Broken Frontier

Mayor Mitchell Hundred’s mother reveals some shocking details about the Hundred family’s history.

Being the superpowered mayor of New York City presents plenty of difficult challenges for Hundred, but none of them can prepare him for the bombshell his mother dropped on him at the end of the first part of "Off the Grid." Now he’s trying to come to terms with the lies from his past about who his parents were and how they lived. Mitchell gets a little sidetracked from dealing with his mother when the local white trash loan sharks/lawmen come to collect. The result of this somewhat tense but entertaining moment, and pretty much the moral of this short arc, is that eventually everyone lies…even those you may consider most trustworthy.

Brian K. Vaughan displays with this issue possibly the most endearing quality he harbors as a writer (aside from coming up with outstanding plots): strong and engaging character building. While Hundred was already a naturally fascinating character, Vaughan takes the time to dig a little deeper and show the reader the most interesting complexities while avoiding the pitfalls of average writers. This could have been a story that bored us to tears under a lesser scribe’s delivery, but Vaughan manages to compress his story and insert new, interesting characters (briefly) without making the story seem overloaded with information.

Tony Harris and Tom Feister bring their A-game to this title on a monthly basis. Harris has a knack for creating smooth, flowing sequences that never leave the reader wondering what happened between panels. He also creates sharp and expressive images that Feister finishes with perfectly clean precision. Mettler’s colors have always been a little on the lighter side in this series, creating more of a dreamlike environment than a realistic one. That same scheme works perfectly in this issue because of the flashback and desert settings.

The audience that still isn’t reading Ex Machina yet is most likely not the audience this review is reaching. That’s too bad because this title’s critical raves aren’t really doing it justice in terms of both overall quality and readership. Regardless, what Vaughan, Harris and company have going here is a truly rare commodity among the Big Two comic book publishers: an entertaining, thought-provoking and (perhaps most importantly) relevant series with great situations and wonderful characters. And for the one or two curious non-Ex Machina readers that stumbled across this review: what are you waiting for? Go buy some trades and catch up!