In Sean Lewis and Hayden Sherman’s new series, a young army fights against an older, established government. It’s either:
a group of plucky rebels who fight against a puritan regime for the right to embrace the technology that makes their lives better and move into the future, OR
a core group of intellectuals who finally realize that social media and technology are ruining society, and work to create a utopia despite the efforts of tech-obsessed terrorists.
Depending on your point of view.
(Minor spoilers below.)
A lot of us are worried about social media creating divides, how it’s not healthy for us to live in a fake online world so much, and how technology seems to be destroying jobs and the environment at an alarming rate.
But we also don’t want to give it up. There’s comfort in the connections we make online, we love the entertainment of games and movies, the convenience of it all, and technology has made some amazing advancements that have definitely helped humanity.
So Lewis and Sherman took those ideas and created the most extreme endpoints they could think of.
A tech genius started giving free technology and games to underprivileged kids, officially to help people but unofficially to create a loyal army of gamers to help him fight the government. (In an interview the creators cite the fact that Amazon has been funding computer science classes and Amazon internships in lower-income NYC schools, and how that’s good but also a little scary if it means corporations are taking over public schools.) A lot of these kids had nothing before he came along, and the government was crushing people like them under its boots. In the end some of them fought his battles for him while the rest embraced the addiction of the online world and gave up on anything real.
But the people against technology have some really compelling reasons for doing what they do. The two leaders were the victims of the worst kinds of online harassment: I’d love to say that what they experienced is only possible in a sci-fi, far-future world, but nope. What happened to them can and does happen today. Often. Hell, you probably know people it’s happened to.
Their lives were ruined, and they fought back. They decided that any and all technology is evil, and they’ve created a restrictive, puritan society where everything is lovely as long as you stop trying to think for yourself.
Despite the fact that our main character is on the side of the young army of tech kids, I find that by issue three I have a lot of sympathy for the anti-tech government. Sure, they seem to be humorless and inflexible, but on the technology side we see people living in sewers with online feeds VERY LITERALLY inserted into their veins, and the army of poor kids honestly seemed to be fighting for the right do do just that.
However. I think the anti-technology side is going to look more and more like a cult the further in we go. And I could be leaning towards anti-technology at the moment just because of the cesspit of humanity that is twitter/facebook/the comment threads of news stories. But I digress.
In between both sides (sort of) is Thumbs. He’s part of the army of poor kids, and he’s sort of the anti Luke Skywalker: he’s not whiny, he doesn’t really want to fight anybody, and he’s not really good at much of anything (except video games.) But he has a good heart, and he just wants to find his sister, who was taken by the anti-tech government. Due to circumstances that I won’t spoil, he’s pretty much on his own.
Lucky for him, he has Mom™. Not his actual Mom, who seems to have been absent while he was growing up. No, this is part of the free technology given out to poorer people. She’s an A.I., but has a tangible form, and like all Mom units she was programmed to protect and teach children. The anti-technology people had them uninstalled in their own children, and destroyed as many of the units as they could find, but Thumbs has one of the only ones left. And she’s PISSED.
The art reflects the tone of the book: the harsh lines and limited palette (mostly greys with accents of red) feel very dystopian and bleak. Several of the panels have the main characters appear very small against towering cityscapes, for this agoraphobic feeling of insignificance. When I first got the review copies I wasn’t sure that I’d like the book, since it’s such an angry style, very sketchy and stylized in places, and rarely “pretty.” It takes some getting used to, but once you get into it the art is compelling and it shows movement and depth really well.
Thumbs’ sister is firmly on the side of the anti-tech government (she’s either been convinced or carefully programmed) while his best friend is loyal to the tech army, so in this series we’ll get both sides of the argument from people who passionately believe in it.
I’m curious to see where they go with the discussion, because I can’t see a “right” side most of the time. Yes, elements of technology (automation destroying jobs, out-of-control social media destroying empathy, and corporations controlling the narrative) have got to be addressed. But getting rid of all technology is throwing the baby out with the bath water, and if we cut ourself off from the internet we run the risk of letting others spoon feed us what they want us to know. (…though that’s happening already of course.) And yes, people who have cut themselves off from social media often seem happier that way, but they don’t have a lot of say in how the world works: they’re not on social media!
But, just in case you’re worried the series is all current events and political commentary and brainstorming for a perfect society, there’s also motorcycle assassins and laser battles and virtual reality espionage, so it’s pretty damn entertaining too.
Thumbs #1 will hit comic shops June 5.