The original graphic novel Boxed is clearly a product of the time in which it was created. Co-creators Mark Sable and Jeremy Haun worked Boxed into its final form during the Covid-19 pandemic. Originally released digitally as a Comixology Original in 2023, the paperback edition comes out on September 9th from Mad Cave Studios. Colorist Nick Filardi and letterer Thomas Mauer round out the creative team. Sarah Brunstad edited and Jack Levesque produced the print edition for Mad Cave Studios.
Coming out of Covid, you’d assume Boxed has something to do with an even more deadly disease. But actually, Sable and Haun effectively use the fear of another global pandemic to add weight to a portentous and equally relevant story about the incredible rise of artificial intelligence.
In the not-too-distant future of 2045, internet-connected and A.I.-based technology dominate every aspect of life in developed countries. Things go wrong when the highly sophisticated A.I. of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – called Hippocrates – detects the potential outbreak of a new epidemic in Atlanta. In response, Hippocrates exceeds its programming – completely shutting down the city and taking all potentially infected hostage. Such an overreach indicates that Hippocrates has evolved beyond basic A.I. into sentience. And that’s a bad thing.
Courtesy of Mad Cave Studios
As we slowly learn, this future world once found itself in grave danger by the emergence of the first super-intelligent, sentient A.I. In response, the US government created a top-secret organization called R.A.I.D. to deal with any A.I.-related problems. Accordingly, most of Boxed plays out as an intriguing super-spy story, with obvious influence from such greats as James Bond and Mission: Impossible. R.A.I.D. agents possess a crazy mix of old-school and futuristic gadgets. They have a cool looking, secret, underground HQ. R.A.I.D.’s best agent and the story’s protagonist, Frank Savage, is obviously based on the main character of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi, spy film Tenet – played by John David Washington.
One of the main twists is that the femme fatale of Boxed is actually a sentient A.I. named Pandora. She was designed as the ultimate ‘honeypot’ – an A.I.-agent trained to seduce and destroy her targets. She was tested on Frank Savage and they ended up in a weird kind of virtual affair. Well, until he stopped and contained her (called ‘boxing’ in this world). But now Savage must team up with Pandora, as she may be the only hope of stopping Hippocrates before it shuts down the whole world.
Courtesy of Mad Cave Studios
In a sense, Boxed is a typical story about the emergence of evil, sentient A.I. with all of the tropes that go along with this genre. But I get the feeling Sable and Haun are well aware of their influences and inspirations – including Blade Runner, The Terminator, and The Matrix, but also Spike Jonze’s Her and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina.
Despite the similarities to all of the stories that have come before, however, Sable and Haun succeed in taking all of those tropes and ideas to create something new and very attuned to current events. Boxed works on multiple levels. The character work is very good. The world is also fully fleshed-out – similar to present-day, but advanced enough to feel prophetic of the near future. And throughout, Sable and Haun are very good at convincing us of the grave danger posed by super-intelligent, sentient A.I.
I also found Boxed incredibly exciting as a story that not only features futuristic tech, but also explores the philosophical and ethical questions surrounding this tech. Especially since Boxed concerns itself with speculative fiction – tech that could potentially be developed in the coming years. I love pondering these kinds of questions and I enjoy it when the creators of sci-fi also wrestle with these ideas on a philosophical level.
Furthermore, Haun and colorist Nick Filardi use the art in Boxed in interesting ways to enhance the narrative. Filardi effectively uses muted coloring to depict flashbacks, but then employs especially bright colors to emphasize the artificial nature of virtual realities. I especially like how Haun uses panel structures. For the real-world scenes, he draws very traditional, straight panels, often in widescreen format. But for Pandora’s virtual reality, he changes to very unusual, slanted but symmetric panel structures. This also emphasizes Pandora’s artificial environment and is at times almost disorienting, as if Pandora wants guests in her realm to not have sure footing.
The final confrontation with Hippocrates plays out with more cerebral rather than physical action. I’m sure some readers would prefer an explosive, action-packed fight scene. But, how do you punch an A.I.? In any effect, Sable and Haun do a great job of building the tension, telling us again and again what should never be done with sentient A.I.s and then allowing exactly these things to happen. The climax had me filled with anticipation. The payoff is good and leaves an ominous cliffhanger for a further volume. Here’s hoping Sable and Haun get to tell that story soon.
Courtesy of Mad Cave Studios
If anything, the graphic novel suffers a bit from some pacing issues, or rather, problems with the flow. A few times the transitions between scenes are very sudden and can feel jarring. I also think some indication of chapters could’ve helped the flow. In a related issue, some of the more intriguing concepts could’ve been explored in more depth. I say it’s related, because I assume both issues are due to a very strict 100-page limit imposed by the original publishers. Boxed really could’ve benefited from 10 to 20 more pages of story.
Compared to the Comixology Original digital version from 2023, this paperback edition includes approximately 20 pages of back-end material – mostly about the evolution of the story from its first form to final product. This includes a fairly long excerpt from the original prose short story Sable wrote but never published that eventually became Boxed. I found this background content interesting and worth reading.
In the original graphic novel Boxed, Mark Sable and Jeremy Haun take many of the tried-and-true tropes of emergent, sentient A.I. action movies and create a tense super-spy adventure. The speculative fiction of the near future world feels portentous and I especially enjoyed the philosophical musings on the ethics of developing A.I. and V.R. technology. It will be hard to find a graphic novel that better explores these incredibly relevant issues in such a fun and entertaining way.
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