Comic book writing and art just doesn't get better than this

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	• Ex Machina, Vol. 5: Smoke, Smoke Brian K. Vaughan Wildstorm, 2007 - 120 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Latest in a BRILLIANT series...

As any lover of Brian K Vaughan could tell you, this guy is a genius. Whether it's a group of misfit, teen-age, evil-villian-parent-murdering crimestoppers; a family of bomb-dodging lions that escape a half-demolished zoo in Baghdad; a man named Yoric who survives a "plague" that wipes out every male on earth (except him and his pet capuchin Ampersand); or, in the case of Ex Machina, a hero-turned-polictician who just happens to be able to communicate with machinery, Vaughan delivers, every time. NOBODY who calls themselves comic book geek can live without reading this series. END OF REVIEW :):)

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Good, but a bit short

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 4 volumes in this series, but this one disappointed me a bit. It didn't really seem to progress the story behind The Great Machine's origins as much as the past few entries in the series. It seemed a bit more caught up in the political issues facing Mitch as mayor in the "current" timeline.

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A lull in the action

Ex Machina is my favorite indie series currently running.(Vaughn and Harris are masters of their crafts) As great as it is it tends to take breaks and go off on side stories that don't really add to the main plot. Smoke,Smoke(Vol.5) is one such side story. "Smoke" takes place after the tragic gas attack that took the life of Mayor Hundred's temp Journal. Journal is replaced by her younger sister January who doesn't arrive with the best of intentions. Hundred has his hands full in this volume but his problems are pretty silly. A robber masquerading as a fireman is tricking people into letting him into their homes where he proceeds to assault and rob them. It turns out that he has no real significance to Mayor Hundred and is just a lowly chronic masturbater. The most important story is when Hundred discovers that a kid that he captured(back in his crime fighting days) for selling pot is stabbed and killed in jail while trying to break up a fight. The kid's mother is grief stricken and decides to set herself on fire Buddhist monk style in front City Hall. Hundred blames himself and almost decides to combat the city's drug laws but is talked out of it realizing that it would be political suicide. Smoke is a good read I just think that it doesn't move things forward, but it does have some important events. When Hundred is told that the kid he captured was killed in jail the stress causes him to black out, get a nosebleed and cause a transformer to explode. Strange.. Also January's mysterious relationship with Hundred's old chum (And his mother's boyfriend) Kremlin begins. Good read, just not the best Ex Machina has to offer.

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Comic book writing and art just doesn't get better than this

For anyone who grew up with comic books and love the medium, this is the perfect series to graduate to. It is stunningly beautiful and the writing is topical and smart. It's such a cliche, but it feels like an HBO show done in comic book form. Mayor Mitchell Hundred deals with tricky political situations with integrity, but never finds an easy time of it. He has a wisdom about him, but isn't above revisiting his ethics and decisions as he does in this volume with his arrest of a small-time pot dealer.

Trade paperback is the ideal format for Ex Machina, as the collected issues focus on themes and a collection of storylines. It's far more satisfying than reading it in monthly comics form. I highly recommend this volume and this series!

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Interesting...

I thought volume 5 of Ex Machina was actually a step back in the series. Volume 4 was by far the best, and I had high hopes for this one, but it was a little disappointing. It wasn't bad by all means, but after volume 4, Vaughn had set the bar pretty high for the series, and this one kind of failed to reach that bar. Also, it wasn't as exciting as all the other volumes of the series have been.

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