Broken Frontier

“Mr. Hundred? Is that you?”

These are the first words spoken in Brian K. Vaughan’s “Tag” and it would be difficult to find an opening line more appropriate or meaningful. The second collection of “Ex Machina” revolves around that deceptively simple question. But while no answer is given, several possibilities are raised…

Who is Mitchell Hundred? He’s the Great Machine.

Mitchell was “gifted” with the ability to talk to mechanical equipment after a strange device blew up in his face. Deciding to use his newfound powers to help others, he quickly realized being a superhero is much easier in a comic book than in the real world. On September 11, 2001, he stopped the second plane from crashing into the other tower but still feels guilty that he wasn’t able to stop the first one. That was the last time he put on his costume.

Jackson Georges, a cryptologist with the National Security Agency, is studying one of the fragments from the mysterious object when he has a major falling out with Mitchell. Six months later he disappears completely, his daughter is ripped in half – lengthwise – and the only trace of his wife the police can find is a piece of her left arm. How this relates to Mitchell’s abilities or the mysterious object that gave them to him is anyone’s guess.

A dog is found eviscerated in the subway and a strange symbol is spray painted on the nearby wall – the same symbol that appears on the fragment Georges was studying. A woman traveling on the subway train to New Jersey sees a series of these symbols, but they gradually change into something else entirely. At first she’s entranced by the beauty of the pictures, but then she grabs the ballpoint pen from her lover’s hand and desperately stabs herself to death.

Mitchell may have received extraordinary powers, but it looks like there’s going to be an incredibly high price to pay for the privilege. From the beginning of the series, Vaughan has hinted that things aren’t going to end well for the Great Machine. And it looks like the bad things have just begun.

Who is Mitchell Hundred? He’s the Mayor of New York City.

Once he realized he could accomplish far more by changing the system within than he could ever achieve as a costumed superhero, Mitchell successfully ran for office. When he finds out the Deputy Mayor’s brother – a firefighter – wants the Mayor to perform his wedding, he agrees immediately. After what happened on September 11th, Mitchell would gladly do anything to help a rescue worker, even a man who wants to marry his boyfriend.

The standard arguments are raised, of course. The Chief of Staff reminds him that the state already grants gay couples domestic partnership status (“Separate but equal,” the Deputy Mayor comments, “That usually works out well.”). She tells him religious and conservative leaders will be fiercely opposed to the ceremony, but Mitchell doesn’t care. An engineer for most of his life, he’s always been more interested in facts than in manufactured ideologies, so he sees nothing wrong with allowing two men to get married.

Still, it’s hard to tell if Mitchell is taking a stand on an important issue because he believes it’s the right thing to do, because he likes the idea of pissing off the politicians he not-so-secretly despises, or because of another agenda altogether.

Who is Mitchell Hundred? He’s the man dating Suzanne Padilla.

They seem like the perfect pair. His security staff has nicknamed him Superman, and as a beautiful reporter for the “Voice”, she certainly qualifies as a possible Lois. But things are rarely what they seem.

After a night that abruptly ends when Mitchell tells Suzanne some of what he suspects about the device that made him more than human, she learns that he’s going to perform a same-sex marriage. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that he took her out for a highly-publicized dinner to avoid the possibility of accusations that he’s gay. In an emotionally charged encounter the next day, she says, “No wonder you get along so well with machines, Hundred. You’re both f***ing heartless.”

It’s hard to disagree with her. It might be practical to try and prevent rumors before they begin, but there’s something nasty about anyone who would hurt an innocent woman to protect himself. If Mitchell cared about her, why would he manipulate her? And if he honestly thought there was nothing wrong with homosexuality, why care if people accused him of being queer?

It’s an interesting commentary on a controversial issue. What exactly does it mean to risk your political future on an unpopular stand if you’re not willing to risk your personal reputation also? And if Mitchell is the decent but all-too-human guy he appears to be, is it possible his affinity with machines is affecting his humanity? Is he changing because of the political life he’s immersed in? Or is he just trying to figure out his way in the world?

Brian K. Vaughan avoids the easy labels and clichéd stereotypes that most writers rely on. He has an extraordinary ability to explore the depths of his characters without judging or sugarcoating them, and he does it with a confidence and compassion that’s admirable. Mitchell isn’t a cardboard cutout that can be summarized with a few choice phrases. He’s a man who genuinely wants to help, yet ends up hurting many of the people who are closest to him.

In other words, he’s human.

“Mr. Hundred? Is that you?” It’s a question without an answer, asked by a man doomed to become yet another casualty in a war that’s been raging since the moment Mitchell’s life became the stuff of legend. Mitchell might be a superhero who no longer wants to fly. He might be a politician who still thinks he can make a difference. He might be a flawed but caring person who is stumbling through life like the rest of us. But he’s also something more.

In the last few pages of the second volume of “Ex Machina”, Brian K. Vaughan makes it obvious that everything that’s come before has only been an introduction to the real story. The series took the best of different genres – superhero adventures, murder mysteries, character studies, political thrillers – and managed to create something vibrantly fresh and amazing. But Vaughan doesn’t stop there. Instead, he suggests one final possibility…

Who is Mitchell Hundred? He’s the carpenter who failed.

On his date with Suzanne, Mitchell told her that one of the fragments from the mysterious object started broadcasting a Nirvana song over and over: “The Stars Are Down”. Nirvana never recorded a song by that name. As far as anyone knows, no one ever wrote or recorded a song by that name. “Wait, you’re saying either Kurt Cobain is still alive,” Suzanne reasons, “Or the thing that made you what you are today was some kind of… what, radio to the afterlife?” Mitchell dismisses both ideas as implausible, then asks, “What’s the other possibility?”

Suddenly afraid of the implications, Suzanne opts for the easy way out. “You’re totally f***ing with me, aren’t you?” Mitchell smiles and acknowledges that he was just pulling her leg. It’s a tense moment, astonishing in its honesty regarding what people can accept and what they can’t. There is a third choice, but Suzanne doesn’t want to know it and Mitchell realizes he’s made a serious mistake by pushing it as far as he has.

The next night Mitchell is attacked by a psychotic killer who addresses him by number, not name. “You didn’t spread the gospel,” Mitchell is told. “The words of the prophet are written on… my brain doesn’t know how to say it.” The reference is obvious. Any fan of Simon and Garfunkle knows the prophet’s words are written on the subway walls. But is the killer talking about the strange symbols found at the scene of the horrific murders, or is there something else going on?

“It’s not about the branes, it’s about the bulk,” the killer continues. “You were supposed to tell people… Witten is close, but we’re closer. You had one responsibility, Carpenter, and you failed.”

“Ex Machina” seemed to be nothing more or less than a well-written suspenseful story revolving around a politician with super powers. But Dr. Ed Witten is a real-life brilliant researcher in quantum physics, a pioneer in the study of multi-dimensional membranes (“branes” for short). Dr. Witten believes – as do other notable experts – that while we live in a four-dimensional universe (three spatial dimensions plus time as the fourth), under certain conditions an additional dimension can open up for a finite period. Some scientists believe that our universe may have been the result of two three-dimensional worlds colliding in another separate dimension, resulting in the famous “Big Bang Theory”.

But how does that explain the references to religious myths? If Mitchell is the carpenter, does that make him the modern-day equivalent of Jesus, or is the phrase more generic in nature? What “gospel” was Mitchell supposed to spread? Does quantum physics play a major role in what’s happening or does the story revolve around the supernatural? Or both?

And what of the other clues that have been dropped along the way? His political opponents tried to blackmail him earlier – “We may not have evidence yet, but we know about your dirty little secret.” But nothing more has been revealed. Why did the guy who killed two city employees in the first collection have a book on molecular structure in his bedroom? Why has the weather “been insane” ever since the strange device exploded? What else is hiding in the subway?

And when Mitchell was finally able to subdue his opponent at the end of “Tag”, why did the killer say “the stars are down” before dying? What exactly is going on?

Who the hell is Mitchell Hundred?

Brian K. Vaughan keeps teasing his readers with possible clues, but there’s one answer that seems to fit. Mitchell Hundred is the star of one of the best series written in the last twenty years. He’s the main character in a mystery that just keeps getting more complicated and interesting as it goes along. And he’s proof – as if any was need – that despite what the cynics might say, comic books are better than ever.

Pick of the Week:

In the Seventies when most television shows were a little corny, “Battlestar Galactica” was the epitome of cheese, a laughably bad “Star Wars” knock-off that featured everything from Lorne Green to a furry robot dog named Muffit. When the Sci-Fi Channel announced it was “re-imagining” the series a couple of years ago, it seemed appropriate. The network built its reputation on lame movies and bad acting, so why not bring back the ragtag fleet of survivors for an encore?

Oddly enough, I rented the 2003 miniseries a couple of weeks ago out of a sense of nostalgia. The original series might have been incredibly dumb, but it was also a part of my childhood, so I was curious to see how they pulled off the revival. A few days after watching the miniseries, I bought the first season on DVD and I’m now anxiously waiting for the release of the second season on December 20th.

Not only is this the best science-fiction series ever produced for television, it’s far superior to even its closest competition. This is an intense and dramatic masterpiece with an incredible cast and superior scripts. The characters are constantly forced to make hard choices that have consequences and an emotional weight rarely seen in even the most critically-acclaimed “mainstream” series, and the show never feels like less than an epic struggle for survival. I couldn’t recommend it more.

Disclaimer: The preceding article was a commentary, not a review. If it had been a review, it would have been informative and well-written, with quotable phrases like “I laughed, I cried, I lost my baby to a dingo!” Instead, it’s an opinionated rant by a man who still calls his bologna by its first name. If you agree with anything I’ve written, please send cash. If you don’t agree, please send money. But either way, please feel free to leave your own opinions on the Lowdown forum. Thanks!