The life of Victor Stone has hit its stride. Between recent personal reveals concerning his family, fighting crime with Shazam, and using comedy to get through even the most dangerous situations…everything is looking up for Cyborg. Of course, all that means it will come crashing down rather quickly, sooner or later.
The dark times continue in David Walker’s fourth issue of Cyborg with a multiverse sized bombshell that involves Victor, Sarah, and all of S.T.A.R Labs. The issue acts like a breather for everything that’s happened to our cast thus far, and it works to a certain degree. Ivan Reis works his magic on the layouts, and the colors we’ve grown accustomed to from Adriano Lucas and Pete Pantanzis are present. With Felipe Watanabe on pencils, readers are treated to Ivan Reis level art that is more stoic and works for this more dialogue heavy issue. Readers get a clearer, more defined idea of just how exactly the Tekbreakers and Technosapiens fit into the grand scheme of things in this corner of the DCU. It’s a move that may or may not reference Grant Morrison’s Multiversity and the recent Convergence event.
As the cover implies, Victor Stone does not catch breaks. Cyborg #3 picks up immediately after the cliffhanger ending of the last issue, and we focus on the Technosapiens infecting Robert in his own living room. Elsewhere, more of their kind open a portal in Downtown Detroit and begin the invasion.
Through David Walker and Ivan Reis’ work on Cyborg #2, one can see how the pull of two worlds can be a blessing and a curse to Victor, and it shines bright in moments like these. Showing your body modifications to your cat and Cyborg’s facial expressions when “working” in the lab show a type of maturity to the issue. Victor Stone isn’t the angry son we saw him last issue, he isn’t the isolated computer we thought he was in Justice League. He’s a full on three dimensional character that is making Detroit his own fully realized corner of the DCU with the city becoming a hub of illegal black market machinery, and aliens infiltrating homes to steal technology that will sing them the song of perfection just like this second issue.
In August 2011, DC Comics changed everything with their line wide reboot dubbed “The New 52”. This reboot started with Justice League #1 and exploded with 51 other titles in September to get things rolling. In the first month of the New 52, every member of the Justice League received their own solo title with the exception: Cyborg. Fast forward four years later, and that issue is rectified with Victor Stone getting his own title written by David Walker and art by Ivan Reis.