Metal Society

by Zack Kaplan, Guilherme Balbi (Artist), Marco Lesko (Colorist)

PORT OF EARTH writer ZACK KAPLAN teams up with hot artist newcomer GUILHERME BALBI in a new dramatic sci-fi MINISERIES, BLADE RUNNER meets ROCKY. In an inverted future, evolved robots have resurrected humans for manual labor, but when a tribalistic cultural clash breaks out, a fearless human fighter and a frustrated, displaced robot will square off in a public MMA-style sport fight of epic stakes to finally prove which is man or machine?

Metal Society #1-5

Genres: Comics

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
In the same vein as 'Not All Robots' this is a fairly straightforward S-F tale set in the year 2420 when (mostly) humanoid robots rule the world, many years after humankind has gone extinct, but a few humans have been resurrected and genetically engineered to carry out the dirtiest jobs that robots don't want to carry out. Over the course of six issues (collected & self-contained) a bout between one Rosa Genthree and a construction robot WOL-412313 plays out, from before it is proposed through to the fight itself and it's aftermath. A pleasantly surprisingly hopeful ending rounds out a well-written and well-paced graphic novel.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good solid science fiction story telling here that avoids a lot of cliches. I don't think I can say it avoids every cliche, but it stays away from the big ones.

The concept is that robots took over the world after humans died out/destroyed themselves. Then robot used found human DNA to bring back humans, and to use them as menial laborers. Over decades, if not centuries, human begin fighting for their rights.

Now the big question is where do humans and robots fit in this world. A fight has been arranged, not going into the why and how, to determine this.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually pretty good. It's about a society where robots have lived alone for centuries. They decide to resurrect humans to do menial jobs like picking up garbage. It becomes human rights versus robot rights as humans struggle to be seen. It all revolves around an upcoming fight between a robot and an enhanced human.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Zack Kaplan's sci-fi comics - I can't say he's missed yet. While Metal Society takes its sweet time to get to the point, I think it overall worked as a standalone story. In the far future, robots have subjugated humans, using them primarily as beasts of burden. Tensions between the bourgeoisie metal society and the proletariat humans ensue, resulting in a "winner takes all" fight planned between the feisty and fearless Rosa Genthree and the cool and reserved robot WOL-421313. The stakes of the fight are made clear - a human victory would indicate to the working class humans that they are just as capable as the robots, while a robot victory vindicates the ruling class. I personally didn't feel like this made that much sense, but I rolled with it and had a good time.

The primary issue I did have with this is the pacing - the challenge occurs in the first issue, but then the fight doesn't actually happen until the final issue. So issues #2-4 do feel like it's padding out the story. Kaplan does do a pretty great job making us care about Rosa and WOL-421313, but ultimately I do think the story could have been trimmed down a hair.

The artwork by Guilherme Balbi is solid. I think the subdued nature of the script for the middle issues makes it so that there isn't much in the way for Balbi to work with, but overall it looked nice and made the story flow as well as it could. A solid sci-fi comic overall.