Cyborg #23 – Marv Wolfman, Writer; Tom Derenick, Artist; Wil Quintana, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 6.5/10
Corrina: Confusing and Overfull
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
Ray: Cyborg #23, the third chapter of Marv Wolfman’s return to the character of Cyborg, has a decent central plot, but it’s way too slow to really make much of an impact. When we last left off, Cyborg had fallen in with a group of rogue former STAR Labs scientists who had broken off from the main company due to ethical issues with their former bosses’ military work. Now they design for the love of creating and occasionally have giant bot-fights with their pacifist machines. It’s an interesting concept that shows us how STAR Labs might look from the outside – but the issue is that this new group, called Starlite, seems to have shady elements of their own. Cyborg tries to get in contact with his father to clear up the issues between the two companies, but Silas is dodging him for unknown reasons, and the father and son eventually have a falling out at exactly the wrong time – with Cyborg heading off on his own just as the series’ main villain comes after him.
That villain would be the mysterious Master Nijiro, an ancient Japanese man who was born without an arm in the year 1879, received a strange cybernetic prosthetic that should have existed at the time – and has been replacing parts of his body with cybernetics ever since to cheat death. He’s not necessarily a bad villain, but the concept of yet another evil disabled villain like Silver Swan rubs me the wrong way – even one in a book with arguably DC’s most famous disabled hero at the moment. Nijiro needs Cyborg’s heart to complete his transformation and live forever, so he eventually comes after him in a surprisingly brief final battle before he gets Cyborg at his mercy. There’s relatively little that’s bad in this issue, but this is overall a pretty basic plot that feels like it shouldn’t have taken three issues to get here. I’ll be more interested in the eventual reveals about Starlite and whether they wind up being ally or enemy to Cyborg.
Corrina: While Ray found this issue fairly basic, I found it made up of disparate elements that don’t seem to form a coherent whole.
For instance, Starlite seems as yet unconnected to the ancient cybernetic man, and the pages featuring them might as well be in two different stories. The shenanigans at the regular STAR Labs involving Silas are connected but after several plots that featured Victor Stone’s distrust of his father and the other scientists, it feels like a retread.
I wish I had better things to say about Wolfman’s return to his creation.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
