Magnus Robot Fighter #2
Written by Fred Van Lente
Art by Corey Smith
Colors by Mauricio Wallace
Letters by Marshall Dillion
Covers by Gabriel Hardman, Jonathon Case, Emanuela Lupacchino, Stephen Sevogia, and Ken Haeser
Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: April 9, 2014
Cover Price: $3.99

In my opinion, Magnus Robot Fighter #2 wasn’t as awesome as the first issue, making it just plain awesome instead of SUPER awesome.

Writer Fred Van Lente uses this issue mostly for world building purposes. Previously, we met Will Magnus, got to know him a little bit, and then he was whisked away to a whole different world where his job was to fight robots. In this issue, we find out more about that world, how it works, what the rules are, and why Magnus is deemed a pretty big threat by this society. In keeping with the spirit of the first issue, Van Lente includes TONS of action and some great bits of story, all the while slipping in bits and pieces of how this world functions, what the class sects are, and some general basic knowledge of what this world is about. All of these things, woven into a really smooth flowing story.

Artist Corey Smith continues to kick butt on the art side of things. You can tell he really had a lot of fun designing this look and feel of this world and the multiple types of robots that inhabit it. It’s a great look because it’s not a typical “bright and shiny” version of a futuristic world. Smith does not make this world a bleak, dystopian future either; he finds a very happy medium and it totally works with the story that Van Lente is telling. My only complaint — and this is a pet peeve of mine — is that in a couple of pages Smith doesn’t draw backgrounds, he uses the standard white background and I think that if he had drawn the background on these pages, they would’ve popped a lot more. Still, that’s a very minor complaint in an otherwise gorgeous looking comic.

All right, this series is two issues in and so far it hasn’t even come close to stumbling. That’s pretty good if you ask me. This is an entertaining issue; it answers a lot of questions that we had from last issue, while setting up a whole slew of new questions that we can’t wait to see answered. Just like last month, I highly recommend this fantastic comic. Go grab it!!