Kill Lock: The Artisan Wraith #2 Review: Worth Seeing

In the initial Kill Lock miniseries, a ruthless mind spawned a lengthy and elaborate plan to pull the wool over an entire society. In Kill Lock: The Artisan Wraith #2, society has sent some of its most successful problem solvers to correct this error with extreme prejudice, and that’s worth seeing.

The titular “Kill Lock” is when members of this robotic society break the rules in some manner that’s beyond the pale. As a punishment, four of them are forced into exile with an encoded quantum lock that binds them together — if one dies, they all die. Criminals are forced to care for someone, and that’s the “punishment” in a nutshell. However, in this society, the Artisan class — the most brilliant thinkers among these mechanoids — accidentally produced a sociopath who committed atrocities and then devised a way out, placing their brain (and the minds of the rest of their Kill Lock cohort) in the indestructible body of a Wraith, the literal boogeymen of their kind. Now, some “fixers” are on the way … but did they really think the newly dubbed Artisan Wraith wouldn’t have a plan?

As hard as it might be to believe, every idea here came from the mind of Livio Ramondelli — writing, art, and even colors, with only Shawn Lee stepping in with lettering to make it right for us. The conceptual underpinnings are dazzling, the tactical application of those ideas is lethally effective, and the overall package in terms of the visuals presented borders on being fine art.

While his work on another robot-helped franchise may be what got Ramondelli on the map, this series is what helped him transform into one of the most intriguing science fiction creators on the market. RATING: BUY.

Kill Lock: The Artisan Wraith #2
By Livio Ramondelli, Shawn Lee
The Resolve Class: The unique class composed of bots from different backgrounds with one shared feature-a specialty in problem-solving. (Or assassination, as some prefer to call it.) And it’s up to the Resolve, the Lurk, and a small team to solve the greatest problem in the galaxy-the Artisan Wraith, an unbeatable mind in an unbreakable body, currently serving as ruler of a planet of criminals. What could go wrong?

Kill Lock The Artisan Wraith #2

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Review by Hannibal Tabu

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8/10

A skilled crew of problem solvers recruited from multiple disciplines takes on the biggest, most lethal puzzle their metallic society has ever known. Should be fine … right?

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