Nothing is stable in this series.
Creative Staff:
Story: Fred Van Lente
Art: Roberto Castro, Joseph Cooper
What They Say:
In this chapter entitled ‘Lair of the Basilisk’, Leeja has discovered a horrible truth that rocks her to her core. And it’s all Magnus’ fault. But that’ll have to wait, because 1A has a new mission for his ‘son’ Magnus… free the Basilisk, a horrendous monstrosity capable of destroying the world…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Magnus: Robot Fighter provided for a very fun and rather unexpected twist in the previous installment with Senator Clane being revealed to be a robot. That came as a shock for a lot of people, Clane’s daughter included, as it just wasn’t something you saw coming based on events so far and the lack of obvious dialogue clues to set that up, at least for me. The result is now something that has thrown a wedge between Leeja and Magnus, just as they were starting to connect a bit more and work together, at least for the moment. But killing someone’s dad will obviously do that. It’s easy to understand Leeja lashing out at all of this, and for her sudden turn to a more intense side of things since there is a way she can save her father.
Part of the problem here is that Magnus has a hard time understanding why she’s so upset at all of this, or at least the why of being upset. He feels like he’s set her free from what the Senator was doing and he can’t grasp why she keeps calling him her father since he’s a robot. But the Senator filled the role of father well and that has her intent on saving him, which means leaving Magnus where he is with observation while she gets her father off the assembly line as that’s already in progress. Unfortunately, she has to get mixed up with Moira and her group, which have launched their attack on NorthAm to time with what Magnus is doing in getting 1A where he needs to be. Suffice to say, Leeja’s intent on getting her father back, but seeing what she actually gets off the assembly line certainly makes you laugh, but also wonder what trick the Senator may have up his sleeve – or if this is just Central’s way of screwing him over one more time.
For Magnus, being left alone for a bit works in his favor as he gets to introduce 1A into the mix of Central itself here. That’s not going to go smoothly by any means, but I can’t say I was expecting a sleek and smooth perfect physical robot specimen of the intelligence there to appear and to take on the role of god against what 1A wants to do. This all leads to some metaphysical philosophical aspects as it goes on about Pascal’s Wager and that he represents Roko’s Basilisk, an AI created to fulfill the position that the robots would need in the future, becoming self fulfilling. It’s not exactly complex, but with the lettering style used for the AI, well, it’s illegible a lot of the time, at least digitally. Though there’s a lot of verbal sparring here, it does try to turn physical since that’s how Magnus has gotten through life for the most part, but it gets only so far here and doesn’t seem to end quite so well, leaving me wondering just how much I might be misreading the last page or two.
In Summary:
Magnus: Robot Fighter continues to be a fairly unpredictable series in a lot of ways and a good part of the appeal comes from there. Not knowing where it’s going or what curveballs will come out makes it interesting to read rather than just seeing so much of it plotted out ahead of time. But sometimes that unpredictability can leave you grasping for the meaning of the moment. We get a lot of stuff here focusing on what the “God” in the machine is doing and why, but not enough of why we should care. The lettering is one of my bigger hangups with it as well since it just becomes a chore to read. I do like what we get from Moira in this issue, fleshing out her youth a bit and explaining some of how she grew up, and getting involved with Leeja is likely just going to complicate things more in a fun way. Leeja’s storyline feels like a sharp turn off the path as well, though it could lead to some fun situations as well depending on what the deal is with the Senator. There’s a lot going on here and a lot of uncertainty, which makes this good for a couple of read-throughs.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: January 7th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
