Digging into the details.
Creative Staff:
Story: Kyle Higgins
Art: Jorge Fornes
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
In the aftermath of a high-profile murder committed by an artificial intelligence, psychologist Kerri Magnus has been tasked by the authorities to play bounty hunter and bringing the rogue AI to justice. But inside the AI’s virtual world, nothing is quite as it seems – and she risks losing her very sanity the longer she stays inside of it…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of the new Magnus series won me over pretty well as I liked the approach, the world setting, the artwork, and how it would eventually figure into the larger things being done as we see in Sovereigns. But, as can happen with any series, sometimes there’s a bit of a slog to get through, especially when doing some world building. Kyle Higgins has a lot to cover here in how all of this works and that makes this a dense and interesting issue because it gets into the nature of how it operates with the cloud, the AI’s, and more. At the same time, you definitely have to be in the right mindset to read it because it’s got a lot of information it wants to impart and some of it just feels like it’s coming across a little heavy handed since it simply needs to be done.
The book doesn’t focus just on Magnus as there’s the police that are looking into things as well as a view of some of the corporate side. This is what typically slows things down because we get the investigation going through how some of all of this works when it comes to the AI in general but also in that they move their selves from place to place and not copy, so it’s not like there are versions of them around. It’s useful and important information and it plays well with the cop that has some enhanced prosthetics that the corporate side uses to remind him that he’s able to function as he does because of their work. The PR/political side gets a little push as the murder becomes more engaging for audiences toward the end because of the robot being involved in killing their well-known master, but a lot of what we get here is the details of function and operation and it works well.
Magnus is where things work better as she’s on the other side of things and looking to explore more of what happened to Frederick. Her attempts at piecing things together is played out in an amusing way with the data reconstruction and how htat’s shown but it leads her to an old friend, Stephania, that she’s hoping to get some help in putting it all back together. This gives us a bigger past for Magnus that will hopefully get explored a bit more as it goes on but what Magnus essentially walks into is the fact that she’s a giant target for many. And they’re taking advantage of that as there’s a growing subset of AI’s the view her as a threat that needs to be taken out. Action in a virtual world is a bit awkward but Fornes and O’Halloran do a solid job in bringing it to life through layouts and color design but there’s just a bit too much of a familiar element to it mired in modern world science fiction films for it to really stand out in a unique or refreshing way.
In Summary:
Magnus builds its world pretty well here with a lot to take in but it still needs to do a better job with its supporting characters. We’ve really just had one issue behind us so far and knowing who is who and their positions needs to be clearer in these early issues so that things flow better, especially if you can’t re-read prior issues quickly or easily, if at all. I like what Higgins is laying out here as it has a lot of depth and detail and that combined with Fornes’ designs means it’s an interesting world to become immersed in. This second issue just needed a bit more of a stronger hook and connection with what happened in the first to cement it as it almost feels like it stands on its own in some ways.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 19th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
