This Wednesday the final days of Mitchell Hundred as New York City Mayor begins with Ex Machina #45. For what has been probably my favorite series since moving to Manhattan almost five years ago, Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’s Ex Machina has been close to my heart since being here. So to see the final arc start this week saddens me.
For those not familiar, Vaughan’s Ex Machina series earned him an Eisner award and revolved around Mitchell Hundred the first super hero in his respective universe. In an incident beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, Hundred was bestowed with powers to control machines. What occurred was a series of misadventures until September 11th, Hundred’s most famous day, where he saved one of the Towers. Realizing that all he was doing as the jetpack clad Great Machine was maintaining the status quo rather than changing anything, Hundred unmasked himself after 9/11 and announced he was running for Mayor. To which he won by a landslide. The book involves his first and only term as Mayor of New York City and is a mix of super heroics and The West Wing. The latter was my favorite show in college, and this is just a gem of a comic book.
In the last arc, it was revealed that Hundred constructed a white box that may or may not have been responsible to convince people to vote for him in the Mayoral race. As this happens, its discovered that the device that bestowed his powers on him uses other colors (kind of like the various Lantern Corps) to give powers over control of animals and the like. Hundred’s bitter enemy, Village Voice reporter Suzanne Padilla discovers this “White Box” may have influenced voters on Hundred’s first race.
Jeffrey Renaud spoke with Vaughan about the final arc of this series. Throughout the interview they talk about what will be revealed, and the final hot button issue that the final arc will cover which is titled “Pro-Life.” The writer did say that this book has always been a tragedy, so if you expect a happy ending you’re probably reading the wrong book. I’m not going to speculate, but I’m sure there will be plenty of fireworks.
Finally, though, we get some glimpse at what Vaughan is going to be up to post-Ex Machina and recently departing the writing staff of Lost. We already know that he sold a hot script in the form of Roundtable, which people have been saying is a Ghostbusters-like take on the Arthur legend set in the modern day. With his departure from Lost, I was hoping he would move onto do some more comic work but now, in typical BKV fashion, the future is hazy towards that and shows he’ll be doing some more film and (maybe) some television work. Here’s what he had to say:
I told showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, I’m haunted by the fact that they had both already helped create classic shows by the time they were my age, so it felt like it was time for me to get out there and try to make some more original stuff of my own.
As for exactly what I’ve been working on when I haven’t been writing “Ex Machina,” I should be able to reveal more around the time our final issue comes out in a few months. There’s one new film thing that will definitely be the biggest project of my career if I can somehow pull it off, but I’m most excited about the new creator-owned comics I started putting together shortly after “Y: The Last Man“ wrapped. It always takes me a while to develop new books, but I think these are some of the best ideas I’ve ever had and definitely some of the best collaborators I’ve ever had the privilege of working with, so I hope they’ll be worth the wait.
So, until then, we’re just going to have to wait patiently. In the mean time, I will be waiting with baited breath.
Ex Machina #45 goes on sale today.
