Cyborg #2 // Review
Victor Stone’s father died a couple of weeks ago. Now, there’s a robot claiming to be him. Vic is understandably upset about the whole situation in Cyborg #2. Writer Morgan Hampton works with a very clever conflict that echoes some classic sci-fi themes in an issue that is loaded onto the page courtesy of artists Tom Raney and Valentine De Landro. The color overlay is painted over everything thanks to Michael Atiyeh. It’s a bit of an old premise, but Hampton finds an interesting venue for it as Vic is a super-powered cyborg dealing with the loss of the father who created him.
It’s called the Solace Synthetic Android. It’s designed as an aid. It can drive, deliver food, clean houses, and so on. And it currently thinks that it’s Victor Stone’s father. Silas Stone supported the project. Now, he’s dead, and one of them thinks it has his mind. Vic is understandably upset about the whole situation. It DID show up at Victor’s childhood home claiming to be him. There are far too many questions to simply dismantle the robot and forget about it. Is the android any kind of a threat? It DOES possess the mind of a very prominent scientist with some very impressive skills.
If a human mind could be placed on a hard drive somewhere...would the mind on the computer still be the same person? It’s a classic question that’s been explored quite a lot in sci-fi. Hampton puts a new spin on the idea simply by contrasting it against Vic Stone. The family drama that accompanies it provides just enough novelty to make the old premise feel at least a little bit fresh and original. It’s not brilliant or anything, but it does make for some very entertaining drama that serves as an engaging follow-up to the first issue of the new series.
Raney and De Landro deliver the tech-based sci-fi drama to the page with clean lines and simple dramatic execution. There’s the occasional dramatic angle to the action that provides some really nice accents here and there. (The credits lay atop an aerial view of the dead body of Silas Stone just moments after his death. It’s a powerful visual statement to open the issue on.) The design of the SSA unit looks A LOT like the character design for the androids in the 2004 film adaptation of I, Robot. Given the fact that Vic refers to the thing by the name of the film, it’s not difficult to imagine a techie designer using that film as inspiration for the unit that later came to evidently house the mind of Silas Stone. So the resemblance actually kind of works to add another level of depth to the visuals.
Vic’s reaction to the situation is understandable, but the drama is kind of unduly amplified when one considers Vic’s history. He’s been through SO MUCH over the years. An android claiming to be his dead father? Even if he only died a couple of weeks ago, Vic should really have a bit more of a measured reaction to the whole situation. He’s going to be angry, but it’s not like he didn’t know that something like this might happen. He’s not going to openly accept the android as his father, but his anger seems a bit out of place given all that he’s been through.
