Cyborg #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

The Cyborg Who Loved Me

Written By: John Semper Jr.
Art By: Paul Pelletier, Tony Kordos, Guy Major, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 21, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

There have been so many subtle and not so subtle references to the Frankenstein series in this initial arc, what with the blind musician who befriends Cyborg, our main character wondering if he's a monster or not and as we saw in the previous issue, the bride.  Yeah, I don't see Vic tying the knot anytime soon, especially with Variant betraying our hero, but with all these references flying around, I'm really starting to get scared that John Semper Jr. is going to end this arc like the Bride of Frankenstein ended, with Cyborg realizing that he's a monster and possibly the mastermind behind this arc is one as well and sends everyone out of STAR Labs, while claiming that "We Belong Dead" before he activates the self destruct on the lab.  Yeah, it's a bit far fetched, but there's so much Frankenstein in this arc so far, it's not all that far fetched really.  Let's jump into this issue and see what Vic is going to do now that he knows Variant is working for some kind of warlord and also what he'll do since she siphoned all his power from him in the previous issue.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with us getting the backstory about how Agent Scarlett Taylor set all of this in motion with her partner in crime Terence Fisher,(the name of Hammer Horror director who is known for his Frankenstein films) with them orchestrating her becoming a cyborg herself so that she could access boom tubes, allowing their secret army to infiltrate nuclear sites all over the world and thus controlling the globe to the point where they could make it great again.  Yeah, it's pretty much world domination and the way we get there seems really forced and heavy handed.......... I wish I had a "but" here, but no, it's really forced and is a hell of a jump to conclusion to think that them having Scarlett be in an explosion would lead to the CIA turning to STAR Labs and making her a living weapon.  That's what happened though and now that she has Cyborg, she plans on integrating with his system so that she can open numerous boom tubes at once, allowing them to take over the world in one swoop.  Yeah, it doesn't work, but the idea that it would to our baddies seems pretty out there to me because Variant had only been practicing with her new powers for a couple of days and Cyborg explicitly denied her the chance to practice with her boom tube capabilities.  

So yeah, when Variant opens the tubes and Terence and her's troops make their way through, they find that they've actually been teleported to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean because we've got a bunch of criss cross apple sauce going on here, where Scarlett betrayed Cyborg, but Cyborg was ready for it the whole time and actually installed a remote shut off in her that would allow him to take control of her faculties and also, siphon his power back to him.  It turns out that our would be warlord was ready for something like this though........ Well, he was ready to kill Variant once they conquered the world and had a stasis net built to take her out, but since it was meant for only one, our two cyborgs are able to work together to blast their way out and the fight to get to Terence is on.

In the end, Cyborg and Variant stop Terence and his army, but when they return to STAR Labs, the CIA is ready to decommission Variant for her crimes against the country, which really chaps Cyborg's ass because of her being considered a weapon instead of a human, but ultimately it doesn't matter and Variant is turned off.  As our issue closes, Cyborg happens to see his impostor father trying to integrate with Variant's tech and at this point the mastermind behind this whole thing reveals himself and that he no long needs Cyborg to fulfill his plan, since he has Variant and all that and also tells us that he created a fail safe within Cyborg when he designed the virus to take control of Variant and with a push of a bottom, we see our hero fall down and from what we hear from his father's impostor, he's supposedly dead.

That's it for this issue of Cyborg and even though the beginning of this issue and really the whole backstory behind Variant becoming a cyborg comes off really forced, I still found myself having fun with this issue once all that was over.  Things seem to be finally moving with this Imitation of Life story and it's about time because it feels like we've been running in place for awhile now and I just really want to get going so that we can see what Cyborg will be all about once we move past him crying about whether he's man or machine.  The art in this issue is great though and I found myself really getting into the idea of Variant becoming rehabilitated now that she knows she was duped by Fisher and pretty much everything we got from the cliffhanger.  So yeah, not a great issue, but it continues to be decent and hopefully now that our villain's ruse is out and about, we can really see Cyborg start kicking some ass.......... that is, if he isn't dead.  

Bits and Pieces:

This issue of Cyborg really starts getting interesting once we get past a lot of forced backstory at the beginning and with that, I find myself actually looking forward to what we get next and that's something for me because since this arc has felt like it's only been running in place for all these issues, this series hasn't really interested me all that much.  Hopefully all that changes now and if the art continues to be as great as it is here, I can start to become a happy Cyborg reader.

6.8/10