Holo-Gram For Exxy
Written By: John Semper Jr.
Art By: Paul Pelletier, Will Conrad, Tony Kordos, Guy Majors, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: January 4, 2016
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
This Frankenstein-esque story was kicked into overdrive last issue in my opinion, when we saw our hero discover that the bad guy of our Imitation of Life story has actually been walking around, impersonating his father right under his nose. Yeah, we all knew this, but it felt like it was about goddamn time Cyborg did as well, but the good times wouldn't last because as the previous issue ended we saw that this big bad had complete control over our hero and now that he had Variant at his disposal he no longer needed to keep up the ruse of being Dr. Silas Stone and didn't need to keep Cyborg active either. That's right, we ended last issue with Cyborg seemingly dying at the hands of his robot father's doppelganger, but don't worry........ I'm sure he'll be fine........ You know, since the series is continuing and all that. Let's jump into this issue and see how our hero goes about turning himself back on. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with a thief running away from a B & E (that's Breaking and Entering to us law abiding people) and the cops chasing him down. Yeah, we get a little bit of the same kind of thing that we got in a previous issue, where those couple of cops try to rough up the suspect to an excessive degree and Cyborg stopping it by showing up, complete with a scan of the cop's threat level, but the thing that really strikes me as odd right off the bat....... Cyborg! Yeah, the majority of this issue is a mind fuck because even though we saw the last issue end with our hero being shut down, here he's up and walking around and trying to get this tech thief, Exxy to break into STAR Labs.
Where the shock and excitement of me needing to know what's up with Cyborg, like is he being controlled by his father's doppelganger or is it really Cyborg at all ended was when Exxy started going through STAR Labs from Cyborg's blueprints of the building and basically his whole plan for Exxy to get in because while Exxy was in the air vents........... wait for it.......... he was attacked by robotic piranhas, that are actually supposed to be there and are always swimming through the vents of STAR labs in case there's something in there that doesn't belong. This was just a little too much for me and threw me right out of the story. Yeah, I know we're dealing with superheroes and super villains, who do ridiculous things with ridiculous gimmicks, but this is supposed to be a realistic research facility........... not something that has robotic piranha in its air vents. Anyway, our story continues with Exxy getting in the Red Room and Cyborg showing up in different places along the way........ like the air vents and eventually we get to see that Cyborg this whole time has actually been a small holographic projector that our hero uploaded his A.I. into in case of something like him getting shut down against his will ever happened. Now that Exxy is in the Red Room though, it's up to this young thief to turn Cyborg back on and get our hero back in action.
In the end, Sila's doppelganger shows up and our hero is forced to fight him, but it all goes tits up because this character is formidable as hell and subdues our hero and forces him to see that his father is being held by him........ the weird part about all this........ and goddamn is it nit picky, but we already went out of our way to establish that the video feed to Dr. Stone was one way, but here Cyborg can talk to his father no problem and we end this issue by finally finding out what this villain's name is........ OTAC........ Yeah, it doesn't do much for me, but when Dr. Stone hears it, he seems genuinely afraid.
That's it for this issue of Cyborg and while I was really starting to get into this Imitation of Life story because of all the elements it was presenting to us, this issue just didn't come off feeling like it was needed. I mean, we spent the majority of the issue trying to get Cyborg turned back on and even had robotic piranha and in the end it just felt like this issue wasn't needed. The whole Cyborg being shut off just feels like filler because it didn't do anything for the story. The art luckily was as good as it always is, but right now it just feels like this story has gone on just a little too long and could have been shorter overall to make it a better read.
Bits and Pieces:
This issue of Cyborg felt like a lot of filler to get us to the same place that we could have been by the cliffhanger of the previous issue. There was some fun stuff, but overall it felt unneeded, but luckily the art remained strong so we had something to take away from this book.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with a thief running away from a B & E (that's Breaking and Entering to us law abiding people) and the cops chasing him down. Yeah, we get a little bit of the same kind of thing that we got in a previous issue, where those couple of cops try to rough up the suspect to an excessive degree and Cyborg stopping it by showing up, complete with a scan of the cop's threat level, but the thing that really strikes me as odd right off the bat....... Cyborg! Yeah, the majority of this issue is a mind fuck because even though we saw the last issue end with our hero being shut down, here he's up and walking around and trying to get this tech thief, Exxy to break into STAR Labs.
Where the shock and excitement of me needing to know what's up with Cyborg, like is he being controlled by his father's doppelganger or is it really Cyborg at all ended was when Exxy started going through STAR Labs from Cyborg's blueprints of the building and basically his whole plan for Exxy to get in because while Exxy was in the air vents........... wait for it.......... he was attacked by robotic piranhas, that are actually supposed to be there and are always swimming through the vents of STAR labs in case there's something in there that doesn't belong. This was just a little too much for me and threw me right out of the story. Yeah, I know we're dealing with superheroes and super villains, who do ridiculous things with ridiculous gimmicks, but this is supposed to be a realistic research facility........... not something that has robotic piranha in its air vents. Anyway, our story continues with Exxy getting in the Red Room and Cyborg showing up in different places along the way........ like the air vents and eventually we get to see that Cyborg this whole time has actually been a small holographic projector that our hero uploaded his A.I. into in case of something like him getting shut down against his will ever happened. Now that Exxy is in the Red Room though, it's up to this young thief to turn Cyborg back on and get our hero back in action.
In the end, Sila's doppelganger shows up and our hero is forced to fight him, but it all goes tits up because this character is formidable as hell and subdues our hero and forces him to see that his father is being held by him........ the weird part about all this........ and goddamn is it nit picky, but we already went out of our way to establish that the video feed to Dr. Stone was one way, but here Cyborg can talk to his father no problem and we end this issue by finally finding out what this villain's name is........ OTAC........ Yeah, it doesn't do much for me, but when Dr. Stone hears it, he seems genuinely afraid.
That's it for this issue of Cyborg and while I was really starting to get into this Imitation of Life story because of all the elements it was presenting to us, this issue just didn't come off feeling like it was needed. I mean, we spent the majority of the issue trying to get Cyborg turned back on and even had robotic piranha and in the end it just felt like this issue wasn't needed. The whole Cyborg being shut off just feels like filler because it didn't do anything for the story. The art luckily was as good as it always is, but right now it just feels like this story has gone on just a little too long and could have been shorter overall to make it a better read.
Bits and Pieces:
This issue of Cyborg felt like a lot of filler to get us to the same place that we could have been by the cliffhanger of the previous issue. There was some fun stuff, but overall it felt unneeded, but luckily the art remained strong so we had something to take away from this book.
5.5/10
How is the story in this issue "not needed" when:
ReplyDelete1) As a living semi-electronic being, getting turned-off is an INEVITABLE story point/weakness that could occur in any story/ used by any advanced super-villain so it was brilliant to see Cyborg had a contingency.
2) The story in this issue showed that Cyborg can split/program his AI/mind into other machines to operate remotely.
3) It introduced a new but fun character that is orginal to Cyborg's mythos thus expanding of Cyborg's original support characters which is very important if Cyborg is going to expand beyond Justice League as a solo hero.
4) Finally, Cyborg is aware of the doppelganger AND we got to know who his/its name- "OTAC"...this brilliant leads into the next issue where we'll get to see the history between OTAC & Cyborg's dad. Hopefully, OTAC is somehow tied to OMAC so that that character can join Cyborg which could/would lead into the the (re)introduction of Brother Eye as Cyborg's next super-villain.
Dont play dumb, you are a great review & smart reader... some pretty good development and introductions happened in this issue. By the way, i totally loved the to-&-fro witty banter between Cyborg and thief. Cant wait for issue 9.
it's not needed because we end up exactly where we left off in the previous issue with only learning OTAC's name. The rest of the story could have been played out in another arc because we're already eight issues into, not including the Rebirth issue of this Imitation of Life story and the progression has been at a snail's pace. Introducing new characters into a story, where we don't even know what the story is actually trying to do doesn't make it any better, it just pads it out.
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