The Pull List Comic Reviews: ‘Ex Machina’, ‘Planetary’ and ‘Blackest Night’

Because we want to keep things fresh, we’ve decided to bring you an edition of The Pull List by guest reviewer Dave Press today. Keep it here tomorrow for another guest reviewer! –Ed

EX MACHINA #45
Rating: 7.5

My favorite series of the last couple of years is beginning to wind down and I’m getting quite sad about it. This issue picks up where we left off with New York City Mayor Mitchell Hundred discussing the effects of the previous arc and how Village Voice reporter Suzanne Padilla may be on to the White Box.

Our Mayor who can talk and control machines created The White Box around his election night.  Padilla was convinced that it helped elect Hundred as Mayor.  What happened was the White Box went off and implanted itself in Padilla’s brain, in a similar manner that the device that gave Hundred his powers.

Ex Machina is essentially The West Wing mixed in with some super heroics and tracks a retired super hero during his first and only term as New York City mayor. With five issues left, Padilla possessed by the White Box, she is slowly picking off members of Hundred’s cabinet.  Who knows what she has planned or for that matter Vaughan.

The question we have now is what will Vaughan be doing after Ex Machina concludes? He’s left the writer’s room for Lost and his spec script, Roundtable, is a modern day re-imagining of the Arthur legend.  To say the least his life as a writer is expanding and if he has any time for comics now post-Ex Machina I’ll be quite pleased.

Planetary #27 Preview
Rating: 8.0

In the back of Ex Machina #45, was a preview to the final issue of Planetary, Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s modern day masterpiece.  The preview teased a building of a time machine to the specification of the time machine featured in H.G. Wells novel.  Wells’ The Time Machine is quite easily my favorite piece of science fiction ever.

So with this preview going into that orbit or explaining it scientifically just wet my whistle.  I can’t wait for Planetary #27 to hit stands Oct. 2.

Blackest Night #3
Rating: 6.5

How heart-wrenching. Just really crazy, but I have to appreciate Johns’ skill to distill down in one page exactly the struggle that faces newly resurrected Barry Allen with Hal Jordan.  The one page was totally brilliant.

The fight continues to escalate with Firestorm falling and his girlfriend dying. However the Indigo Tribe has come on the scene and it appears like they are the ones that are able to take down the Black Lanterns. They, however, force the issue that all of the Corps rings have to be together to drive back the darkness. That’s going to be a tall order when you put egos like Carol Ferris of the Star Sapphires, Sinestro Corps in a civil war between Sinestro and Mongul, and the rest of the Lanterns.

This is just starting to get interesting.