Alex + Ada #1

by Jonathan Luna & Sarah Vaughn

Alex + Ada #1 marks Jonathan Luna’s return to comics but this time with Sarah Vaughn to tell the futuristic story of Alex who working through a painful break-up 7 months ago. Now it’s his birthday and his rich grandmother has given him gift of a robot equipped with a form of artificial intelligence as a companion.

This first issue mostly focuses on showing us Alex’s daily life living alone and seems to be suffering a bit of depression. While showing us Alex’s life we are also introduced to a world that believably seems set a couple decades from now. Most things are either voice or even psychically controlled from the shower to the locks on your car doors. It also seems in this future humanity has developed life like robot people with incredibly advanced A.I. who either doing menial work or suit as lovers or companions. This was a decent enough first issue by easing us into this setting while giving the reader insight into the main character.

People who are familiar with Luna’s art, particularly in is past work with his brother, will get that same familiar feeling. Personally I’ve always enjoyed Luna’s distinct art style but I understand that some may not enjoy it. Its fun to see him use his style to tell a more futuristic story and design things like Alex’s small helper bot. Introducing many ultramodern designs into a somewhat modern world is smart way to casually let the reader settle into this fun world they begin to build.

As a first issue Alex + Ada does a great job of slowly revealing enough to get things started and get the ball rolling. After this issue it does leave you feeling like just the beginning and things could really go anywhere from here and those are the stories that intrigue readers to keep coming back to see where this goes.