally looking for problems to solve is a better use of Mitchell's powerset than quite a few other obvious applications. I'm not sure if that's intentional by the author, if he himself doesn't understand how leftism works.

Also, um. A Russian Marxist in the United States from the 1970's onward? Like, a self-described Marxist with an obvious Russian accent? Really? And um. He was working for an American feminist organization. And has the nickname "Kremlin."

This is really weird. This is the cheesy Red Scare stereotype of the communist Russian infiltrating American society with the help of feminists and minority rights activists. Just...he's being portrayed positively. Not in a "this is an actual leftist being portrayed positively" sense. In a "this is a cartoon villain leftist being portrayed positively."

Like I said. It's weird. It feels like the author is sympathetic to leftwing politics and has some limited understanding of them, but not enough to write about the subject without this sort of uncanny valley effect.

Anyway, Mitchell lets Ivan convince him to give it a try. So, he flies around the city at night in his Wasp-ish armor and helmet, listening in on emergency lines and the like for problems to solve. And, in fucking New York City, he can't find anything more important to intervene in than two dumbass kids riding around on the roof of a train car at their own risk.

Is this guy even trying?

Well, I get my answer to that question just a couple panels later, when he makes a cheesy dramatic entrance flying over next to the kids and startling one of them so badly he falls off the train's roof. Mitchell quickly swoops down to grab him before he can hit the pavement, but breaks his arm in the process (or...maybe. The kid's reaction is pretty understated for that. Maybe it's just a dislocated shoulder or a torn ligament or something). Panicking, Mitchell then ends up setting himself and the kid down again on the first surface he can find...which he realizes a moment later is another set of tracks. He has to technopathically shut an oncoming train down to prevent them both from being crushed.

Then, he does this:

The next panel, on the next page, is this:

specopstheline.oldmeme

Back in 2002, that Daily Wire cover is mounted in a basement office in City Hall. Mitchell explains to an elderly man who he's meeting with that he keeps a reminder of his old shame around, to keep himself humble. Well, at least he learned from that unbelievably asinine series of mistakes, so better late than never. Also, the name he chose, the Great Machine, is an allusion to a metaphor Thomas Jefferson used for the workings of society that his mother always liked; still a really awkward name, but at least it has logic behind it...which is also true of his actual surname I suppose. Anyway, this old guy, Trip, is here representing the New York state government. The New York governorship was Republican held at that time, and they're apparently not happy with Mitchell's refusal to go help with the Bush Administration's middle eastern adventures instead of wasting his powers by going into politics. Even though the UN Security Council ruled that he shouldn't participate in warfare until the world has a better sense of what he can do and what longterm effects it might have.

Also, Trip brought a briefcase full of blackmail material to try and force Mitchell to head to Afghanistan against his will. It's not actually conclusive evidence of whatever Mitchell supposedly did, though; Trip is wearing a microphone and hoping that Mitchell will say something to incriminate himself beyond a doubt.

Trying to hide a microphone from a technopath is kind of incredibly stupid. There's..kind of a lot of people making laughably obvious mistakes in this story, to be honest. It's a pretty well researched and convincing depiction of American politics.

Took the words right out of my mouth, Mitch.

Trip tries to threaten him with more prying. Mitchell responds by shutting off the mic and then threatening to do the same to Trip's pacemaker. No court, Mitchell points out, would have any way of proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

That gets Trip to leave right quick, though not before making an ominous comment about how the New York City Hall's basement used to be a prison. Mitchell remains behind, staring at his old shame cover.

Back to June of 2001. Mitchell is introducing himself to the man who will later be his deputy mayor, Wylie, and making the identity of the world's short-lived "first superhero" the Great Machine known for the first time. Mitchell gave up on costumed heroing within some months of his embarrassing first outing, realizing that the best a superhero can do is maintain the status quo, and in practice will probably just make things worse. Instead, he wants to run for mayor of NYC under the Democratic party's auspices. Mitchell explains that for many long years before he gained notoriety as the Great Machine, he's worked as a public servant, and during that time he poured his heart and soul into the city's infrastructure. As mayor, he hopes to be able to give it the systemic overhaul that it really needs. And, while the Great Machine didn't exactly make himself well liked during his brief existence, he DID get a lot of attention. Using that as a publicity gimmick could get a lot more New Yorkers than usual to pay attention to the race, and once he has their attention he can direct it to his actual platform. Which will hopefully outweigh his bad vigilante stigma.

Councilman Wylie isn't convinced.

Mitchell says that he'll run as an independent then, and he'll drop out if it looks like he might become a spoiler for the dems; hopefully he can still raise the level of discourse and thus give a boost to other progressive candidates by doing that.

His arguments show both a dedication to and understanding of the issues confronting the city and their likely solutions, and a degree of charisma and political savvy. Enough so to make Wylie reluctantly take him on board and run him as a Democrat.

Back to 2002, after his action-packed meeting with Trip. Mitchell goes to visit old Ivan, who he knows must have mailed him the helmet (presumably, he returned it to him after retiring the Great Machine). Ivan continues to be the worst Marxist ever by saying that Mitchell is now just a cog in the machine instead of a force beyond it. Okay, Ivan, if you'd been coaching Mitchell to overthrow the government or start a technopathy-powered anticapitalist revolution or something, that would make sense. But being a traditional superhero is NOT what a communist Yoda figure should be trying to encourage. Even if you're one of those extreme anti-electoral Marxist wingnuts, you have to concede that running for mayor with a left wing platform is at least more effective than flying around throwing kids off of trains.​

Mitchell tells him that as mayor, he's able to do more for the people in an afternoon than the Great Machine managed in months. Ivan tells him that that's nonsense; he did the most good on his final Great Machine outing, when he saved countless thousands of lives and the quality of life for countless thousands more in one single action. Mitchell tells him that no, that wasn't heroic or successful. Because, if he had been a REAL hero..

Well. I guess that's what turned Mitchell's reputation around enough for him to win the mayoral race in between June 2001 and January 2002. And that's what he was doing with that plane on the first page.

End issue.


In some ways, this is the kind of story I'd like to see more often from cape settings. Stories about people with powers (or even just normal people IN power) doing non-superhero or supervillain things in a world that has to cope with that stuff.

The writing is kind of uneven. Ivan being a particularly strange example. I also feel like Mitchell's personality is sort of all over the place at times, in a way that seems less like a complicated and multifaceted individual and more like a character who needed a bit more definition in the author's mind. That said, most of the writing was at least decent, and the beats of the story itself are certainly original and inspired. The art doesn't particularly stand out, but it's on the better side of average professional comic book work.

I also like that the issue's final page seems to be taking the same position I usually have when it comes to the superhero ethics debate. Is flying around in tights looking for petty criminals to beat up a good use of your unique superhuman powers? Absolutely not. But just for that every once in a while when a big disaster or villain is about to strike, it's not a bad idea to keep an extra pair of tights in the back closet. You just spend most of your time using your powers for more practical things and hoping you'll never have to wear them.

So, based on this issue, I'd give "Ex Machina" a solid B, maybe B+. It's a fine comic, and I wouldn't mind continuing it.