In this review of Artificial #3, Clara and Mateo finally start to talk things out. But Saul is acting a bit off…
Artificial #3
Writer: Maria Llovet
Art and Main Cover: Maria Llovet
Variant Covers: Maria Llovet
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: November 12, 2025
This review contains spoilers
Artificial #3 opens on Clara as Isolde from her favorite romantasy book, trying to focus on her work. But Saul and Mateo/Kyros are there, fighting over her and making it hard to focus. Her client shows up, livid over the look Clara/Isolde has put together for her, which causes her boss to pop out of a wardrobe to fire her… And then she wakes up.
She heads to work, goes through her day with any of the normal chaos. During the day, she gets two things delivered to her: 1) an invitation to her friend Nina’s wedding and 2) flowers from Saul. While on the way pick up a piece she’d requested (and with half an hour to kill), Clara heads to the botanical gardens. The vines are bare, but the gardener tells Clara that there’s a beauty to that.
Clara gets the pieces she’d needed for her client, who is thrilled with the way it’s all come together. And then she heads home…
At home, she walks in to find roses everywhere. She gets a text from Mateo, and agrees to chat with him. The ungodly amount of roses may have been a bit concerning, but it definitely helped break the ice a bit. Clara admits that her time with Saul has been amazing, but it’s lacking the charm of the real thing. He admits that he’s terrible at expressing his emotions (and follows up with an awkward comparison). As he’s going into how he does, in fact, care about her, and mid-love confession, in comes Saul.
Saul has been monitoring Clara’s phone, following her, and then RP-mode kicks back in and he’s livid that she’s choosing “Kyros” over him. At which point he forces himself on her. She tries the safe word, but her chosen one doesn’t work. He finally eases up and goes to start a bath for her. As soon as he steps out of her apartment, she locks the door.
It was clear that this day was coming, story-wise. The day where the safe word was required. And the lead-up to it was pulled off well, I think. We get those little crumbs that something is off with him, from him still being stuck in RP mode after Clara sends him home in the last issue (still referring to Mateo as Kyros, bringing up the “You belong to me by law” thing again…), to the way he presented her with a concerning number of roses unprompted…there’s a difference between “sweet romantic gesture” and “overkill”.
Plus, there’s the part where he seemed to have cleaned out the botanical gardens for said overkill. Just a dozen roses at work could be easily explained as picking them up at a florist’s, but when the term “jungle” can be applied to the number of flowers and it’s not entirely hyperbole… Yeah, that’s overkill. And they were the same variety of roses seen at the botanical gardens, so I’m wondering when he’d have done this and if he’d have had to tuck into the gift fund that comes with the Date-X account, or if he’d have just outright stolen them.
The conversation between Clara and Mateo was good to see. Glad to see that Saul hasn’t tried to cross the line of homicide (yet; we’ll see how the final chapter plays out; he has escalated to rape as of this chapter, so that wouldn’t be too much of a shock if murder is next). Mateo’s finally getting a chance to explain himself to Clara, and Clara’s in a good enough headspace to hear him out.
Of course, she also laughs about his analogy comparing her to an old sweater over a fancy designer piece. On the one hand, it makes sense. It reaffirms that he’d find her comfortable to be around and he’d rather have that in his life. Though thinking about it, it feels like maybe he’d be the comfortable old sweater in this scenario. He’s not as, say, shiny and exciting as Saul…but he’s also not forcing himself on anyone. Asking to talk, yes. But getting physically violent and possessive? I can see why Daniela would have been Team Kyros, if he’s the Kyros in this relationship.
On a visual level, the artwork in Artificial #3 is pretty (as has been the standard so far), and the dream sequence at the beginning was fun. It truly nailed the surreal aspect of dreams, with that juxtoposition of medieval fantasy and the modern (with the laptop), the design of the client’s outfit (feels just a few frills away from something out of a magical girl anime), and her boss popping in from a freaking wardrobe. There are a lot of ways to illustrate someone’s anxieties in a dream sequence, and this may be one of my favorites.
Final Thoughts
Romance isn’t easy, but the real thing has its charms. And Artificial #3 is a great look at the difference between the two.
