By Bruno Savill De Jong — A common critique of “Nice Guy” narratives is that they reduce women to objects. In them, the shy but sweet-hearted guy pines after the beautiful girl, relentlessly pursuing her until she “inevitably” falls in love with him. He doesn’t consider the woman’s own agency or desires, only that he “understands” her in a way other guys don’t, and he deserves to have her - like some sort of prize.

Koren Shadmi’s Bionic squarely fits into the “Nice Guy” narrative, with nerdy Victor Steiner lusting after popular girl Patrciai Partzlaus. Bionic’s ‘twist’ on the teen-romance is that following a car accident, Patricia receives bionic prosthetics that transform her into a living cyborg. Although in a sense this only literalises her objectification, with Victor proclaiming how “cool” she is now and grumbling how his romantic rival Brad “beat [him] to the punch”. However, Patricia’s former peers are less enamoured with her new status, and as a social outcast she begins acting out and gravitating towards the admiring Victor.

Bionic plays into the expected tropes of this high-school narrative, including stereotypical mean girls and menacing bullies that come across as very shallow. Victor himself is a fairly boring protagonist who awkwardly follows Patricia around without much personality of his own. Patricia herself has moments of fleeting interest. She can be wildly inconsistent, going from intimately seducing Victor to ignoring him completely, but at least her unpredictable nature makes her engaging. Then again, Bionic may have benefitted if she and her struggle to readjust was the main focus, instead of only ogling her through Victor’s eyes.

It is possible there is another perspective I am missing here. After all, Bionic is about a woman’s autonomy and anatomy being rebuilt against her will, and Victor’s persistent infatuation with Patricia despite her constant rebuffs’ verges on comedic. Indeed, at points their dysfunctional relationship goes to such extreme levels that maybe Bionic showcases the toxicity of two lonely souls feeding off each other. The ending especially becomes unexpectedly bleak, although I have a sneaking suspicion Bionic takes Victor’s side. The opening sequence also points towards a different book, tracing how the output from the bionic factory feeds into a river that connects to Victor’s house – all the estranged components being linked together.

Yet between these bookends, Bionic is a fairly rote and uninteresting story. Shadmi’s artwork is clear-cut but rather flat. He has a lanky hand-drawn style that works well for character interactions but does not offer much truly impressive. Overall, Bionic is a conventional tale of high-school romance that operates functionally enough, but desperately needed an upgrade.

Graphic Novel Review - Bionic

Bionic
Writer/Artist/Letterer: Koren Shadmi
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
Price: $19.99
Bionic is a coming-of-age tale for the digital generation, taking place in the near future. It’s the story of Victor, a geeky teenager on a hopeless quest to win the love of the gorgeous Patricia — but when she returns from a horrible accident with astonishing new robotic parts, both their lives will be changed forever.
Koren Shadmi (Highwayman, The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television) presents a hypnotically illustrated story of warm flesh and cold metal. It’s the story of a love that was never meant to be, of overwhelming emotions, trauma, rebellion, loss of innocence, and the fear that wanting something may not be enough. -- a 184-page, full-color graphic novel with french flaps (6.25" x 9.06")
Release Date: Nov. 11, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Bionic

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Bruno Savill De Jong is a recent undergraduate of English and freelance writer on films and comics, living in London. His infrequent comics-blog is Panels are Windows and semi-frequent Twitter is BrunoSavillDeJo.