Symmetry #1 Review

Symmetry #1 from Image Comics -

    In the distant future violence, sickness, and hunger have been eliminated. The price? Human diversity, ambition, creativity and instruments of capital. In the absence of these, and with the guidance of supremely advanced AI, human existence is free of strife and need, and bolstered by a guaranteed longevity unseen in human history. SOL (System Optimizer for Longevity), through its agents, RAINA and the Pacifiers, oversee and construct the optimal human existence on the planet. But perhaps all is not as it seems. When a powerful solar flare decimates SOL, humanity is on its own for the first time in centuries. When the door to human nature is opened fully, what will we find standing there staring back at us? Will we step through and embrace ourselves, or will the horror of the revelation of ourselves make us seal the door once more?

   Matt Hawkins is easily one of the best writers in comics today, and in Symmetry #1 we are again reminded of that fact as he challenges the reader with one question: "What would you be willing to give up to create Utopia?" In Symmetry #1, we find a vast, beautiful, organized world where every human is provided for, and no one makes or plans violence or war anymore. Children choose their own sex after a proper term of societal assimilation, marriage is unnecessary, all work is done by robots, and all human functions and consumptions are optimized for the greater good of each individual and by extension, the community. The reason that this comic works is simple: this is a subject that is near and dear to Hawkins' heart. He needs to explore the theme of utopia, to establish it, deconstruct it, and see if he can reconstruct it all over again. The writer is on a journey as much as the reader, and the is going to make for an amazing, unpredictable story, and possibly, a new classic in the science-fiction genre.

RATING: 10 out of 10. If you love sci-fi with a philosophical edge (the best sci-fi always has a philosophical edge), you simply cannot miss Symmetry.

Thanks for reading.