Cyborg #1 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: David Walker
Art By: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Andriano Lucas
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 22, 2015

The Invisible Man

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

All I'm saying is, it's about time.  DC Comics went and rebooted it's Universe with the New 52 back in 2011 and here we are four years later and finally getting a solo Cyborg book.  Now this could be a non-issue for some people because we've got a lot of characters that haven't gotten their own titles yet, but the thing that makes it ridiculous to me is............Cyborg is a founding member of the Justice League in this Universe and Aquaman has had two titles!  Who the hell would have predicted that?  Anyway, we pick up with this first issue after the Sneak Peek we saw in May, where Cyborg went and got torn apart......... I blame that sleeker look he was going for after Forever Evil.......... No way that big bad ass version we had of him at the beginning of the New 52 would tear so easy.  Just when we thought that Cyborg was finally going to meet his maker, you know, since he's cheated death twice already, his body went and repaired itself and actually repaired itself with skin instead of machinery.  That was an awesome cliffhanger.  Let's see what Vic Stone is doing with his super sleeker look as we begin his new solo series.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

Our series begins in a far off galaxy, where two factions are fighting a small war.  We have Technosapiens and the Tekbreakers, but really all we have are conclusions we jump to about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are because we know nothing about these two clashing clans and after having a book where we jump back and forth between them and Cyborg's story, all I can tell you is that the Tekbreakers seem to be the good resistance to the Technosapien's evil empire, but I only say that because the Tekbreakers look more human and ultimately I guess that's what we're supposed to go with.......Xenophobia.  Seriously though, I don't get much out of this alien story yet, but our takeaway from it is that these monster's tech appears to be connected to Cyborg's new abilities and it appears that they'll be gunning for Vic anytime now.

As Jim would say, the meat and cheese of this book is all about Cyborg coming back to STAR Labs Detroit so he can show his father the data readings of the time his new powers emerged and how these abilities brought him back from the dead.  This is all really cool and I would think even cooler for people who haven't read the Sneak Peek because the majority of it is just a rehash of that, but as a fan of that Peek, I didn't mind seeing it again.  After Cyborg's big reveal, where I imagined his father waiting outside of a dressing room as we saw Cyborg come out in every form he's been in since the New 52 began and after Dr. Stone shook his head to the previous two incarnations of the character, when Cyborg finally emerged the way he looks here, we see a big smile and his father nodding his head in approval.......maybe with a thumbs up as well.  Sadly this montage didn't make the issue and what really went down is the story of Vic's life, where his father is more interested in the data than he actually is in his son.  After having one of the scientists who I suppose is a re-imagined Sarah Simms yell out that Dr. Stone and Dr. Morrow are assholes for ignoring Cyborg, she walks off annoyed and after the same thing happens again, Cyborg throws in his two cents about being ignored.......while also subconsciously turning his arms into terrifying weapons and goes and finds Sarah.  It's kind of funny because after we started off Vic's story in Justice League with him having daddy issues, I really thought that by now he would have put all of that behind him and really, I thought that his father would have stopped being such an asshole to his son, but the dysfunction is still there and Cyborg kind of uses his sad sack attitude to get some sympathy out of Sarah and the two decide to get out of there and go get some coffee.  Not bad Vic.  Heroic figure with a haunted past.  Oh yeah, she's all yours.

In the end, Sarah and Cyborg walk out of STAR Labs and right into a protest and even though we had a small piece of this in the beginning of the book and now here at the end........... I'm still not sure what these people are protesting about.  Possibly handicapped people who want advanced prosthetics like Cyborg, but obviously can't get them, but really I have no idea.  Even though it's a bit weird that we don't get a definitive answer about the protest, the weirder part is that Vic is pseudo saved by a guy who he once played football against in high school and as the issue ends, Vic totally leaves Sarah playing catch up to him and Sebastian Cardona as they walk off to get coffee together and to talk about football.  This isn't the part of the relationship where you start doing that Vic!  First you have to make her feel like she's the most important person in the world and after a couple of months, then you can start ignoring her for football and friends.

That's it for this first issue of Cyborg and while I loved the art and the single fact that we have a Cyborg book, this is a bit of rocky start for me.  For one thing, we didn't really set up the characters that well.  Like I said, we have two warring factions of aliens and without any background about what they're fighting over, we just have to assume that the less human looking ones are the bad guys and while I'm sure we'll get more info out of these characters as the series goes on, I could have used a little less alien-ese and a little more exposition to get me in the know.  Hell, even the character of Sarah is only mentioned as "Sarah" and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know this character or if it is a re-imagined Sarah Simms like I assume it is, but in a first issue I really expected to have the characters shoved down my throat a little bit, just so next month when the following issue comes out, I don't sit there and ask myself who the hell this character is.  I had a good time reading the book and while this issue is going to be simply setup to get the story going, I think I would have liked just a little more setup so I could be completely on board with what David Walker is throwing at us.  I loved the art though and I'm really interested in this story about Cyborg's new powers, so as much as I like to complain, I had a good time reading this issue.

Bits and Pieces:

It's finally here people and while Cyborg's daddy issues are as prevalent as ever, I still found myself enjoying this issue even though the majority of it was about said daddy issues and catching readers up on what went down in May's Sneak Peek.  Because it's a first issue, it has to be all setup and while that can be a tad boring at times, I wish we would have gotten a bit more setup out of the issue because I found myself jumping to conclusions about who people were.  The art is amazing though and I can't wait to read what happens next.

7/10