This issue was one of my most anticipated for this month, but it fell flat for me which was disappointing. The simplistic nature that this book has adopted thus far seemed to be its downfall for me this issue. For example, the first eight pages or so just showcase Alex’s friends interrogating Ada with questions. It’s pretty unmemorable dialogue. The most important part of the banter is when they ask Alex if he has thought there could be a probability of another Nexaware massacre. This stood out to me-what if Ada just ends up killing Alex? The fact that all of his friends are all of a sudden sitting on his couch and drilling his android with questions was very anticlimactic considering the end of last issue being a great cliffhanger. All of a sudden his group of friends knows about this secret he’s been trying to keep. It’s clear that Alex is getting more attached to Ada. He sees a news report about an android attending a show and getting killed. It was killed because it fought back from being knocked around by a mosher. Now, that all sounds weird, but the main point is that it went to this concert alone which is a very human thing to do. It wasn’t serving its owner, it bought its own ticket, had a fake ID, and bought beer with it.
This gets Alex thinking: he basically wants Ada to be like this, to be more human. For example, he realizes she agrees with what he thinks, but she can’t form opinions of her own. Obviously, having a conversation with someone without an opinion is boring, so Alex wants to change this and other aspects of Ada (for example, he asks her to dance but she doesn’t know how). Alex then watches a news report talking about owners like him. It says that some owners don’t like the predictability of an android and want it to be more human… then be with a human. He also notices there’s a symbol on the robot’s hand that was killed-it’s the Robots Rights symbol, which activists started using after the Nexaware massacre. He seems interested in it, and wants to customize Ada.
I won’t give away the ending here, but it didn’t have much of an impact like the other issues did. Again, I did enjoy the emotion that the art can convey, but we’ve seen it all before. The blank looks and awkward situations that Alex and Ada are in are starting to seem rehashed and I wish they could play on other emotions. I’ll still be following this book, but I’m really hoping the next issue steps it up or this series will fall into mediocrity.
Score: 3/5
Writers: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn Artist: Jonathan Luna Publisher: Image Comics Price: $2.99 Release Date: 1/15/14