'Magnus: Between Two Worlds' by Kyle Higgins with art by Jorge Fornes is a different take on the character I've read before, and it's a pretty good graphic novel.

It is 2020 and humans use artificial intelligence for menial work. These androids seem content with their lot, but they have a whole internal world in the cloud. Magnus can traverse this space. She works as a therapist for out of sorts A.I., but she used to hunt them down. Now an A.I. named Frederick has murdered his humans and the cops want Magnus to use her skills to hunt him down. She finds herself at odds with humans and A.I. in her search.

I really liked this story of a possible future. The concepts and world were really interesting. The art had an older school vibe to it, but I liked it as well. It was a very satisfying story to me.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Dynamite Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

The debate around the morality, legality and dangers of the use of artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, but Magnus: Between Two Worlds confronts these questions in a story that sees the future in which AIs are subjugated and mistreated by humans who use them for all kinds of imaginable roles from butler, to services professionals... even pets.

In this story, we see AIs being dissatisfied with their lot and plotting a way to escape from human oppression. In Magnus, a robot therapist, they find an unlikely, but a fallible ally.


WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Sci-fi fans who love a good story.

CHARACTER FOCUS
Larry Mooney is a go-between with AIs and the shady part human world. He helps the machines with illegal items they cannot purchase on their own. As a part of recompense, Larry's consciousness is allowed to stay in the AI world for as long as he like while his body, plugged in a hospital, wastes away on earth. Larry is an archetype of someone fed up with the way the world is run, he loves nothing better than subverting rules and getting the most out of life as possible, even to his own physical detriment.

.......

Magnus: Between Two Worlds by Kyle Higgins and Jorge Fornes is available to buy on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Dynamite for review copy.

A new take on Magnus Robot Fighter. For some reason it's set in 2020, even though the world seems at least 20 to 30 years ahead of us in terms of technology. Robots now do the menial tasks in human lives. They've become sentient, some are tortured by their owners, although I don't know why Higgens keeps showing humans going out of their way to mistreat robots. It doesn't seem like something that most humans would care to do. Robots are given a few hours of each day to live in a virtual world. Dr. Kerri Magnus has the special ability to travel to the A.I. world without going crazy. for the first time a robot has killed its masters. Magnus needs to find out what happened before a war between humans and A.I. breaks out.

It's a new Phillip K. Dick like approach to Magnus. Some of it does work, but the malevolence of some of the characters doesn't make a lot of sense. The art and color palette is very drab and flat.

A well done graphic novel. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised by it. Definitely worth getting.

It’s not usual that I give a solid five stars to a graphic novel. I have read several that rank that high, in my opinion, and yet more often than not I’m disappointed in some fashion or another. Not this time! Magnus: Between Two Worlds was an excellent read from cover to cover. I throughly enjoyed the futuristic storyline and how well it was portrayed through such classic comic book style illustrations. The artwork was very reminiscent, to me, of the comics of yester year. The colors, the artistic styling- it was all just wonderful. And the story, wow, it was actually well written and engaging. So often I feel too much emphasis is put on the drawings and the writing doesn’t come up to par, but no so here. There was a solid plot that carried from one scene to the next. It was entertaining, and pacing of the story never felt like it dragged on nor was rushed. I’m very excited to see what the author has in store for the next installment. Yep, I’ll for sure be sticking with this gn series.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and to NetGalley for providing me this review copy and opportunity.

Goodreads Synopsis:
Do humans dream of owning electric sheep? Artificial intelligences, rather than becoming our overlords, have settled into an uneasy symbiosis with humanity – they work for us as our colleagues and servants, earning vacation-time they spend in a boundless digital universe running on human-maintained server farms.

But not all AIs are cool with the deal. Enter Magnus – a human psychologist tasked with navigating both worlds in order to bring recalcitrant AIs back into productive society...

BONUS TUROK STORY; An all-new saga of the all-new Turok.

My Review:
It's the year 2020, and Dr. Magnus is tracking down a rogue AI. Although not a job she likes to do anymore, she's still does it on occasion. Now, instead of an online bounty hunter, she's a therapist for the synthetic people. The character design in this book is really cool, and I just like the art in general.

The book begins with an AI named Cliff running off and trying to kill himself. Magnus stops that by tazing him, and pulling him off the bridge before he can do any harm. Instead of helping the man, the human owners just put him back into the body of the robot dog that they have and tell him they're going to show him what happens when he's a bad boy. This book is exciting and thrilling in completely different ways than any of the other comics I've read lately, and I'm glad I got the chance to read it. AI are such a big part in this book that they have their own little world to escape to where their human owners can't terrorize them and torture them. Sometimes that makes them homicidal, and Dr. Magnus is here to help control those impulses, being the only human who can actually go into the world without sustaining horrible brain damage. This book is more than just being about therapy though, it's about riots and protests and taking back their lives. It's full of rich backstory and really nice art. I definitely recommend checking it out!

Here's a link to the book on Amazon, and another link to the authors twitters!

https://www.amazon.ca/Magnus-Between-Two-Worlds-TP/dp/1524105783/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522265206&sr=8-1&keywords=Magnus%3A+Between+Two+worlds

https://twitter.com/KyleDHiggins

https://twitter.com/jfornes74?lang=en

Thanks for reading! Check out this review and more at my blog.
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Higgins and Wendig have created a wonderful twist on the 1960's character Magnus the Robotfighter. The basics of robots leading a violent revolution against humans is the same, but in this version Magnus is not a gun-toting action hero but a therapist who enters the Virtual Reality world where the Artificial Intelligence entities (AI's) live and counsels them on living with humans. Her unique connections make Magnus the perfect, albeit somewhat unwilling, person to track down a dangerous AI bombing random targets in the human world. . Wendig's art is a nice match for story; he does a particularly good job with the artificial Virtual Reality world in making feel like a real place, but in very different ways from our own world. While there's definitely some action in this story, this is primarily a political thriller with some Philip K. Dick-style sci fi twists. I look forward to future volumes.

Some time in the future, humans have perfected AI and now have robot butlers and maids. However, these AI's are not super happy with working for "the man" every night and day. To try and appease them, humans have created a special world in the cloud where AI's can go for a few hours a day and live out any kind of life they want.
Kerri Magnus is one of the few humans who can travel between these two worlds, and after spending years as a sort of AI bounty hunter - bringing back intelligence that refuse to leave the cloud - she has had a change of heart and is now a sort of robot psychiatrist, trying to help the AIs who are depressed about their lot in life to try to cope.
All is going well until one AI snaps and murders his human bosses. That's when the government steps in to recruit Magus into her old line of work, and in the process try to stop a major war between the humans and the AI.

An excellent sci-fi concept with a great moral conundrum at it's centre, that being the exploitation and rights of A.I. It's mostly nothing new, but it's well done, and it draws the right amount of sympathy without feeling overtly preachy. The idea of having time off each day to retire to the Cloud is a good way of bringing a slightly different spin on the servitude of A.I., giving them at least a bit of a break from a lifetime of bending to their masters every whim. Humans being able to jack-in to the Cloud and risking being lost adds an extra dimension and element of risk that ups the stakes somewhat.

Worth checking out, definitely.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

This is an rebooted comic originally set in 1950 exploring artificial intelligence and human fears. In this volume, Dr. Kerri Magnus is robot psychologist who works with the police. She was previously a bounty hunter. In this issue, a pioneer in neural networking and his wife are murdered. Dr. Magnus must find the killer and soon.

I enjoyed both the artwork and the narrative. As the first volume it has provided backstory without info-dumping and whets the appetite for much. Even though the initial comic was dropped I hope more is to come. Great start and sure to interest new audience given the themes shown.

4.5 stars

I didn't know anything about this title going into it. The premise sounded like fun so I put in a request to read it on NetGalley.

The story stands on its own, though I believe it is part of a larger narrative with The Sovereigns. You don't need to know anything going in to it. The world and rules of it are set up clearly with an introductory paragraph and through simple story telling.

We are in a distant future with AI who can escape their servitude for a mandated 4 hours a day to live in a cloud world run on human servers. Some start to find a way to live on their own in the cloud. So much so that they don't want to go back to a world in which humans define who the are, what they can do, and how much the life is worth.

The protagonist, Magnus, is a human capable of entering the cloud without losing her mind. This makes her a valuable source to the cops when an AI commits a heinous crime and runs into the cloud to hide.

Again, I didn't know much about this title going in. It never dragged - I found that the story unfolded at a great pace with dialogue from a previous scene framing the context of the next. I would definitely like to see side stories set in the robot cloud.

If you purchase this for your library, maybe think of a movie/book cross over table with Blade Runner & Blade Runner 2049 and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Maybe throw in other android/AI based comics.

Overall, I recommend it and would love to see more of the story unfold.

An AI kills its owners, then hides in a VR world, thinking no human can catch him there. The plot is nothing new, but the world where it takes place is—unless you count the unimatrix place where some Borg go in Star Trek: Voyager—which is what makes it so intriguing. The other good part is the protagonist, a virtual reality blade runner/AI psychologist who’s a very likeable character.
Not surprised about the dog, or the cat for that matter. . . okay, later on I’m surprised about the dog. There’s a really funny elevator scene that for me was the highlight. Her backstory is told as she tries to keep someone alive in the AI world, which is cleverly done.
Good use of the now-overdone phrase “The end of the beginning.” Ends with a set-up for a sequel.
Though the artwork left a lot to be desired, especially in brightness, the story was good, as was the dialogue.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

Dark sci-fi noir set only two years in the future. Magnus: Between Two Worlds pairs fantastic artwork with a unique storyline.

In 2020, Artificial Intelligences (A.I.s) work as butlers, maids, pets and toys. In return, they receive a federally mandated four hours of time off each day. The A.I.s have come together and built a beautiful alternate world called the Cloud where they can live as they wish. But only until their next day of serving humans. Some A.I.s refuse to return to the human world when their four hours are up. The human police send Dr. Kerri Magnus into the Cloud to find and return those rogue A.I.s. Dr. Magnus starts to feel empathy for the A.I.s. She changes professions and becomes an A.I. therapist. She tries to coax AIs to accept their lot in life before they go rogue. However, a mysterious group comes together to fight A.I. oppression. Their methods include murder and mayhem. Can Dr. Magnus stop them before they kill again?

The world building in Magnus: Between Two Worlds is awesome! Two complete worlds of the future are distinct enough to easily tell apart. Dr. Magnus’ back story is slowly revealed as the main detective story is told.

The artwork is innovative with many panes shown vertically rather the standard horizontal layout. Artful blurring and smudging effectively portray the electrical waves supporting the A.I.s’ world.

Magnus: Between Two Worlds is highly recommended for both science fiction and noir fans. It collects issues 1-5 of Magnus. Despite receiving excellent reviews, the series was cancelled so this book contains the entire story of this reboot of the Magnus Robot Hunter comics from the 1960’s and 1990’s. 5 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Dynamite Entertainment, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

Magnus: Between Two Worlds by Kyle Higgins is one of the comics that makes you forget you are reading a comic and not, instead, holding in your hands a science fiction novel that helped to shape and warp your childhood. Like the best in science fiction, this is at heart a morality tale. Does greed overshadow doing the right thing. As in case of slavery in the past, does the AI robot have any rights of its own. What happens when humanity loses its...humanity.

AI beings work alongside human beings, more servants than equals but with many of the same perks. Once of which is vacation time. But where do robots go on vacation? To a digital universe where they have families and children and a home of their own. A universe without humans. But this digital world has had another effect on AIs. A desire to make it real. A desire to have their own lives and families and rights.

When AI's lose their place in the world, they are taken to Magus, a human psychologist who knows how to navigate between the flesh and blood world and into the world where the AI's live. She helps them cope and learn to adjust back to the reality of the human world. But she has had other talents as well. She was a hunter once. Someone who went into the AI world and forcibly brought them back into the human world to pay for their misdeeds.

Now the government needs her to do it again. There is a rogue AI who has killed a human and may be planning an even more horrifying act. An act of AI terrorism. Can Magus find the AI and bring him in on time, or worse, how does she deal with the conflicting sense that perhaps he has a point.

This is a really good story and a very fresh take on Magnus the Robot Fighter of the past. This new female Magus understands the angst and pain of the AIs and sees them as far more than the shell of servitude that they represent. But her thinking is far different than others and the concept that the robots could feel any emotion is beyond the realization of the rest of her world. Magnus knows this vacation world very well, having lived there herself for a time. A human girl trapped in the world of artificial intelligence.

At what point is an artificial intelligence its own sentient being? Science Fiction writers have wrestled with this concept for ages. Asimov and Clarke. Blade Runner to Terminator. Robots becoming beings. When does human rights become, universal right?

A terrifically written comic. This one should not be missed!

Anyone interested in Ray Bradbury story mixed up with a Philip K. Dick novel? If so, Magnus: Between Two Worlds is the graphic novel for you! A beautifully designed graphic novel, this book takes place in the near future where A.I.'s are slaves. The main character is a woman named Magnus, whom can jump from the "real" world and to a world where A. I.'s can roam "free." This story provides an interesting concept in the near future on how A.I.'s may be treated and where do we draw the line on providing rights and laws to mechanical people or animals.

Interesting concept.

On the surface, it's about bringing A.I's to justice. Making them accountable for the ill choices of free will they seem to have adapted in their core processors. Kerri Magnus is the woman that can live in both worlds. The world of humans, and Cloud City. Were A.I's find peace and solace. Magnus used to hunt them down, but turned, and became a therapist to them instead.

Of course, it's not that simple. The theme below the surface is that of social justice, and taking a stand for your rights. No matter if you are in the majority, or minority.

The story was okay. The graphics alright. Not my cup of tea. But that doesn't mean it won't be yours.

This comic proves to be a really good combination of the old Isaac Asimov ''Robot'' novels and cyberpunk. Our heroine jacks into the CPU of AI robot servants to redress their mental balance, and make them aware they can download from the working world for four hours' existence every day into a Cloud universe of their own. But that's where she has to go when a robot kills its master, and an important human master at that… It's one of those instances where pretty much all the contents have been seen before – just not in this combination, and the ease with which we recognise what's gone before and engage with what's here is one of the selling points. Great art, a female hero that's allowed to be mature, smart and a little cute, and a very strong story all make this a four and a half star effort. I just felt it fell down art-wise in allowing us to see the differences between the male meat characters, and the rookie cop was very much a naff add-on to explain things. I think the future books in this title are going to go in too broad a direction to match the singular delights here, but chances are they'll be worth your attention. This book certainly is. Likewise, I've come here before seeing elsewhere how this (and other) characters were formed – something I look forward to greatly.

An interesting look at "human" rights. A great eye opener of things yet to come. Interesting views to debate regarding #AI.