What are we doing?

This is a review of all three volumes of Alex + Ada. You can buy all three for about $34 USD. The review is spoiler free for all three volumes, beyond basic details of volume one.

Alex + Ada is a quiet story about friendship, sacrifice, and sexy sex robots. I’ve read a thousand comics, and this series immediately moved to the top of my list. Alex is a single guy in the near future. He has an ok job and a strong, small circle of friends. However, he is stuck trying to work his way out of a breakup. Ada is a companion android sent by his saucy grandmother to Alex to spice up his life and kickstart his heart. Both Alex and Ada have an innocence, sadness, and depth about them that immediately makes you root for them, whatever direction they take. Alex feels uneasy about having such a robot but feels a fondness for it. After a night of research he finds an underground group that “unlocks” the androids and essentially gives them life. They can make independent choices and exert their own will. To find out whether Alex unlocks Ada or not, you’ll have to read the comics yourself. In broad strokes, Alex + Ada is about our relationship with technology, our relationship with one another, racism, companionship, love, courage, and the meaning of life. So, the small stuff.

While intellectual property often jumps between movies, video games, and print, this is a story best told as a comic – Vaughn’s art and Luna’s story beautifully show and tell the quiet spaces in thought and relationships. They have a knack for understated but powerful moments.

I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in the themes mentioned above, regardless of whether they’re familiar with sequential art (comics).