When DC announced that Cyborg would be getting his first solo title again in 6 years, I was elated. I was not a big fan of his last series, but with the line-wide initiative in Dawn of DC, all of the new titles looked promising, so I was excited, especially because this would be the writer’s first published DC comic and I like to see some new blood at these old publishers. Dawn of DC’s Cyborg is written by Morgan Hampton with art by Tom Raney, Sean Damien Hill, Travis Mercer, and Bruno Abdias. This team collectively does a great job, though I’m not the biggest fan of Raney, he still does decent work and Hampton’s writing is just perfect for this character.
We got our first look at what Morgan Hampton would bring to Cyborg in DC Power: A Celebration #1, their annual Black History Month issue, and what a sneak peek it was. You don’t have to read that story for the main title of Cyborg, but I strongly recommend you do because it’s a beautiful short story that briefly dives into the relationship Vic had with his mother and even canonizes her being the reason he says “booyah!” You can tell Morgan loves Cyborg, and he brings such a careful and personal touch to the character that really hasn’t been seen in a while. Hampton’s Cyborg is 100% about Vic Stone. Yes, he is a superhero, but we see Vic be a superhero all the time, rarely do we get to see his civilian life and Hampton really explores that side of Vic in such a wholesome and meaningful way, but I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s get into the story.
Cyborg, at its heart, is a back-to-basics story for Victor Stone. He’s got a brand new look that is awesome and he’s back in his hometown Detroit, Michigan, being a superhero and stopping the Fearsome Five (yes the same Fearsome Five from the Teen Titans show back in 2003). He then gets a missed call and several texts from Sarah Charles that Silas Stone, Vic’s father, has died.
For those unaware, Vic and Silas have a very complicated relationship. Vic has always resented his father because, throughout his life, he’s felt like Silas had made many decisions for him, even for becoming a cyborg. At this point, after many years of being a Titan and Justice Leaguer, things have stayed complicated, and now coming back, Vic didn’t tell his father he had been back home, so he died without even seeing Vic recently. We also see Vic going to therapy, and actually having a history of going which was a very nice touch. The therapy session really is where Cyborg’s character arc in this series stems from: Cyborg finally letting go of his animosity for his father and being allowed to move on and be his own man.
As a side note: I love to see mental health treatment depicted in superhero comics, it’s something that’s so very rare, but honestly shouldn’t be. All of these heroes have trauma in some way, shape, or form, whether from being a superhero or from their past.
But, how does Vic get to that point of letting go? Surprisingly, with the help of his father. It’s revealed to us that not too long before his death, Silas had met a new character, Markus, at a marketing event who had pitched a new project by his company Solace, a lifestyle app. This app would take a DNA sample from the user and curate a lifestyle for that person, everything from the kind of diet they should have to the career they should pursue.
That was phase one, which the public would know of, however, Markus then reveals phase two wouldn’t be known to the public. Phase two would use that DNA sample to construct the user’s living code for them to be later uploaded into a synthetic body; he was planning for eternal life. Silas supported this, and after some time the app would go commercial. Soon, digital versions of people, dubbed digital souls, would begin to appear within Solace’s servers; they all had their own consciousness and were connected to their living selves.
These digital souls had a 24/7 job of sorting their user’s data, and they soon learned that if they stopped working, they’d be erased. This would lead to an escape attempt led by Silas’s digital soul, who would be the only one to get out and be downloaded into a Solace synthetic robot. Silas would then go on to try and aid Vic in trying to save the millions of digital souls that were lost in the escape attempt, only to find out that Markus’s Digital soul sacrificed himself to save them.
During this ordeal, Silas began to think about his and the rest of the digital souls’ situation of not having a choice in their digital lives, and how Silas came to be in a robot body. He even has an epiphany about why Vic feels the way he does toward him, through this experience, he finally understands that while he had chosen the burden of being within a metal husk, Vic didn’t, even if Silas’s intention was to save him.
There’s actually a direct parallel between Vic and Silas’s relationship with Markus and the digital souls, in that the digital souls did not ask to be used in the way that Markus intended. This led to Markus’s digital soul sacrifice, which had him download himself into a Solace synth, calling himself Solace; later he’d lead a liberation of digital souls, an actual army of cutting-edge robots attacking the city to distract Cyborg and the Titans allowing for Solace to confront the real Markus. Solace laments that none of the digital souls asked for this life. They didn’t ask, nor want, to be used in the manner that was intended and now Solace feels he needs to kill Markus.
After being distracted, Cyborg finally steps in and acknowledges that Solace has a choice and that he doesn’t have to kill Markus, but he’s not having it and they start fighting until Silas realizes he has an idea to defeat Solace, but it requires wiping the system from the inside, Silas included. So, Silas uploads his consciousness into Cyborg’s brain to talk finally and he tells him about the plan, but he tells Cyborg that it’s his choice now and that he understands how important this is for him to offer to Cyborg.
Cyborg, of course, makes the call, but he decides to do it alongside his father and it culminates into a beautiful moment between a father and son who get the second chance they finally need even if it results in his father’s death. It really highlights the kind of stern relationship that many may have with either parent or both. The parents see the decisions they make for their child as an act of love, but the child may not, especially if they’re not constantly reassured that that’s where it’s coming from.
To have such a prideful parent, like Silas, not only understand the mistakes they’ve made in raising their child but also put such a powerful choice in the hands of his son, really shows the growth this character went through and allows for Vic to grow and properly heal finally. It’s a revelation that ultimately shouldn’t have to be made in a perfect world, but in reality Silas is human, he’s flawed just like everybody and he absolutely should have been a much better father, but I’m glad he got to this point regardless. It touched my heart, I honestly teared up a bit reading the final issue for the first time. I loved it.
This series ends with Cyborg seeing his therapist once again, telling her about the choices his dad made for him, while they may have saved his life and soul, he still recognizes that he’s a man defined by his father’s choices and that it’s time that he start making his own.
I do have one con and it’s honestly the art. I mean no disrespect to Tom Raney, I don’t dislike his art at all, but I don’t believe he was the best fit for this series. When you see the covers and how dynamic they are, as a reader you have to expect that from the interiors, even if you’re aware the cover artist and interior artist are different, but the interior art just clashes with the style of the covers so much. There are many times in this series where Cyborg’s proportions are off, the expressions can be very hit or miss and not in an “off-panel” kind of way, sometimes it’s multiple, highlighted panels on a single page. There are times when Raney’s art is awesome like in Cyborg’s fight with A.T.L.A.S., and it’s honestly his best work in the entire series, I love that fight. This is even more glaring due to the few fill-in artists we get Valentine De Landro, who has a very Jean-Paul Leon/Jorge Fornes style that I adore, and Travis Mercer and Bruno Abdias who come in at the end and have the best art in the series by far. It doesn’t detract from the book too much, but it is something that stuck out to me seeing the covers and then seeing the interiors just be such wildly different aesthetics from each other.
Aside from that, this series was still amazing for me. It’s so incredibly down-to-earth and relatable and Hampton’s voice for Cyborg is spot on. I’m a sucker for a parent/child relationship being fixed, and even better that we get this deeply personal story for one of DC’s most recognizable black characters. It’s just plain nice. I strongly recommend you read this whether you’re a Titans fan or just a fan of comics, it’s a really good story for a character who could use quite a few more of those.