The last 3 issues of “Alex + Ada” finally delivered the action and intensity I’ve been waiting for for more than a year. This is a book that I have always found to be rich in character and inspiring thematically. I think this series never got a lot of steam behind it because the stakes were never raised enough to give it that “page turner” status. This finale has been a truly thrilling climax that may not have done anything to resolve the pacing issues in the series, but did offer a satisfying and thought provoking conclusion to one of my favorite series.
WRITTEN BY: Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
ART BY: Jonathan Luna
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE:$3.99
RELEASE; JUNE 17, 2015
This is going to sound horrible, but I’m pretty bored with most modern social issues. Not because I don’t think they are important, or because I take any of my freedoms and privileges for granted, but because so little progress is ever made. Instead we are subjected to endless debate between sensationalizing TV personalities that show little genuine interest in social progress and too much interest in their fleeting media notoriety. It is simply tiresome, and while I’m the worst person to complain as I take no social action myself, I can never the less ignore my supreme frustration at the slow process of ideological adaptation when what is right seems to obvious to me.
“Alex + Ada” is a joy in that it introduce a new social struggle, one that parallels the kind of civil rights issues we have had throughout our nation’s history. One that we may likely face in the future. And though it is almost a lifetime for the characters, “Alex + Ada” delivers cathartic social change in just 15 issues. And like modern successful social rights campaigns, it focuses on an individual to represent a population. This series sold me on a position for a completely imaginary debate. And the more I think about it the more I see the contemporary consequences.
“Alex + Ada” is not a perfect story. Structurally I had a lot of issues with the pacing and story design; it sacrificed a lot of itspotential to be a lot more emotionally engaging and win over readers. But at the end this was an incredibly sincere and personal series. It inspire many conversations, hypothetical or otherwise, between my friends and I. There isn’t much out there like “Alex + Ada” and now that it is over I immediately feel a loss. “Alex + Ada” is the kind of book that makes you think and gives you hope. Is there really anything better than that?