Review: Cyborg Vol. 3 Singularity

Quick Summary

Pros: Some pieces of the story are fun or interesting. The artwork is mostly positive.

Cons: Most of the volume’s story is unappealing and uninteresting. The characters are written poorly and their actions are often confusing. The last chapter of the main story arc is lackluster.

Overall: The final volume in this Cyborg series is just as disappointing as the volumes preceding it. The entire collection is plagued with storytelling problems, ridiculous character motivations, and concludes with a subpar finale. There are a few redeeming qualities to the story but nothing significant enough to save the volume as a whole. Readers who liked previous entries in this series may like this one too but most readers will probably be better off staying away.

Story

Like the other volumes in this series, Cyborg Vol. 3: Singularity, by John Semper Jr., falls to live up to its potential. Though there are small pieces of the narrative that manage to shine, the problems are too numerous and too prominent to ignore. The entire volume hinges around a premise that is simply not that compelling and ends with a disappointing final chapter. Along the way, characters act in ways that are confusing in some places and downright nonsensical in others. In the end, this volume just has too many problems holding it back.

(spoilers start here)

The main narrative in Singularity centers around Cyborg and company being pulled into a virtual world, where they become embroiled in a battle for the fate of a virtual reality. There are pieces of this story that manage to be compelling. There are pieces of the book that feel like a fun summer blockbuster, one where villains challenge heroes to a “final mega-battle” and where everything can be solved by hacking computers. If the storyline took itself less seriously, like these types of action movies, this over-the-top and often ridiculous action might be more enjoyable and make the read better.

However, the problem is that the volume does take itself seriously and, thus, these ridiculous moments just end up feeling ridiculous. The constantly “cyber”-themed language, the tremendously over-the-top battles, and the generally cheesy nature of the storytelling make it feel like this comic is trying to hard to be a high-stakes and dramatic tale. In addition, the constant reliance on the hacking trope gets old very quickly. This is most noticeable in the volume’s final chapter, where heavy-handed narration takes over and removes almost all the emotion and drama from the book in what appears to be a misguided attempt to add more emotion and drama.

It doesn’t help that the characters in this saga are all written terribly. The main villain seems to forget his specific grudge against Cyborg’s father in favor of motivations more critical to the conclusion of this book, Cyborg’s romance seems contrived considering the fact that his love-interest just betrayed him in the last volume, evil-Cyborg goes from wanting to conquer humanity to wanting to save humanity just because an alternate version of his girlfriend is alive, and Variant’s decision to stay in the virtual reality just feels like a cheap way to wrap up her story arc. In general, the motivations throughout this book are all over the place, which makes it very hard to connect with this volume’s characters.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The quality of the artwork in Singularity is mostly positive and ends up being one of the better features of the collection. Will Conrad’s work, which takes up the majority of the volume, is as dynamic and energetic as it was in the previous collection. This works well in a book where action is paramount and helps provide the reader with something good to look at when the story suffers. In addition, Cliff Richards’ work, seen in the last two chapters of this volume, looks dark and sinister, matching the specific tone of the story being told. However, there are places when the visuals throughout the book seem to randomly drop. In these places, a character is contorted in an odd way or the coloring does not work well with the rest of the art. Overall though, the artistic positives outweigh the artistic negatives in this book.

Continuity

Cyborg Vol. 3: Singularity continues the story from Cyborg Vol. 2: Danger in Detroit (Review).

The Cyborg series continues in Cyborg #21-23, which are currently uncollected.