Huxley

Mauro, film and game art designer, debuts with an ambitious if formulaic saga of a robot’s quest into his past. On a decrepit future Earth abandoned by the elite, amiable scavengers Kai and Max dig up battered mechanical Huxley. Out of commission for a millennium, the amnesiac but voluble bot chases after visions of an ethereal woman and an electric blue humanoid figure. Meanwhile, the trash pickers tag along, convinced he’s full of lucrative salvageable tech. He’s also pursued by an indestructible hunter robot with its own secret agenda. The proceedings unfold in the vein of 2000 AD’s future tales, setting the stage for a dramatic climax that spurs on a 2001: A Space Odyssey–like evolution of man and Earth. Mauro’s imaginative artwork lends an eerie grandeur to this run-down world, and there’s a satisfying effect to his deployment of sci-fi tropes (including the tidy revival of dead characters). Unfortunately, the visuals are undercut by inconsistently sized lettering and speech bubbles, with dense chunks of cliché-riddled text in amateurish typeface. It’s a mixed bag. (June)