Brian K Vaughan is an asshole.
I've just finished reading Ex Machina and loved it from beginning to end just as I loved Y: The Last Man before that and Pride of Baghdad before that. I love Brian K Vaughan's work. But I fucking hate him for what these comics do to me.
I'm going to go ahead and warn anyone who hasn't read any of those, spoilers lie ahead.
In each of those three series', BKV does the same thing: he engrosses the reader into a great story with fascinating characters and then ruins their lives. Pride of Baghdad I was not surprised, it's based on the true story of some lions who wandered around the war-torn streets of Iraq's capital. It was not going to end happily so I had some warning there. 'Y' on the other hand, I had hope for but it ends oh-so bittersweetly. Yeah, Yorick lives to a ripe old age and saves the world but he's a wreck. He's watched everyone close to him die and never recovered from 355's death.
Then Ex Machina... Ex Machina was something else. BKV couldn't just have it end happily... of course. Within the book he deconstructs the idea of happy endings - in real life there is no such thing only "happy pauses" as he puts it. I agree, I think me and him are pretty alike in our cynicism. But I don't want to be a cynic! I want happy endings in my fiction! I don't want Mitchell Hundred, a character I grew to admire and respect, to alienate and abandon his best friend and MURDER the closest thing he had to a father figure. BKV tells you he's going to do it. That's maybe the worst thing. I wanted to stop reading but I couldn't.
Damn you Brian K Vaughan. Damn you, you brilliant evil literary genius.
Oh yeah, I choose to believe that Hundred joining up with the Republicans is a metaphor for him passing the Moral Event Horizon.
Main Why Brian K Vaughan is an asshole. (SPOILERS)
Brian K Vaughan is an asshole. I've just finished reading Ex Machina and loved it from beginning to end just as I loved Y: The Last Man before that and Pride of Baghdad before that. I love Brian K Vaughan's work. But I fucking hate him for what these comics do to me.
I'm going to go ahead and warn anyone who hasn't read any of those, spoilers lie ahead.
In each of those three series', BKV does the same thing: he engrosses the reader into a great story with fascinating characters and then ruins their lives. Pride of Baghdad I was not surprised, it's based on the true story of some lions who wandered around the war-torn streets of Iraq's capital. It was not going to end happily so I had some warning there. 'Y' on the other hand, I had hope for but it ends oh-so bittersweetly. Yeah, Yorick lives to a ripe old age and saves the world but he's a wreck. He's watched everyone close to him die and never recovered from 355's death. Then Ex Machina... Ex Machina was something else. BKV couldn't just have it end happily... of course. Within the book he deconstructs the idea of happy endings - in real life there is no such thing only "happy pauses" as he puts it. I agree, I think me and him are pretty alike in our cynicism. But I don't want to be a cynic! I want happy endings in my fiction! I don't want Mitchell Hundred, a character I grew to admire and respect, to alienate and abandon his best friend and MURDER the closest thing he had to a father figure. BKV tells you he's going to do it. That's maybe the worst thing. I wanted to stop reading but I couldn't. Damn you Brian K Vaughan. Damn you, you brilliant evil literary genius.
Oh yeah, I choose to believe that Hundred joining up with the Republicans is a metaphor for him passing the Moral Event Horizon.