Magnus makes contact!
Creative Staff:
Story: Fred Van Lente
Art: Cory Smith
What They Say:
Magnus discovers an Arctic research station that pre-dates the Age of the Singularity! What horrendous secrets will he discover, what will it mean for human and robotkind… and how do these discoveries continue to unlock The Gold Key Universe?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Progress in the Magnus: Robot Fighter series has been a bit stilted at times with what it does, taking some secondary story turns that added to the story overall but felt like it was an unnecessary detour from where we needed to go. The book at the start had a lot of fun of throwing us into this new world that Magnus was trying to grapple with and we ended up with Leeja as a foe now turned temporary ally at the least trying to figure out what’s going on down below while trying to survive – and not vomit from Magnus describing procreation as done in Maury’s Peak. We also got some decent stuff with the political side through Leeja’s father, but the further series has gone on the more of a mess that it’s seemed in some ways as it’s diverged into unexpected (but not unentertaining) areas. I just wanted it to focus more on some of the main tier material.
This issue gives us some more tantalizing material about the Central Network and what it does, and how it thinks, as Clane goes to it to get a feel for what it’s thinking about his plans and alliance. There’s an interesting reaction from it towards him as it sees through him in a way that even Clane doesn’t realize. With Clane looking at everything he does from just his point of view, and what he can understand of others, the Central Network sees all and offers up the potential for greater understanding. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment as the book quickly shifts to the chaos down below as Clane’s armed forces have dropped in and are hunting for Magnus and his daughter, shooting and eliminating everything that gets in their way. Considering how overpowered they are, it’s no surprise that it’s just utter chaos and destruction.
While this unfolds, we get some quality time with Leeja and Magnus as they’ve survived their massive battle. Where it goes creepy, and unfortunate, is that in their escape, they come across what Leeja calls a fleshpot, which is where people are grown out of. Considering Magnus’ nature of thinking of himself as unique from Maury’s Peak, he can’t grasp how Leeja can be find with being born from a base model with tweaks. There’s intriguing bits of history that she relates to how it all works, and it’s frightening for Magnus as he realizes the mechanics of it are related to his home town in a way. Even worse is that, as she plays in bringing a form to life a little bit, she ends up showing him a base model of himself, which he fully did not expect. It’s a devastating mental moment for him and seeing him pushed past the edge is a thing to see, which she can’t grasp.
The book works some decent fallout and closure from the recent arc with those that live outside the system, and a moment where he puts to rest the ideas of Moira being a confused version of his wife in this realm. With as many things introduced into the series so far, it’s good to put a little of it behind for the moment. Bringing Magnus to Shackleton Station is definitely an exciting moment though as he gets to confront 1A, which is what we’ve waited for since he was thrown into this world and tried to grasp it – even as more of its secrets are very far out of reach. The dialogue between the two is quite good as we see just how intent 1A is on changing this world. His reasons are still his own, it’s hard to trust him too much at this point, but he brings an intriguing point of view to things in relation to the Singularity and how this sliver of mankind has been existing. It feels like we’re on the cusp of really getting some direction with the book.
In Summary:
I’m definitely a fan of the Magnus and the book itself, but it’s felt like it has meandered a bit and a little too far from where it was starting to go. With this issue, we get a bit of that cleared up and a newly refocused Magnus that now realizes more of the lies that make up the foundation of his existence and the reason why those lies were important to be told. There’s a few things moving through the storyline to be dealt with and there are interesting points with each of them, but a refocus on Magnus, now with 1A involved, has me excited to see where the book can go next. THis issue has some good stuff to it throughout, though for me it’s the second half where it really gets intriguing. It also ends with a fantastic splash page of just Magnus that reinforces how well Cory Smith is suited to bringing this character and his world to life.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: November 19th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
