Victor Stone has been a superhero for a long time, but this week marks the release of Cyborg #1, the debut of the former Teen Titans and current Justice League member's first-ever solo ongoing comic book series. Created by writer David Walker (writer of the recent Shaft comic book) with art by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado (Justice League, Green Lantern), the new series will focus on the man behind the machine. Cyborg is getting his own big Warner Bros. movie in 2020, but here's why you should read his solo comic book story first.
Victor Stone has been around in one form or another for some 35 years, meaning Walker had a lot of material to pull from—but also a lot to condense. "There are people who know him from video games, and then there are those who know him from the current Justice League comic series," Walker says. "It was a case of 'I need to take all these incarnations and put them into one character, and then explore who that person is. Really get into what his life would look like, outside of the team.' Everyone knows Cyborg, but they all know him from being on a team—that's great when it's a team book, but there's a lot more to creating the world of a solo character. Who is this guy and what makes him tick?"
"One of the things that drives the decisions I make is that Vic is one of the few characters in the DC universe who doesn't have an alter ego," Walker explains. "Superman has Clark Kent, Batman has Bruce Wayne, Green Lantern can be Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, or someone else—they have these secret identities and personas that Vic simply doesn't have." It's not just that Vic spends all his time as Cyborg, Walker says, but that he literally doesn't have a choice. "If you want to get technical about it, Cyborg isn't his persona, Cyborg is his disability—the machinery and technology that keeps him alive after this terrible accident has happened to this kid."
"Physically, he's more machine than he is man," Walker says about the state that Stone is in at the start of the series (although, as a preview of the new series reveals, his machine side is in flux). "What does that mean? When you look at him, he looks like he's a robot, but he's not a robot. At the end of the day—and this is me getting all philosophical—but if all human beings have a soul, then Victor Stone definitely has a soul. The fact that he's 70 percent machine doesn't change that. That's the most universal truth with that character: How does he find the balance between the reality of being mostly a machine, but he's a human being, with everything that comes with that?"
Expect his friends and family to help with that... and hinder it, as well, Walker teases. "You'll see characters pull him towards humanity, like Sarah Charles, who sees him as a person. But then we have a character like his father, and it's never quite clear how he feels about Vic: Does he love his son, or is he more interested in the technology? The effect of that can be to dehumanize his son."
"There's the connection that modern technology has created, but there's also this disconnect," Walker says. "I see it all the time now. I go out for dinner with my friends, and everybody's on their iPhones. It's amazing how you can be in a room with somebody and not talk to them, because they're texting or on Instagram or whatever. This is a conscious decision we all make, but with Vic, he has no choice." The cost of being a hybrid of man and machine, apparently, is an inability to go offline without going permanently offline. "He's plugged into the Internet 24/7, and he can't turn that off," Walker adds. "Whereas, me, I can't stay away from the Internet, it's like a drug—and it's a ridiculous drug when you think about it."
"I feel like d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers," Walker says of his all-star art team on the series. Ivan Reis and Joe Prado have previously worked together on a number of high-profile series for DC, including Justice League, Green Lantern and the 2009 event series Blackest Night, and the pair now team with colorist Adriano Lucas to bring Cyborg to life. Walker is, to put it mildly, humbled by his partners. "D'Artagnan comes in, and there's this amazing team already in place and he's just this new guy. Ivan and Joe and Adriano are the three, and I'm the fourth Musketeer who doesn't really know how to wield the sword yet." He laughs, then adds, "They're going to show me how to swash and buckle."
Cyborg #1 hits comic book shops and digital outlets tomorrow.
