One Coin Reads 25: Magnus, by Kyle Higgins and Jorge Fornés

Magnus, by Kyle Higgins and Jorge Fornés

2018

I can now say I've read a Dynamite comic.

That's a neat cover

Dynamite is a company that I know because of Zorro and Green Hornet comics, which was enough to avoid them up to now. I read comics, not property delivery vehicles. After I read this, I realized this was a property of sorts: This is a variation on the Gold Key character Magnus Robot Fighter that was revived in the 90s under Valiant. But this isn't the Magnus character, just the name attached to a new character that does stuff with robots. The book itself doesn't explain what it is either, I gathered that from ads in the back for the actual Magnus Robot Fighter. I get that I'm an outlier in comics: more folks will sample a character they've heard of than avoid a revived IP because it's just a husk that publishers think they can make a buck off of.

There's a metaphor to be had about corporate IP exploiters and the slave class of AI in this book

With this book, I bought it for its sweet clearance price of ¥441, and it was written by Kyle Higgins whose Dead Hand Image book I enjoyed. With this book, I'm confident to say: Higgins is a good writer.

I've only read the two books now, but both books had some things in common: they doled out information at a solid pace, they had a firm sense of the world they were in, and created ethical questions for the characters. And they told a complete story!  There is Philip K Dick heart to both, where the artificial life in the books have human qualities, and the humans in the book have substantial difficulties empathizing with them. I don't think he's a next-level must buy writer, but the books are reliable page-turners with interesting ideas. So I know his name and will give his books a second look if they cross my path and they aren't Nightwing.

A textbook example of dishing out world-building info without feeling like an info-dump

The book revolves around a murder on a future world where AI robots are a slave class. It navigates the world-building with the story nicely by having a protagonist that is at the center of this whole concept. Magnus as envisioned in this book is a woman with a special ability to live in the virtual space called the Cloud where AI spend their free time. 

AI in the Cloud can appear any way they like, this character lives in shadow 

The setting is complicated: AI were used as tools in this society, but achieved sentience. To make their slave class acceptable, they were given the Cloud to live their time off in. But they still aren't respected as equal to humans in the real world, and tensions are rising. The Cloud drives human minds mad, with Magnus one of the only humans capable of extended periods of time there, and she has become not a robot fighter, but a robot therapist.

Fornés art shifts in styles. Sometimes he channels Mike Allred

Once you have that established, things move at a brisk pace, as Magnus navigates both AI and humans. Neither side is going to see eye to eye soon, but the question becomes one of whether they'll try to meet in the middle or simply go to war. 

Fornés has some Steve Lieber, Dave Aja or similarly rough artists style too. It all looks good, but it's not all aesthetically consistent

I'd be lying if it didn't seem a lot like the racial tensions America can't escape from. We see the humans versus the AI, with most humans barely even able to admit there might be a problem despite every AI being frustrated. It echoes so much of what minorities in America have been expressing: not just a difficulty in addressing the problem, but even in getting mainstream America to admit it there is a problem. What's great about this is that the book isn't writing anything with a direct one to one parallel (a la "Have you tried not being a mutant?"), but just borrowing nuances from the frustration that occurs on all sides. The story tapped into the ethical problems that will occur if AI ever develops anything resembling a will.

People wouldn't really rally to hate on an underclass, would they?

Jorge Fornés has really solid art throughout the book, though it's not stylistically consistent. It didn't throw me off too much though. His storytelling is really good. Pages have a good movement from panel to panel, and characters are instantly recognizable. Like Higgins, he does incredibly solid, if not astounding work.

This two page spread is the most interesting of the book, as the action moves upward on the left page, and downward on the right. I can imagine Fornés was pretty pleased when he conceived of and completed this

I don't mean to sound critical. It's hard to make a good comic. This is a very good comic. We're inundated with sci fi comics these days, so it's getting harder and harder to map out your own space. This book is inventive, well-constructed, and enjoyable. It's also modest. It tells a complete story, but where I would be happy to see a sequel. It's not laying the groundwork for five years of comics they hope you buy. Sometimes I just want to read a good book. This was good.

Looks like he drew it, instead of copy-pasted. Nice!