Review: You are Obsolete #1

Mathew Klickstein“s You are Obsolete #1 presents a series of stark images in its opening pages. Evgeniy Bornyakov’s panels delivers an alarming moment as a man on his 4oth birthday dies from a sudden heart attack face down into his own birthday cake.Â What’s even more alarming is that nobody really flinches even the children who are present just go back to texting on their phones.

Klickstein“s story is woven together mostly from a secondaryÂ source, mostly narrated by Lyla Wilton a disgraced investigative reporter.Â Lyla agrees to accept an invitation to Muhu, the Third largest island of Estonia to see a revolutionary technological development.Â With some creepy empty village panels, This issue is especially more show than tell.

When I started reading ‘You are Obsolete #1′, on the surface it seems like a story reminiscent of Children of the Corn’ straight shot horror story; A town is terrorized by its own children.Â Those children move with one purpose, and the adults always seem to be in danger.Â But Klickstein“s has some interesting updates here with a bit of a dab of Logan’s Run, and the use of current technology.Â He definitely leaves some room to read into the possible metaphors built into some of the narrative choices that he has made.Â Â

All this isn’t to say that the issue is perfect. There’s a lack of explanation for key plot details, such as how how this all started, and what is actually killing the adult, or just why the computer system evolved with the need to kill everyone at 40. What’s really interesting is that in Logan’s Run the original novel has 21 as the cut-off age, instead of 30, with the World’s Oldest Man only being around 36. Maybe in the upcoming issues there will be a sinister, hidden Soylent-Green-is-PEOPLE-style purpose coming.

Normally I would say that this is primed for the big screen but that would be stating the obvious, as it has already been done.Â What I am looking for from Mathew Klickstein“s You are Obsolete is something that sets it apart.

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You Are Obsolete #1 comes with two covers; Cover A Regular Andy Clarke Cover; the incentive Cover B Incentive Francesco Francavilla Variant Cover is a 1:1 ratio.

Writer: Mathew Klickstein

Artist: Evgeniy Bornyakov

Colorist: Lauren Affe

Letterer: Simon Bowland

Publisher: Aftershock Comics