Symmetry #1 Review: Utopia and the Chaos That Follows

Review by Daniel Schwartz

Contributing Guest Reviewer

(Victor Valley)– What if you could live a carefree life without work or worry and the only price for admission is your freedom and individuality? This is the world of Symmetry. A world in which humanity has sacrificed everything that makes them unique and lives a life of luxury with all of the work done by robots. That is until it all comes to a crashing and instant end.

In the future, all babies are outfitted with a neural interface and an AI that keeps them company at all times. This Utopian society in which everyone dresses the same and lives in identical apartments is built completely upon the technology that supports it. When a fluke solar flare wipes out all electronics on Earth, their culture is thrown into chaos as everyone’s constant AI companions go silent and the robot workers come to a grinding halt.

While this comic takes place in the future, there is some social commentary about our current society. As our reliance on technology continues to grow, we risk losing everything that makes us human. If one day the plug is pulled, will we be able to survive as a species, or will we simply die and fade away? It will be interesting to see how humanity moves on without electricity in the future world of Symmetry.

Matt Hawkins does a great job building his futuristic world and society for the readers. He makes us feel very comfortable with how everything is, and then literally pulls the plug. I am very curious as to how humanity will survive in this changed world where everyone is naïve and unable to fend for themselves. With Raffaele Ienco’s beautiful pencils bringing this fallen Utopian society to life in a great introduction to what will surely be a world in chaos, this Top Cow book will have me and several readers coming back for more for several months to come.

Rating: 5 out of 5. This is an amazing introduction to a new world that I will be returning to for the next several months.