Cyborg #1: Can You Go Home Again?

For the first time since the DC Rebirth era, Cyborg returns to the pages of a solo title under the creative team of Morgan Hampton in her first regular foray into the DCU.

The issue starts with an action sequence of Victor deftly handling Mammoth and Gizmo, two members of the classic Teen Titan/Titan villains the Fearsome Five. Cyborg easily and adeptly handles the two as a crowd of spectators watches (if not too close to the action taking place for their safety). After dispersing the pair, Victor receives terrible news: his father, Silas Stone, has died.

Once the scene moves to S.T.A.R. Labs, where Silas’ work partner is filling Victor in on the known events surrounding his father’s passing, the pacing of the story slows dramatically as the two discuss Victor’s strained relationship with his father, which has been a consistent theme since Cyborg was first introduced in Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s The New Teen Titans. The focus then cuts to a talking head who is not a fan of Cyborg and is making her opinions known. The discussion on the show then turns to Markus Wilcox, a roboticist turned techie whose company is setting up in Detroit.

As a first issue, the story starts strong and then gets bogged down in exposition at the halfway mark, which takes the energy from the opening fight and drains it. True, the basis for the story arc is being set up, but it drags the story’s pacing to a crawl and causes the cliffhanger to lose some of its impact. Victor’s updated design and tracksuit are a welcome change from Cyborg’s usual appearance of just his cybernetic body. Raney’s art mostly looks good, although it is looser than his typical style. There are a few panels of VIctor’s head where the perspective seems a little off and wonky, but for the most part, the art works with the story being told and Cyborg’s character.

Aside from a few nitpicks, like why Nightwing and Flash are wearing their masks at the funeral but no gloves and that the conflict between Victor and his father is somewhat a played-ou theme in Cyborg’s history, there is potential for this new series to be successful and a place for a Cyborg series in the Dawn of DC era.