Fans of hyper-realistic work that has a "traced" quality will like it, those that want something a bit more organic and (ironically) natural, will reject it. Sejic's art is fully painted and sometimes cool looking, but frequently stiff and emotionless. It's not helped by the fact that because of who and what Aphrodite is, she doesn't feel like she has much agency in her own story. There's nothing wrong with the idea, and it makes sense in a way, but it's inelegant at best and sleazy at worst. she's described as a "slave" repeatedly, twice goes into something called "pheromone mode" and at least once offers do "do anything" to repay a kindness), the writing and plotting lays on Aphrodite as a sex object pretty thick.
The art is surprisingly restrained given some of Aphrodite's functions (i.e. Basically, readers are given a chunk explaining how she won't remember this as part of her design, but she's currently not capable of telling readers this information, so it makes no sense and clunky as hell. At one point, in the middle of an action scene (Aphrodite having been taken over by outside forces and used as an assassin to kill the queen), Aphrodite's own narration kicks in at a time when that shouldn't even be possible. With mostly talking heads and asides about politics, war and a million technical details about what Aphrodite is, what she's capable of and what she's been up to, all the actual action takes a weird backseat. Though there's a secret recon and rescue mission, a kidnapping and a dramatic murder, the issue is somehow utterly boring.
I found at least one error, but it's the lack of interesting things happening that grates. The writing itself is stilted in places, though not bad. It's painful even looking at some of the pages, they're so text heavy. "Aphrodite IX" #2 is heavy on the exposition via both internal narration and character dialogue. With a book like "Aphrodite IX" that may be the point, but I was hoping for more. However, if you like hyper realistic fully painted art in your comics, you might enjoy looking at it.
Matt Hawkins and Stjepan Sejic's "Aphrodite IX" #2 is overwritten and generally inelegant.
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