Probably no comic book explores the idea of “With great power comes great responsibility” more (excluding Spider-Man of course) than Ex-Machina. The book tells the story of Mitchell Hundred, a civil engineer who’s exposed to an alien device that gives him the ability to communicate with mechanical devices, as well as the ability to invent complex machines, like jet packs and ray guns, which he uses in crime-fighting.
But deeper than that, the series follows Hundred from his crime-fighting days to his election as New York City mayor in 2001 after The Great Machine saved the south tower of the World Trade Center on September 11th. Dealing with threats that are political, personal and super-human, weaving a fictional superhero story with real-life events and characters, Ex-Machina comes across as a combination of Iron Man and The West Wing.
A movie based on this work by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris would probably be completely unlike any superhero movie yet made, combining big action and small character drama, but like the series itself it will be a tricky balance for some filmmaker to get the tone just right.
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