{"id":592,"date":"2007-07-05T07:13:05","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T07:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=592"},"modified":"2007-07-05T07:24:14","modified_gmt":"2007-07-05T07:24:14","slug":"ex-machina-5-smoke-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2007\/07\/05\/ex-machina-5-smoke-smoke\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex Machina 5: Smoke Smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/exmachsmoke.jpg\" alt=\"Ex Machina 5: Smoke Smoke\" \/>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By <strong>Brian K. Vaughn<\/strong>, <strong>Tony Harris<\/strong>, <strong>Tom Feister<\/strong> &amp; <strong>JD Mettler<\/strong> (WildStorm)<br \/>\nISBN 1-84576-518-4<\/p>\n<p>The real world is such a big part of his political fantasy series. This volume collects issues #21-25 of the award-wining comic series starring a retired super-hero who became the Mayor of New York City, and unravels a little more of the mystery of Mitchell Hundred&#8217;s powers, whilst apparently concentrating on the insoluble problem of drug use.<\/p>\n<p>A liberal independent, Hundred has a bull-by-the-horns, head-on approach and his admission to smoking Marijuana has astounding repercussions. The smooth running of New York is further complicated by a murderous burglar masquerading as a fireman and a hideous self-immolation on the very steps of City Hall. Add the ever-present danger of barely suppressed racial tension and the mix is explosive and enthralling.<\/p>\n<p>This is a gem of a series and has never been anything below superb. How then can I describe the last story in this volume? <em>&#8216;Standalone&#8217;<\/em> features a glimpse into the mind and history of the Mayor&#8217;s advisor and bodyguard Rick Bradbury, and is without doubt the best thing yet in this amazing saga. Funny, sad, deliciously gratifying, it shows how much this is an ensemble series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ex Machina<\/strong> is now one of the best pieces of modern fiction being produced in English today, in any medium.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00a9 &amp; \u00e2\u201e\u00a2 2007 Brian K. Vaughn &amp; Tony Harris. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c2\u00a0 By Brian K. Vaughn, Tony Harris, Tom Feister &amp; JD Mettler (WildStorm) ISBN 1-84576-518-4 The real world is such a big part of his political fantasy series. This volume collects issues #21-25 of the award-wining comic series starring a retired super-hero who became the Mayor of New York City, and unravels a little more &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2007\/07\/05\/ex-machina-5-smoke-smoke\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ex Machina 5: Smoke Smoke&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ex-machina","category-graphic-novels"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-9y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}