**Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to review this title.**

This was one strange and powerful story. Hank and Molly are getting older, and decide to invest in this new procedure. They also get to be the first human beings to try it out. They get young new bodies, the company gets the money and the research.

I found the artwork disturbing and sometimes depressing. The story was dark, and it really made you think. I hated it and I loved it. I wanted to put it down, but I couldn't. And in the end, I don't regret it at all.

I really do have to thank NetGalley for expanding my mind one more time, because I never would have picked this up in my library.

This was absolutely one of the best graphic novel that i read. I loved it. Story is interesting. Drawings are wonderful. It was perfect mixture of horror and sci-fi.

This was an interesting take on how humans might attempt to extend —and perhaps perpetuate— life, specially in old age.
It also tackles some philosophical notions on what the soul is and what makes us who we are.

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly how I feel about Ezra Claytan Daniels' <i>Upgrade Soul</i>; on the one hand it's a brilliant, challenging, and dark cautionary tale about the dangers of immorality in science, and on the other it's a slow and sometimes confusing study of individuality and what makes a person a person, the body, soul, or mind. I think some could categorize this as a science fiction story, while others could see it as horror; it does meet somewhere in the middle of these genres.

For their 45th anniversary, the Fred and Molly Nonnar decide to finance and undergo an experimental procedure that in theory will rejuvenate their cells and make them younger, stronger, smarter, and better in every way so that they can live an even longer and more fulfilled life than the one they have now. However, the scientists behind the procedure are not completely upfront about what the procedure will actually do, and instead of rejuvenating their own bodies, the Nonnars discover that they were to be cloned into a new body, with their memories and life experiences uploaded into these new bodies. However, something goes horribly wrong, and the clones come out of the procedure wildly disfigured, but better than their original bodies in every other way, while the Nonnars are left weaker and more feeble than before. What comes of this is back and forth tension about which pair is more "qualified" to live, the originals who are left lesser than they were before, or the clones, who are now superior, but ultimately incapable of living a "normal" life due to their disfigurations. There are several side plots concerning the actually motivation of the scientist heading up the program, a love story or two, and the families thoughts on what has happened to the Nonnars, but at the end of the day, this book is ultimately their story. I think it is a challenging book and pushes you to think about what makes you an individual, but it just didn't resonate with me as much as I would have liked. The story was sometimes too slow, the art sometimes too sparse, the timeline sometimes too confusing. Still, I'm glad that I read it. This book will have its audience and I think that it's going to start conversations about what it implies.

<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>I received an eARC of this title from <a href="http://www.netgalley.com/" target="_blank">NetGalley</a> in exchange for a free and honest review.</i></span>

It's the classic Philosophy 101 epistemological thought experiment on identity rendered in graphica: if you were found to be a clone, with access to the full memory bank and phenomenological experience of another, who would you be? You? The original? Must identity be considered the sole province of an individual? The Doppelganger Syndrome explored here as a result of a botched experiment to achieve total transmigration of the soul into a fresh body (in contrast to, say, a singularity story, with upload to a machine). Like a good Philip K. Dick novel, the central theme of what constitutes an authentic identity - and how you know that you are you - is thoughtfully explored, as are contemporary questions of racial identity, representation, and medical ethics. The artwork has the loose, stylized feel of 1970s rotoscoping animation (think Hobbit & LOTR), with a vibrant color palette and shaggy retro fonts. That can occasionally give it a drafty, amateur feel, but the story is well enough constructed to carry the whole.

**I received a free digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. **

I enjoyed the coloring but not the traits of the drawings. The story is OK but nothing original and nothing I didn't really like, it didn't grab my attention.
Besides, it's super sad, and I don't really want sadness in my life at the moment.
Not my cup of tea.

When you think of comic books, the epitome of stereotypes either falls into the bright caped world of superheroes or the juvenile hijinks of a “for kids” comic book. In the last decade or so, we have seen this stereotype get broken down by comics about any story you could possibly imagine. With Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels, we get a book that is eerily frightening, intriguing and a little too close to home in today’s science fiction-tinged world.

From Lion Forge, this graphic novel follows the lives of senior married couple Hank and Molly Nonnar. They are a happy couple, a bit worn down from the toll life can take on you, and are ready to try something new. For their 45th anniversary, the couple decides to undergo a very experimental procedure that would give them back their youths and a new lease on life. What they get instead are horrid, yellow-hued defective clones that look more like potatoes than humans, but with their memories, and a smarter intellect. But what about the old Hank and Molly? What constitutes a living, bonafide person when you are created out of a lab?

Daniels tackles a subject near and dear to everyone’s heart: our own mortality. If, IF such a procedure was possible, would you make the jump, no matter the risks? Illustrated and written by Daniels, the book is absolutely chilling, but not in a crazy, ax-murderer kind of way. More of a science gone wrong kind of way. Hank and Molly’s journey through this crazy time, as well as the people they meet along the way, are all extremely memorable. The book looks, reads and feels like it is ready to jump to the big screen: the storytelling is so fluid.

There isn’t a whole lot of action in this book. Instead, it’s packed with heart, heartache, shock, questions that have answers and questions we need to answer ourselves about life. Upgrade Soul makes you take a good, hard look at the world around you, and it makes you wonder if this is fiction or inspired by real-life events. Ezra Claytan Daniels creates one of the best graphic novels of 2018, and I highly recommended picking it when it releases in September.

Welcome to the anti-Clone Club.

Despite being an interracial couple who married in the ’70s, Molly and Hank Nonnar have built a pretty charmed life together. Dr. Manuela Nonnar is a scientist (geneticist?) at the top of her field, while Hank continues the legacy left him by his father, a franchise based on a popular black superhero named Slane. Though they have no children of their own, the couple acts as surrogate parents to their niece Del, who likes play researcher in Molly’s backyard. (Yay girls in STEM!) Then a fateful meeting between Hank and Dr. Victoria Teel upends their world and calls everything they thought they knew into question.

For their 40th anniversary,* the couple decides to make a substantial investment in a company called Via; in exchange, they’ll be the first to undergo Via’s experimental “genetic purification” procedure. It promises to make them stronger, smarter, faster, healthier, and more long-lived than any human before them. And it does, in a way.

Molly and Hank wake up seven months later in bodies that have seemingly aged ten years. Instead of being changed, they have been cloned. And their clones are half-formed “monsters”: aborted (er, “canceled”) during the 10th week of development, Manuela and Henry (as their counterparts are christened) resemble baked potatoes with cured ham for limbs (in technical terms). But they are “better” than the source material in every other way, blessed with superhuman strength and intellectual prowess that surpasses that of their creators.

Yet there’s only room in the world for one Molly and Hank. Will it be the “source material” that Dr. Kallose intended to destroy upon the successful completion of the project, or the “monsters” that are a sentient success, yet are too aesthetically displeasing to ever present in public?

UPGRADE SOUL might just be one of the most bizarre, horrifying, and thought-provoking books I’ve ever read, graphic novel or otherwise. It raises a myriad of deliciously thorny questions: What makes you you? Is a person more than the sum of their parts? How much are we shaped by our environments? Our bodies? What is normality, and who gets to define it?

Plus it delights in a wicked sense of humor while doing so, particularly in the forms of Molly and Hank 2.0.

The plot’s pretty compelling, and the artwork, appropriately crude and weird – but in an oddly moving way. There were a few holes, though; for example, it was never entirely clear to me what Molly and Hank expected of the procedure (e.g., did they know that their “original” bodies were destined for the incinerator?). Also: an already creepy story gets even freakier with the additional of an incest subplot, which is kind of left dangling, much to this reader’s dismay. (You can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away, mkay.) And just why did Manuela do what she did?

Still, UPGRADE SOUL is one of the better graphic novels I’ve read in recent memory: a legit page-turner that both entertains and challenges. If you dig sci-fi, you owe to yourself to add it to your TBR list.

* It’s right there on page 47 of my ARC, no matter what the synopsis says.

This was bizarre, but definitely grew on me the further I got in. Cool drawings comprise this graphic novel to compliment the story.

I stoy I greatly enjoyed to read. It developed its characters well, made you truly care for them and their struggles. It made me question what makes me human and, if those things were melted away, what would be left.

Upgrade Soul has an interesting premise: an elderly couple decide to undergo an experimental treatment but it goes very wrong leaving them disfigured and questioning whether they made the right decision.

I'm not entirely sure how to rate this book. On the one hand, the story was unique and the idea was interesting. On the other hand, the frequent flashbacks and art style left me confused at times. I didn't want to race through this, but I also didn't want to abandon it. So a middle of the road ranking from me with a 2.5 rounded up to 3 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing me with a DRC of this book.

A really impactful, sensitive and intelligent sci-fi drama. Two elderly people, long married but with regrets about what might have been, sign up for an exclusive, secretive and illegal science experiment, where cell regeneration technologies are supposed to make them fitter/happier than ever. What comes out the other end is not quite as anyone hoped – and certainly not what the 'mad scientist' type (for want of a better phrase) seeking remedial science for his disfigured sister wanted. If anything the book could be marked down for not easing us in to the many flashbacks and so on in the early stages (for such a scientific book, with such scientific characters, it's a little shy on giving us data like a timeline) – but really all negatives are so minor as to hardly be worth mentioning. The subdued palette, the black comedy of a remote scientist living through a TV with fake arms attached to its sides, the subtle way the, er, results are made to look different through their gendered voice-boxes… there is clearly a lot of clever thought on these pages. It's nice that this is perfectly self-contained, too – but at the same time the full trilogy will be something to admire. Purchase is strongly recommended.

Most of us worry about getting old. Yet this anxiety is more acute when we hit our middle-age.

Old-age worries often come unbidden. Seeing our bodies unable to shrug off pain like it used to bring dark thoughts that zero in on our mortality. Despite what we see on our screens, death is a human reality. There is no drug or cream against growing old.

The relationship between the fears of old age and the actions it fosters is at the root of Upgrade Soul, a graphic novel by Ezra Claytan Daniels. In the book, we see how Hank and Molly pledge their wealth to an experimental experiment that reverses ageing. The consequence of this action and the ethical question it raises are what the book tries to grapple with.

Upgrade Soul does not bother moralising about the right and wrong of scientific ethics. What it does best is reveal the depth of fear humans have about their legacy in the face of death. It also shows that mentally putting yourself in other people's shoes do not always translate into empathy. Lastly, it lays bare the influence of love and trust over many other powerful emotions.

Many thanks to Lion Forge for review copy.

3.5/5 stars

I liked the topics dealt in this graphic novel. Lots of questions on morality, immortality, cloning, disfigurement, identity and the fight for racism. Now that I put it like that I'm a bit awed as to how Ezra Daniels managed to include all of those themes and still tell a story. It's a tragic story with a bittersweet ending. (view spoiler)

I didn't take to the font chosen or the slightly low-res illustrations.

It's a thought provoking story, some of the tech talk lost me but you can still get the gist of the whole story. Goodreads doesn't support half stars, so I bumped it up instead of down.

Ezra Claytan Daniels is both author and illustrator of the new graphic novel, Upgrade Soul. In it, Hank and Molly decide to undergo an experimental procedure to regain their youth.

Daniels tells how this long-married couple makes such a momentous decision. He shows what kind of people they are, and also how they came to have the money to invest in such a thing. To do so, he uses both present-day images and flashbacks.

As you might imagine, the process doesn’t go quite as planned. The “medical” team might not be quite as qualified as Hank and Molly thought. The process might not be quite as proven. And if it had been, the novel wouldn’t have been so thought-provoking.

Conceptually, Daniels discusses some pretty intense topics. Lots of graphic novels have death as one of their themes. But not often as such a realistic impulse to spurn death and regain youth. Since my husband signed up last week for Medicare, thoughts about aging are very much on my mind. So Upgrade Soul was a good match for am evening’s reading.

Hank, Molly, and their caregivers also confront the question of identity, and what it means to be a person. If personhood includes the ability to both live and die, as well as think and feel, then the experimental results do indeed have a soul. Or do they? Are they just an extension of Hank’s and Molly’s souls? Heavy stuff, actually.

Musician and lyricist Tori Amos puts it this way, “I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it.”

Daniels conjures brightly washed images, alternately stark and almost shocking. He draws Hank and Molly with empathy and care. They’ve remained in my mind’s eye even after finishing the novel.

My conclusions:
Upgrade Soul is a compelling story, and worth an evening’s time. I appreciate Daniels’ ability to discuss the process of aging and the desire to reverse time. He takes an innovative and intelligent approach to both topics. At the same time, he creates a suspenseful story.

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to NetGalley, Lion Forge, Diamond Book Distributors, and the author for the opportunity to read a digital ARC in exchange for this honest review. Anticipated publication date is September 18, 2018.

Everyone's positive reviews for this had me very hopeful but I just couldn't get into it.
The premise is pretty cool - an elderly couple signs on for an experimental treatment that promises to send them back to their youth, only better - they will be healthier, stronger, wiser and just BETTER than they were before in every way.
Of course that's not what actually happens - they end up essentially split in two: one version of them old and on the verge of death, another version incredibly intelligent but horribly and hideously deformed.
My problem with the graphic novel was basically that is was SO slow. Nothing about it really grabbed me, and despite the very cool premise, I found it very dull. Also, the art is completely not my taste - in fact I find it kind of gross and unappealing. It doesn't help me to try to read something I already don't care for if even the art can't salvage it for me.

I thought this was a really thoughtful exploration of what it means to be you, the realities of getting old and the importance of family. It tells the story of Molly and Hank, an ageing couple who opt to undergo a revolutionary procedure to 'upgrade' their bodies to gain extra years of life and youth. The ramifications of this decision are wide-reaching and incredibly well explored through the novel, which follows the couple as they come to terms with the results of their experiment. I thought that the writing was great and the artwork was fantastic as it provided a visual representation of the characters emotional responses that was very effective. The plot is quite straightforward but the novel cleverly employs flashback scenes to flesh out the narrative without resorting to large info-dump sections. The characters are well defined and their motivations and reactions felt authentic throughout. There were a few occasions where I felt like the action was running a little long and the pacing was a little patchy in places, but all in all, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in genetic manipulation in fiction.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

There is a lot going on in this graphic novel. Some deep ideas about aging, identity, love, appearance, are explored in the context of how they affect the characters of this work. It is not told in chronological order, which causes some confusion at times. The story itself is often surprising, taking twists and turns that I didn't expect, but which made sense in context. I was not particularly enamored of the artwork. I could appreciate it, but I did not find it to my particular taste. This is not a kid's graphic novel. It is meant for adults.

There have been countless in science fiction using advances in cloning technology to ask questions about human identity. Science fiction has also used different forms of humanoids or aliens to explore race and racial identity. Upgrade Soul merges these two with a unique take on this subgenere of science fiction. The author, Ezra Claytan Daniels, won the Dwayne McDuffie Award for diverse representation in the comics medium.

The book starts with Hank and Molly Nonnar, an elderly couple, deciding to undergo a radical genetic procedure designed to "upgrade" their bodies by removing the effects of aging, stress, and trauma from their cells. The procedure is only partially successful. The Via lab used clones to create the new bodies, but the clones only developed to the physical stage of a fetus. The new bodies - known as Manuela and Henry - possess all of Molly and Hank's memories, as well as heightened mental and physical abilities, but look like overgrown potatoes. Meanwhile, the original Molly and Hank look like their original selves, but are physically and mentally weakened.

As is often the case in these stories, there is a link between the two such that the "copy" cannot survive without the "original." This forces the characters to ask which one "deserves" to survive. The "original" has the body, but the "copy" has the mind. This is a classic mind-body problem (see my essay in After the Avengers). Where does the human soul truly reside? In the corporal brain or in the accumulated memories?

For Hank, the dilemma has a racial dimension because so much of his identity is tied to his African-American heritage, yet his "copy" Henry lacks a race. There's a particularly compelling conversation in which Henry scolds Hank for limiting his identity to a "label." Yet, we as the readers get to see Henry's past as someone who strove for African-American representation in pop culture and know that race is more than a label to him. There's even a debate about representation in pop culture within the comic (I especially appreciate the jab at Kurtzman and Orci, the team behind the Star Trek reboots).

Admittedly, the story does require a bit of suspension of disbelief, particularly when it comes to the extremes the Via company goes to mislead Hank and Molly. It's hard to believe that a company could actually expect a nondisclosure agreement to cover the types of abuse that occurred in the lab. Then again, the rogue science corporation is pretty much a necessary conceit for this type of story. Scientists held to peer review wouldn't get away with any of this.

Packaging Upgrade Soul as a graphic novel seems like a particularly appropriate choice given the emphasis on physicality and appearance. I doubt the story would have had nearly the impact as a novella without the images of Molly and Hank's new bodies. Seeing their misshapen forms underscores the physical deformity and makes it more challenging for readers to passively accept them as "human." Instead, Upgrade Soul requires viewers to consciously choose to accept the new beings as human.

That said, I'd recommend whoever does the penciling on this comic to increase the spacing between words. In a few places, the spaces seemed almost nonexistent, causing me to puzzle over the presence of a hitherto never before mentioned "tome" ("to me").

Overall, this is one of those comics that I feel comfortable recommending to fans of science fiction who aren't necessarily fans of graphic novels. Upgrade Soul feels like a short story that might appear in Locus, but works better because of the artwork.

The collected edition of Upgrade Soul comes out on September 18, 2018.

[Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.]

Upgrade Soul is a book that reminds me of lots of different books I've read, but it's like nothing I've read at the same time. Molly and Hank are an elderly couple who go through an experimental anti-aging process. Hank is enthusiastic, having invested money in the company performing the procedures, while Molly needs some convincing, but eventually agrees. The procedure does not go as planned, and soon they are faced with Manuela and Henry, blob like doppelgangers that have their memories and seem to be improving as Molly and Hank get worse. Add to this story a ruthless company head, a morally conflicted brother, and his sister, who is literally and metaphorical finding her voice for the first time, and you have a rich story that will have you pondering medical ethics, aging, quality of life, and what it means to have an identity.

Molly and Hank are highly educated, and truly think that this procedure is worth pursuing, not only to regain some of the glory of their younger days, but to contribute to the scientific community. There are no clear moral stances taken. This story in less capable hands could have come to pat moral conclusions (science bad! age naturally!), but it doesn't. Upgrade Soul was unlike any other science fiction comic I've read, and I won't soon forget it.

Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.