I go into Atomic
Robo without knowing a thing about the character, concept or
setting. In fact, I believe this is the first Red 5 Comic I've ever
read. I am truly a New Reader.
Stepping into Issue
3 (of a 5 issue series), I'm at the middle point of the story.
Within the first few pages, I'm given the set up and a sense of
what's happened in the previous two issues. This is good. I'm not
wandering blindly into the story.
Atomic Robo has
been attacked and his team now tries to figure out who was behind
it. Meanwhile, a group of scientists are tackling the mystery of a
house being shipped out of the country. Their investigation
intertwines with Atomic Robo's crew as they prepare a surprise
assault on Majestic 12's operation. The story moves quickly with a
good set up once the action hits.
The battle in the
second half of the comic plays out nicely. It manages to be both
big and intimate at the same time, focusing on Robo taking down a
small army. This builds to an effective cliffhanger.
Dialogue is a bit
clunky at times with a lot of over-technical explanations of how
they solve a problem. But the story flows well once that's out of
the way.
In the art
department, Wegener is very clean and stylized. The story doesn't
get lost panel-to-panel. His action sequences and layouts are
handled very well.
One issue I had as
a new reader: I have no idea who these people are. There is
something like 13 supporting characters and only a couple are called
out by name. They seem like props to move the story along. The
review copy I have may be missing a character breakdown on the
inside cover so this may not be an issue with print copies (or
regular readers). This didn't affect the reading of the
story. However, I wasn't sure who was a major player and who
wasn't.
Atomic Robo has a
Hellboy-ish feel to it. For me, that automatically set a familiar
tone to the series. The character is likable and worth
investigating more. The book seems like an all-ages title, which
helped a newbie like me. I would feel comfortable picking up the
next issue based on this one.