Ex Machina, Vol. 3: Fact v. Fiction

After growing tired of risking his life, America's first superhero Mitchell Hundred retires from masked crime fighting and runs for mayor of New York City, but he discovers that he has more to worry about than just budget problems.

After a mysterious accident gave Mitchell Hundred the power to control machines, he parlayed a brief stint as a superhero with the grandiose moniker the Great Machine into a successful run for the mayoralty of New York. In the third collection of the series chronicling his incumbency, Hundred is called for jury duty, and his strange abilities precipitate a hostage crisis in the deliberation room. Meanwhile, the police commissioner and the mayor's trusted aide, Bradbury, conduct separate searches for the vigilante superhero who's impersonating Hundred's now-retired Great Machine persona. Vaughan dishes out tantalizing glimpses of Hundred's superhero career and earlier adolescent obsession with superheroes and machines. Since Hundred's days in costume are in the past, and he calls on his paranormal abilities merely as the situation demands, Ex Machina barely qualifies as a superhero comic and likely appeals more to alt-comics fans than to the hardcore masks-and-capes crowd. Tony Harris' stylishly realistic artwork combines with Vaughan's canny characterizations, deft dialogue, and compelling plotlines to make for one of the best mainstream comics going. Gordon Flagg
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