Publisher: Image Comics
Writers: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
Artist: Jonathan Luna
Release date: June 2015
Price: $3.99
 

There are few, I can count them on one hand, comic books that have made me rush out into the street beating my chest and corner members of the unsuspecting public – and if not the public (they tend to alert the authorities for some unknown reason and issue restraining orders, the unwitting fools) – then mild mannered comic book friends will have do – and yell in their docile faces about a comic book THEY HAVE TO READ. I’ll repeat that in case you missed it: THEY HAVE TO READ.

Alex + Ada #15 is, for me, that kind of comic book. And if you come back to me after reading EVERY – all of them, so help me god – ISSUE (I will not stop hounding you on FaceBook until you do come back, right?) and you give me that well Alex + Ada #15 was okay, then you will be dead to me.

Alex + Ada #15 is the last issue, the conclusion to a journey of romance, of terror, of betrayal, of robot evolution and human understanding on a personal and global scale. And, in less capable, less restrained hands there would be ample opportunity to turn Alex + Ada into soap opera, space opera, opera opera, if you, the cliché driven creator, were so inclined.

However, what you get instead in Alex + Ada, visually, in the first instance, from Jonathan Luna, is careful and deliberate story-telling, no panel is wasted, every panel serves a purpose to aid the narrative, to propel characterization forwards. Not with dullness but an unassuming, underplayed tension.

The simplicity of Jonathan Luna’s (GIRLS, The Sword, Spider-Woman, Ultra) panel layout disguises so much of the narrative intent, the subtext, the next step in the plot, a reader has to concentrate and will be rewarded for concentrating too. Sequential artwork without the hysterics of overworked panel layouts lives and breathes throughout Alex + Ada. Such an approach exposes the story, highlights the characters and character motivation. So that story has to be not merely good, not merely okay, but binding and capable of pulling the reader in it the midst of it.

The script by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn (Sparkshooter) achieves exactly that. Like the Luna’s artwork, the story themes are large, pertinent, of the now, of modernity; the very top of the zeitgeist.

But look, I have waxed lyrical for may be a paragraph or two too much. But buy all fifteen issues. And if you do find yourself, by strange coincidence, out on the street, banging your chest, accosting an evasive public and you happen to yell in my face: YOU HAVE TO READ every issue of Alex + Ada. I will be right back at you with: YES, YOU DO!

So what are you waiting for?

Reviewer: Steve Hooker