Cyborg: Rebirth #1 (2016) Review

Restarting The System

Written By: John Semper Jr.
Art By: Paul Pelletier, Sandra Hope, Tony Kordos, Guy Major, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 7, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Okay Cyborg, what do you have for me this time?  I mean, I love Cyborg, but it seems that all he did in the New 52 and DCYou was hack something or get hacked by something....... and I understand that we have ourselves a living computer as a character here, but isn't there more to Vic Stone?........ You know, besides for all the daddy issues that is.  Hopefully we find out here if this new series is up to the task of giving Cyborg a little more character than he's had over the past couple of years and if he'll be pitted against something that requires more than some super hacker-y.  Let's jump into this issue and see what Rebirth has in store for us.

Explain It!:

Our Rebirth issue begins with Vic trying to stop a big bad techno mamma jamma, calling itself Malware, from entering STAR Labs and at first glance, I was a bit worried that we had ourselves some sort of monstrous Technosapien going on here, but I quickly realized that my PTSD of the previous Cyborg series could finally be let go because while Malware is the big bad of this Rebirth issue, it's simply a pawn for a greater evil that's behind a curtain.

It seems that Cyborg has himself a bit of a super fan going on here, or at least a highly skilled stalker because the entire time our hero is fighting this techno terror, it seems that whoever is behind the curtain is recording the stats of the fight, like recovery time, power exerted, etc............ which is great because not only is this issue setting up a some mystery man waiting in the wings for our hero to go after in the future, but within this whole "learning about Cyborg" bit, John Semper Jr. does new readers right by including a backstory on our hero and even giving me some insight on Cyborg's mother and how her and and Vic's father pretty much spent all of his childhood working on a cure for the cancer that had riddled her body........ You know, leading to that whole thing where Vic doesn't think that his father was interested in him his entire life, but here we see that he was just doing all he could to save his family........... Continuing on when Victor was hit by an opening boom tube, nearly destroying his body and leading his father to go to the extreme to save the only piece of his wife he had left.  It's done really well and with the interwoven story of Malware breaking into STAR Labs, this tone setter issue never becomes boring.  

In the end, we see that Malware was making his way to a secret room in STAR Labs that only Silas knew about and while I found myself enjoying this issue a lot throughout, I found this bit a tad confusing.  Inside this secret room was some sort of secret database, where Silas had recorded his personal thoughts on turning his son into the man he is today, but I kind of got the idea that this secret server held the entire memory of Cyborg.......... or some sort of techno babble that I'll never understand because of that brain thing I have, but either way, it really seemed like Cyborg's "soul" might have been inside this database, but that could just be me reading into things because it's never really explained.  After Cyborg connects with Malware though, the action of the issue comes to a close and we see that whoever was behind Malware's attack has been not only watching Cyborg, but all the cyborg/robot characters in the DCU and apparently it wants to bring them all together to have a good old fashion kill all humans jamboree.

That's it for this Rebirth issue of Cyborg and for the most part it did exactly what I expect all Rebirth issues to do and that's set up the tone of what the series will take and also give new readers a little background on the character so that they don't feel like complete dummies for going outside of their comfort zone.  Yeah, Cyborg is still hacking things, but he's also taking it to the streets in this issue as well and even with all the ass whooping that he gives, we see him take a pounding here and I really like that we get to see the character bleed because he's so closely associated with machines it's nice to see humanity shown to us without all the hoopla of forcing the whole divide in who he actually is.......... which we do get, but just seeing the blood made him come off more human than I've really seen him lately.  While I love the subtle touches like that with the art, I did have some trouble in understanding everything that was going on with Cyborg and Malware's fight on the street because the colors came off kind of muddy in those sections but overall, I found myself really enjoying the art in this book after we get inside STAR Labs and everything dealing with Vic's backstory.  All in all, I had a good time reading this issue and can't wait to see what this creative team has in store for us, especially with the cliffhanger that was given.

Bits and Pieces:

Cyborg: Rebirth #1 certainly presents us with an interesting story going forward and also takes great care in allowing new readers to jump on without feeling intimidated by a complex character like Victor Stone.  Yeah, I had some issues with the art during some action scenes, but by the end I really enjoyed what this creative team offered up to us and it got me excited for what's to come.

7.8/10