The Kyle Higgins Reboot
Magnus #1-5
2017

Grade: C+



Overview:

A very different take on the Magnus franchise, set in the near future, in which we have a downtrodden thinking/feeling robot servant class. When a robot servant kills its master (also the CEO of the leading company that builds robot servants) a tense cultural stalemate is on the verge of exploding, and it's up to Dr. Kerri Magnus, the only human capable of traversing the A.I.'s collective network, to digitally hunt down a robot terrorist and prevent all out war.

The writing and plotting are insultingly simplistic in execution, but the collective A.I. network concept is novel, and the central character has promise. Tom Peyton was the first to put forward the concept of a female Magnus (as an alternate universe version of Magnus), but Higgins does it well, presenting a character who truly feels female without relying upon cliches nor stereotypes, and artist Jorge Fornes never exploiting her sexuality nor physical appearance for the sake of sex-deprived male readers. This character feels authentic and is treated respectfully.

Unfortunately, the writing comes off as surprisingly simplistic for such a concept-rich series, many of the characters feel woefully uni-dimensional, and the art feels crude and amateurish. But, worst of all, WHY would you ever take a Magnus series out of the 4000 AD backdrop unless you have a better alternate setting in mind? The "near future" essentially looks like today but with robots.

Worth noting:

- This iteration of Magnus was left open for future story arcs, but Dynamite hasn't announced anything, and the series seems to have been met with overall indifference.



Worthwhile to read?:

Hey, it's different. It's clumsy and simplistic in a lot of spots, and that becomes all the more frustrating because it repeatedly asks you to take its ideas and themes very seriously, but it's a different kind of concept that has some bright spots, even if it's a drastic departure from the basic Magnus premise, bearing very little in common with the franchise this thread has been following all along.



Worth Re-reading?:

It's not really Magnus, but it is unique in its approach. Probably worth returning to in its own right, but not as part of some marathon Magnus re-read.

I think it was always intended to be an initial 5 issue story arc, a try-out of sorts. The end result just feels indicative of the nature of the industry these days -- you walk in to a meeting with the editor, pitch some interesting high concepts, and you get a free pass at a 5 issue arc, no one actually checking over how you implement it. This premise sounds great on paper; Higgins just doesn't write it well.

Yes, but I think that was the point. Set the reader up to want to know more so that we'd come back for a second story arc (which may or may not still be coming). I do see your point about things being rushed in terms of how they finally revealed Magnus' origin. That should have been given more time and attention than it was, and sort of felt like a throw-away. Maybe that was done because Higgins was told the series wasn't being continued beyond the first arc.

I can't say where they came from, maybe my older brother, but I had the Gold Key #22 (origin reprint) and #23 and have found myself citing the 'man shall not serve machine' motto most of my life. So, glad to see this thread and will survey all the relaunches!

Interesting thought about the civil rights time of the concept creation shaxper. Maybe someone who knew Manning could say but I think it's much more likely an idea that came from someone reading the text science fiction of the day where in Asimov and EandO Binder these were very basic areas of exploration. I had a fair number of the DC Tarzan with strips collected which were by Manning and I can't recall anything setting off the creepy alarm like some stuff in old '40s Jungle Comics. I mean other than a white guy being 'Lord' in Africa anyway.

When I first saw Judge Dredd and the Mega Cities it reminded me of the '60s Magnus future in some ways, but gone a bit wrong as human civilizations are liable to. I think there were infrastructure robots that reminded me of some in Magnus too.

Those Russ Manning robots are very much like the SF pulp cover robots of the '20s-'40s, especially those by Frank R. Paul...




and the buildings are very NY World's Fair (take your pick of which ones).

Solar was great, at Valiant, though I didn't care much for the Turok series, when it debuted. Liked the earlier appearance, in Magnus; but, it lost something by the time he finally got a series. Much preferred the original Gold Key Turok stories.

Valiant was great, while Shooter was running the show. It lost that spark after he was ousted. I hung with Archer & Armstrong, until BWS left and the same length with Eternal Warrior, though it never lived up to the possibility I had for it, in my head. X-O was the only other one I stuck with, after the purge, but for less than a year, from that point. Subsequent Valiant did nothing for me, though I did check out Quantum & Woody much later, after the company went under.

I'm a harsh critic of Shooter, at Marvel; but, at Valiant, he was on to something and it fizzled, when he was gone.