Picked this up on the dying days of last year on a trip. Suffice to say BKV's masterpiece had me tapping and turning pages, even while my butt was frozen and hurting on a slippery bus seat during the journey. Mitch Hundred is a Superhero turned New York's mayor adjusting to life of abstinence from putting his superpowers to use, which includes: Talking to machines the way Aquaman talks to fish. BKV weaves an intriguing narratives using Post 911, Bush Administration America as a backdrop, from th...

Ex Machina: Tag (issues #6-10) is the second installment in Brian K. Vaughan’s Eisner-winning Ex Machina series, a strange blend of Watchmen-style superhero adventure and West Wing-esque political drama. If you liked the first volume, you’ll like the second, because it’s pretty much more of the same.The primary plot of Tag involves Mayor Hundred’s decision to officiate the wedding of a gay couple (this is set in 2002 and written in 2005, well before NY’s 2011 legalization of same-sex marriage).

Vaughan is amazing. His dialogue just flows AND it's cool witty and funny without sounding pretentious or scripted. You're reading this comic and you're just "right there" hanging out with the characters. They're real people. They're actually better than real people, they're really interesting. In the meantime, he attacks conservatives, and then immediately after attacks liberals. He attacks with logic. Same-sex marriage is a topic and he says, government should perform/regulate "civil unions" f...

Vol 2 of 10.I hope this doesn't turn into a "tackle the political issue of the week" series. Recap to remind myself what this volume was about. ****Possible spoilers ahead****:--Jackson from the NSA (National Security Agency) becomes fast friends with Mitch after being assgined to help decipher the piece of shrapnel Mitch found in the river when he had the accident that gave him the power to command all machines. Jakcson, his child, wife and dog are found murdered, both Jackson and his dog evisc...

Really liking this series. Among other topics, the subject of gay marriage is touched upon. I thought Vaughan handled it really well, at least from the political end of things. As before, we get bits and pieces of the pre-mayoral days handed out to us as necessary. I'm keen to see where this is all going.

What a ride! BKV cranks up the graphic violence and mystery in volume two. Mystery in two ways: what is the symbol that gave The Great Machine his powers, and why is it making people go crazy?Also in volume two, BKV comments on gay marriage and expands his thematic commentary on 9/11. Did he have to? No. But I appreciate his boldness and progressivism in addressing these subjects. Again, the artwork is amazing. It's like Sean Phillips if colored by Matt Hollingsworth. Tony Harris provides surgic...

Much better then the first volume. This would'v been a much better first volume. I'm glad i sticked with it, if it was the same as the first volume i might have given up. But then again I bought 8 volumes for a bargain.

I came across this series via my digital library back in 2017. Read the first volume and then requested they get more. So far only Volume 2 has been added (and I just checked and both Vol 1 and 2 are no longer available at my digital library). I read that volume in early 2018 or so. Just today I stumbled across Comixology Unlimited offering deluxe Volumes 3, 4, and 5, that I can borrow. This covers the entire 50 issue run of Ex Machina. Been patiently waiting for this series to become available....

I liked this volume much more than the first volume and found it to have a much more cohesive and thrilling story arc. This volume flip flops between past and present as some of Mitchell's past and his accident (which resulted in him being able to mysteriously communicate with machines) come to light. After his accident, Mitchell Hundred is left with only a mysterious tag from the bomb that caused it. This tag displays a weird green symbol, resembling a Chinese character, that nobody seems to f...

I always love Vaughan's sense of humourAnd even better, his potty mouth:We're all adults here - and the ones who aren't, aren't exactly hearing this kind of language for the first time from funny books. Vaughan plays with our expectations of someone writing politics into their stories, so that we never entirely know where he stands, and it's both mature and infuriating at the same time:In a way this series has the same workmanlike feeling of reading Gotham Central. Both series written by great w...

Things getting harder!I loved that Mr. Vaughan let us know what he thinks about craps like partnerships of lgbt or solve-mechanism of such "problems" in the world of politics. I loved it how he makes that. The conversations are genial good and you can understand even who says what, why. And.. the jokes are very good! Next!

Alright, I'm locked in, this second volume sealed the deal. I absolutely have to know what happens next.This is one of the most original stories that I have ever read. Politics mixed with strange superpowers and a realistic setting. I am a little put off by some of the heavy-handed political viewpoints, mostly because I don't really see how they move the story along. At times it boarders didactic and feels like filler but I guess it can't all be slicing people in half and mystical Kurt Cobain me...

Brian K. Vaughan's "Ex Machina" only gets stronger in its second volume where we go to the past to understand our protagonist while dealing with a string of deaths associated with a person, maybe a monster, and we see as people go mad gazing at an unknown symbol in the subway, a try at a romantic relationship, some rumination's on what it means to be human, how to inflict correct policy changes, and a lot more. For me, while not quite on the level intellectually or aesthetically, "Ex Machina" is...

I'm giving this 3 stars for the plot twist, but overall it wasn't as great as Vol. 1. It's really interesting, because the main issue in this book is that Mayor Hundred is officiating a wedding ceremony between two men and there was a lot of arguments about the constitution and how it was effect his career to publicly be in support of gay marriage. It's interesting because it's finally a nonissue in the US. And to read this days after the Supreme Court ruling was illuminating. Overall Brian K. V...

It's interesting reading this older series from Brian K. Vaughan, the writer of the amazing Saga series. There are a lot of similarities between the two, but in Ex Machina the soapbox tends to be a bit more obvious, the flashback transitions less nuanced, and the storyline a bit more formulaic. In each volume thus far there's a major present tense political event (marriage equality in this one), a mysterious sci-fi event tied to Hundred's powers, and a flashback or two that provide both backst...

(view spoiler)[After Hundred reveals his secret identity to the public, the NSA approaches him. Hundred shares a piece of wreckage from the day he got his powers that has a strange symbol on it, hoping the NSA can decode it. someone tries to hurt him and the NSA puts him in witness protection. During that time, Sept 11th happens, the Great Machine saves the day and his polling numbers go up when they had been abysmal before. Shortly after, Jackson Georges, Hundred's contact in the NSA seems to l...

The mysterious symbol from the object that superpowered Mitch, the series’ main character, is appearing all over. Driving people to do terrible things. There is an absolutely delicious element of conspiracy here.There are horrific murders, plus the subject of gay marriage (still not legal in the depressingly recent past this book takes place in) to tackle. Mitch is going to be a busy man.As always, flipping between timelines to create a well-rounded narrative, this book seems to be more beloved

Once, I read the first volume of this series and thought it was ok, but not up to my usually-high expectations for Vaughan. I don't know what was wrong with me--this series is really fantastic. Vaughan manages to do 3 stories simultaneously: the West Wing-style political story (in this episode: gay marriage!), the superhero fallout story (in this episode: a maniac killer in the subway), and the flashbacks (in this episode, Hundred works for the NSA or the CIA or something). Anyway, I blazed thro...

Even better than the first volume.

I'm still lukewarm about this series. There are little hints of an overarching story, but so far it feels like volumes 1 and 2 are very compartmentalized and separate from each other. The stories don't bleed into the next volumes, and everything is, for the most, wrapped up by the end. It's just not a terribly exciting series, though I can see the potential. Perhaps I'm missing something. I have through volume 5 checked out from my library, so I'll at least get to that point, but I can't say thi...