Monstro Mechanica #1 Review

Writer: Paul Allor / Artist: Chris Evenhuis / Aftershock Comics Set in Renaissance Florence, Monstro Mechanica, created by Paul Allor (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Chris Evenhuis (Wynonna Earp), with colors from Sjan Weijers, is billed as “the story of a girl and her robot…oh, and Da Vinci.” Like many blurbs, this one is misleading. This comic is about way more than that. The set-up here is compelling. Everyone knows that Leonardo Da Vinci was an artist and all around smartest-guy-in-the-room. What’s less well known is that, owing to the fact that he rarely actually finished his paintings, he made most of his money designing siege weapons for the petty princes of the Italian States: Florence, Milan, the Papacy. He is a 1490s arms manufacturer.

Along with Da Vinci, plenty of historical figures are featured, including the Black Prince of Florence, Alessandro De’ Medici — “Black” here is for reals, not metaphorical, his mother was of African descent — and Machiavelli. In the midst of these historically powerful men, we also have Isabel, Da Vinci’s apprentice. She’s a teenager who chooses, for her own reasons, to dress in men’s clothes. More on that later. The story opens with the Pope trying to kidnap Da Vinci to force him to design more and better weapons, it is bloody, but not graphic, opening, that wraps up when the “girl and her robot” turn up to save the day. Isabel is the lead caretaker of the machine, the apparent Monstro Mechanica, of the title. She quickly be…