Stop talking about comic books or I'll kill you

So the first week of my blog and my haul of comics don't provide much in the way of review fodder. I just picked up Ex Machina #38 and Criminal (vol.2) #5, which are both mid-storyline. And while both are doing okay, there's not very much going on that I want to talk about. 

Ex Machina is getting more and more superhero-y with every issue and, frankly, I find Hundred's political tightrope act and relations with his staff more interesting. I understand neither my objection or my preference divide from the other neatly. But I find it very striking that a comic that was supposed to feel realistic now has time travellers from the future showing up with warnings and a new costumed anti-hero who makes the main hero uncomfortable. Throw in Alex Ross' dad and we're getting into Kingdom Come territory. I don't have so much of a problem with the Hundred as an inadvertent Beast of the Apocalypse because the low-key, modern take on it is much more fun than the normal mustache-twirling over the top take that Armageddon usually gets. But next issue, I almost expect for Trouble to get shot by a god-bullet or something and Mitchell forced to fight Skrulls. Still, I'll keep following it.

As for Criminal, while I'm not exactly loving this storyline, I see hints that there is more to it than has been revealed so far. There are hints that Iris is way more than she appears (I'm not sure that Danny was plotting to kill Jacob at all) and I'm sure Jacob is going to start going down into the abyss very quickly. Brubaker's had a habit of giving us characters in this series who seem less complicated and less interesting than they end up. Intrigued for the next issue, at least.