Technology of Control and Control of Technology in Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina

Abstract

In the classic era of American comics, the overwhelming majority of superhero stories focused on the straightforward struggle between good and evil, with superheroes embodying the positive values such as justice, order, or patriotism. However, with time both the stories and the characters started to transform. By the end of the 1980s, new, darker series expressing distrust of political governance and all forms of authority started to emerge. In the aftermath of 9/11, this skepticism has found new fuel in a range of policies and actions collectively known as the War on Terror. The paper analyzes Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina (2004-2010) focusing especially on the series’ exploration of domestic security in the post-9/11 United States. The author links the protagonist’s superpower, the ability to communicate with the machines, to the developments in surveillance and drone warfare and investigates the comic’s reflections of such major concerns related to America’s surveillance and security as the constraints on civil liberties