Comic Review: Dark Droids #5 (of 5)

The start of the issue doesn’t disappoint. The start of each comic in this series has always started the same, with the Scourge. The voice that Soule writes is just incredible. You can just hear it coming loud and clear, that robotic voice that just creates fear and terror. In the first few panels Soule quickly establishes that there is no holding back, the Scourge is taking lives now on purpose. He wants to cause pain. It raises the stakes in the story but it’s also the start of Soule really providing some commentary on our modern world. It’s what the best writers do, relating a story set in a far-flung galaxy to our world (it’s why the modern Battlestar Galactica is so well regarded). The Scourge explains that the organics deserve pain, that they know it for they created droids. They didn’t think before they created. With a lot of attention on AI in our world, of writers and actors strikes, surely this is Soule saying that we in our time need to stop and think about what we’re doing. Of course, this isn’t a new concept, far from it, but it is one that is very well timed with the current climate.

It’s not the only thing that Soule examines. The Scourge mentions that it is a mirror of the organics, that he always wants more and more. The debate it has with itself is fascinating. Why more, why does it need more? Why not stop and end it? With Christmas here, we see a huge amount of ‘things’ been brought for people we know. Do we really need so many things? Are these things really needed? When do we stop? Again, it’s very coincidental but is Soule offering a minimalist view of our world, that we have more in common with the Scourge than we think? It’s these questions that I always love with Soule. He asks them, making us not only rethink of what we’re reading in the story but how we are in our world.

Along with this more, more, more, the Scourge is getting too much. There are too many minds, and it starts to affect it. It’s like watching Gollum in The Two Towers, talking to himself about the issues that are affecting him. He always wants more and yet he can’t focus properly with billions of memories. Like any machine, at some point, you reach capacity, when you go beyond that, cracks start appearing. It’s the weakness of the Scourge. You really feel when he’s punching himself, almost trying to knock the excess memories out of his head. It’s a very human response. Perhaps that is the most terrifying thing about this issue, it’s the similarities between us and the Scourge that get highlighted again and again. He isn’t that different.

There are a lot of deep writing but that is supported by the incredible artwork of Ross. Where do I begin? The experiments happening on the organics. It’s dark, sinister, very X-Files like and creates such a horrifying atmosphere as we keep checking in throughout the story. The conversations of the Scourge with himself look amazing, the calm at the eye of the storm. Yet it’s the many memories of the Scourge, confusing the past and the present that really just makes your jaw drop. There are a number of pages that do this, and it just looks insanely good. It really gives you an idea of what the Scourge is going through and looks gorgeous on the page. A great way for Ross to end the series.

The ending? Quick, not drawn out, I loved it! It’s what it needed to be. It seems right in some ways that it was Ajax but when you continue to read, it makes absolute sense. Would I want a really nicely tied up ending? No. A series of this quality deserves a sequel, or at least the possibility of a sequel. It seemed obvious that Ajax would be the solution of the series, to then have Ajax out of the game, to then bring him back but with a sadistic twist. It screams of Charles Soule!