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As excited as I am for the Deus Ex: Human Revolution video game, I can't say I was overly intrigued to check out the comic book adaptation. Human Revolution is riddled with melodrama and cliches, but manages to pose a few vague concepts that could ultimately prove to be quite interesting; if not in this mini-series, then at least in the game itself.Human Revolution is a prequel to the other Deus Ex games, picking up at the very start of the human cybernetic augmentation revolution from which the sprawling plotline of the series stems. The story follows Adam Jensen, augmented badass and private security for Sarif Industries, a leader in the cybernetic tech industry. He's commissioned with stopping attacks on Sarif properties by "human purist" terrorists, which apparently includes shoving blades through skulls. It's entertaining enough, but writer Robbie Morrison misses an opportunity to add depth to the story by neglecting an allegory to modern attacks on abortion clinics. To stretch the possibilities even further, tackling the religious aspect of this futuristic culture would have been a great direction to go. With the Darwinists now the overbearing protestors, where are the devout believers left in this society? It may be a stretch, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution #1 focuses too much on blood and guts when there's several more interesting routes to take.Trevor Hairsine's artwork is appropriate for the book, and the artist is clearly at his most comfortable laying out action sequences. His figure work is rather bland, so it helps when the characters are diving around guns blazing to distract from the odd facial features and one-note emotions. However, the action-centric art leads to discovering a far larger problem with the book, which lies in its actual production. There's a huge two-page spread that winds up getting split up with a page turn instead of being laid out side-by-side. It's an awkward and unfortunate problem that results in the complete loss of impact in a key moment of this issue. There's also a very distracting lettering design that is meant to be a targeting portion of Adam's augmented vision, but ultimately clutters the page with large, unnecessary text.There's a lot of potential for subtext in Deus Ex: Human Revolution #1, but unfortunately this is another video game comic that suffers from the inane belief that readers are looking to experience the game within a comic, when in fact a comic should be focused on supplementing the game experience by fleshing out the world.
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