The cloud takes on a whole new meaning.
Creative Staff:
Story: Kyle Higgins
Art: Jorge Fornes
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
What They Say:
Do humans dream of owning electric sheep? Artificial intelligences, rather than becoming our overlords, have settled into an uneasy symbiosis with humanity – they work for us as our colleagues and servants, earning vacation-time they spend in a boundless digital universe running on human-maintained server farms. But not all AIs are cool with the deal. Enter Magnus – a human psychologist tasked with navigating both worlds in order to bring recalcitrant AIs back into productive society…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the original Valiant run of Magnus: Robot Fighter being one of my favorite books from the 90’s, I’ve been keen on the various attempts from Dynamite to find a way to make the character connect. With this new series from writer Kyle Higgins and artist Jorge Fornes, we get something that changes things up – as most of the Dynamite series have done – with some fun twists. Magnus as a woman isn’t radically different when you get down to it but the trappings and potential for this world is certainly intriguing, as are the connections to the other properties through the Sovereigns and what we’ve seen from the flash forward. Working with Jorge Fornes, the pair have put together a pretty strong first offering.
Taking place in 2020, we’ve got a modern world where AI robots operate as servants and the like but have agreements with mankind in order to ensure peace. They get four hours a day of shutdown time to enter the cloud, a virtual reality world where those that engage in it have established families and the like and live lives, albeit briefly. The book focuses initially on Frederick, a butler for the man responsible for creating much of the technology, and how Frederick has now killed his creator and disappeared. Considering the way Frederick is treated it’s a classic tale in regards to robots and AI but blended with some neat modern day elements that really allow it to click well. There are some neat visuals to be had with this virtual world to contrast with the real world and the kind of social bonds that exist there that can alter the growth and learning of AI as well.
What we focus on in the real world mostly is that of Dr. Magnus, a top class and rare human that can enter the cloud herself without going crazy. She does double duty as a psychologist working with AI robots as well as being a bounty hunter which makes her even more unique. We get to see some of how all of this works through a session she’s dealing with and it teases the cloud world and what it can do even more when it comes to perception and control. The book is looking to draw her into the murder, reluctant as she is, and will easily shift to that world. While Magnus isn’t heavily humanized here we get more than enough teases and things to latch onto in order to really make you want to know more and Higgins has definitely succeeded in crafting something fun that hopefully has a good run ahead of it to be explored.
In Summary:
I’ve long enjoyed the Magnus character and the various incarnations that we’ve seen of him so this one will naturally catch the eye for giving us a female Dr. Magnus. That’s not overplayed at this point and instead feels like a good and natural progression to make and it’s blended into the setup here very well with lots of potential. Higgins gives us a world that you definitely want to explore more and understand to see how it works and why, as such things are likely in our own future, while Fornes delivers some great looking pages, especially the two-page spreads that dig into the exposition well with lots of good movement and flow to them. The book also contains a backup Turok story to carry things over to that series and I understand why they do but but I continue to really dislike them as it doesn’t feel organic and I don’t remember much of it when I get to that actually book. The Magnus material here has me completely on board, however, and I’m looking forward to more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: June 7th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
