Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition-Issue 2

Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition Issue 2 is one of the deluxe hardcover collections of Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina comics series, which originally ran from 2004 to 2010 from DC Comics’ WildStorm imprint. The series follows Mitchell Hundred, a former civil engineer who acquired strange powers that let him communicate with and command machines, who served briefly as a costumed superhero called the Great Machine before retiring and successfully running for mayor of New York City following the September 11 attacks. The deluxe edition collects the original monthly comics in oversized hardcover volumes that have become collector items for fans of the series.

Brian K. Vaughan is one of the most acclaimed comics writers of the past two decades, with a catalogue that includes Y: The Last Man, Saga, Paper Girls, Runaways, and many other major series. Ex Machina was one of his earlier major works and one that established the kind of politically engaged science fiction comics that would become a hallmark of his later career. The series ran for fifty issues plus various specials, with art by Tony Harris that gave the political and supernatural material a particular visual weight.

The central premise of Ex Machina is unusual in superhero comics. The protagonist is not an active costumed hero but a retired one, and his current superhero work consists primarily of trying to govern New York City through the various political and bureaucratic challenges that the actual mayor of New York City would face. The series weaves the political plot with the slowly developing mystery of where Hundred’s powers actually came from and what their wider implications for human history might be.

The deluxe edition format gives the original comics the kind of presentation that the political and visual ambition of the series rewards. The Tony Harris art is reproduced at larger size than the original monthly comics format allowed, with the hardcover production giving the volumes the kind of physical weight that matches the political weight of the material. The deluxe editions ran across five volumes that together cover the entire series.

For longtime Brian K. Vaughan fans who came to him through Saga or Paper Girls, going back to Ex Machina is essential. The series shows him working through the political and science fiction concerns that would continue to shape his later work. For new readers of contemporary comics, Ex Machina is one of the foundational works of the past two decades and rewards the deluxe edition presentation. Issue 2 of the deluxe series collects approximately ten of the original monthly issues, picking up the story after the foundational opening that the first deluxe volume covered.