D4VE #1 Review

Story by: Ryan Ferrier
Art by: Valentin Ramon
Published by: IDW Publishing

 

Welcome to the world of tomorrow, where human society, with all its’ manifold horrors (of banality), have been taken over by Robots. There is something oddly reassuring in D4VE – possibly it is the concept that nodave1 matter which form of life ends up running this planet, they won’t be any better than the magnificent humans…
The story of D4VE is essentially a slacker story, with robots. As such, while we have robots leading very human lives (dead end office jobs don’t get any better in the future). Given that our central character is a robot, D4VE is imbued with sufficient amounts of humanity to make us engage with him. The events and situations that befall our hero are very relatable too – at one point there is a definite feel of Office Space.

The humor of D4VE is mild yet effective – the glut of characters whose names feature a prominent “A” for replacement of the somewhat obligatory “4” does grate a little from over-use. Other than that, the blending of a certain kind of humor works well with the relaxed sci-fi elements. On art duty we have Valentin Ramon. There is a kind of generic robot feel to the book, which, considering the premise, isn’t a surprise; however, it does flatten the visual experience a little. Otherwise, the panels and pages are perfectly acceptable, albeit without being spectacular. Some of the non-robot characters are quite interesting visually, you can feel a number of influences present in them. The tech of D4VE – aside from sentient robots – isn’t very spectacular. I was hoping for more in the way of technological advancement, with something to make me go ‘wow’ – unfortunately what’s on display very familiar fare.

Overall, the first outing of D4VE is an effective sci-fi comedy issue, the central character is affable enough, with sufficient activities going off to keep the story going along nicely. This is one of those comics that’s comfortable; it doesn’t try to be ‘out there’ or ‘risky’ and it succeeds in delivering a steady, efficient story that’s entertaining enough and keeps you flipping the pages happily enough until the end of the book.