Being a comic book fan, we look forward to Wednesdays like we look forward to our birthdays. No matter how terrible our week is going or lackluster real life becomes, we’ve got a steady stream of supreme storytelling passing through our ocular units every single week, holidays be damned. Every once in a while though, those Wednesdays are bitter sweet. Bitter sweet because eventually, good things come to an end, and the last issue of some of our favorite books hits the shelves eventually - be it from cancellation or the story simply being complete.
In light of one of the most important comics of the decade coming to a close this week, we’re introducing A Hard Goodbye, a new feature that celebrates the life and death of our favorite books from a new perspective. Ex Machina, the creme de la creme of WildStorm’s ongoing titles, by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, ends this week after 6 years and 50 issues, along with some one-shot specials. We’re celebrating this new classic all week here at CraveOnline, so stay tuned!
What does Ex Machina mean to you? Make sure you let us know!
Ex Machina came to me at a time when life was (personally) supremely miserable and I was beginning to bore of everything in a general sense, including comics. Hey. I was a grim kid for a while there. Lo and behold, on a trip destined for Sin City, I opted to pick up the first trade of Ex Machina for the ride, a still-relatively-new series I had heard great things about but hadn’t yet tried out. At this point, my only exposure to Brian K. Vaughan was some various issues of Batman, Swamp Thing, and Runaways.
No, I hadn’t read Y: The Last Man yet. As I said, dark times.
As I sat on the plane and blew through the first trade, I was in awe. Not at the stunning mixture of politics, characterization, and superhero drama, but at how natural - how real - the world was. Though the messages delivered were important and incredibly relevant to the current political and social landscape of America, Ex Machina was never once heavy handed. If there’s one thing that turns me off from a book instantly, even more than bad art or poor lettering, it’s abusively obvious displays of a “message”. And as Ex Machina delivered on none of those negatives, naturally, the first thing I did in Vegas was Google the closest comic shop.
I caught up to the book’s release schedule in the first few days of that vacation. As I recall, I lucked out because the very next week was the next issue’s release. Even after finishing everything released up to that point, I only had to wait one week for the next issue. After that, though, the pain began. Waiting a month wasn’t so bad, but waiting anything more was torture.
As brilliant as Ex Machina is, the one flaw I can bestow upon it was its schedule. In fact, it made our 10 Most Delayed Modern Comics list. I don’t know what caused it, nor do I care. It was one of the few comics that was absolutely worth the wait, no matter how long the time was between issues. As a jaded comic book fan, there’s nothing that screams “drop me” more than immense delays. Only two books have ever been able to sway me from that mindset: Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men and Ex Machina.
Obviously, my love for Ex Machina further spurred me on to check out BKV’s other work. A thorough reading of Runaways, picking up (and subsequently crying over) Y: The Last Man, Doctor Strange: The Oath, and Pride of Baghdad. More importantly though, my love of Ex Machina led others with no interest in comics at all to his work.
Ex Machina is one of my “go to” comics for people who ask inane questions like “why do you like comics” or “is there a comic for me” or even the absurd statement, “comics are for kids”. First, to that last one, obviously these people are bloody morons. Second, handing them the first issue of Ex Machina and subsequently watching their jaws drop when they hit that last page never gets old, and single handedly answers all of their curiosities. From then on, it’s not “why do you like comics” but “where do I start?”
There are very few books that can have that effect, at least in my experience. Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns are great books to get non-comic readers into the medium, but Watchmen can be admittedly dense for a first time reader, and The Dark Knight Returns can sometimes garner a “...this is Batman?” Ex Machina is separate from any preconceived notions of superheroes, and is even self-referential in the very first issue to admit to the reader that superheroes are silly and unrealistic. When you realize that it’s all tied into a real-world event and the current world’s climate, well, that’s when you hook ‘em.
Ex Machina is a rare book that can appeal to most people. Those with an interest in politics but none in comics will find the ideas in Ex Machina interesting, at the very least. Those that love comics but typically hate politics can actually learn something on accident while enjoying the drama (and sometimes humor) of the characters within. And of course, for the true comic geek that just loves anything comics, there’s all of that plus bundles of in-jokes and self-reference to make you chuckle at how in-the-know you are.
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It’s a classic in every sense of the word, and for being such a politically driven book, it’s amazing at how personally it’s held to so many readers hearts. Kudos, Ex Machina, you will be sorely missed.
I realize I haven’t touched on Tony Harris’ amazing interiors (let alone his covers) or the political trends and issues that the book boldly tackled in its 50-issue run, but check back on Wednesday for our Wednesday Retrospective: Ex Machina for a look back on the series as it relates to the medium and society!
