Atomic Robo is the
Eisner nominated series from Red 5 comics. The project is up to its
4th volume and 4th issue of that volume and you can
really see why it’s been nominated for such an award.
A
slight warning though, if you haven't already read the previous
issues you may find Atomic Robo a little hard to follow as it
jumps straight into the latest paranormal story without any care for
the readers prior knowledge.
With that out the way the series is kind of reminiscent of
Hellboy the way it deals with the paranormal as part of a
specialist organisation and the main character is not necessarily
paranormal like Hellboy is but he certainly isn’t normal,
he’s a wise cracking talking robot created by Nikola Telsa. While
the two share a similar basic premise, when you boil it down,
Hellboy is quite a dark story while Atomic Robo is a very
lighthearted affair. In this issue the story focuses on the sighting
of a ghost at Tesladyne Industries. While the crew don’t exactly
want to throw the ‘G’ word around they are curious as to what
exactly it is and why it continues to show up at Tesla every 16
hours. To the people over at Tesla a ghost seems a little bit
mundane compared to the usual crazy stuff they deal with and writer
Brian Clevinger makes sure to throw in a few surprises along the way
for readers while gearing the story up for the next Robo
series. The dialogue is the standout of the issue as its filled with
jokes, wise cracks and funny little situation remarks like “You
don’t have to whisper” “You are” “Well, it couldn’t hurt” that fit
into the conversation naturally and don’t feel forced.
I
did find some of the dialogue hard to follow but that has more to do
with the concepts they were discussing than anything else. Its very
science based and from what I can gather it’s all very high theory
or concept based experimental science and sometimes you'd re-read
certain parts and still not quite get what they are saying. That
being said this almost made the ‘experiments’ to see whether there
was actually a ghost or not even more funny. The experiments
themselves are very basic and quite funny (throwing a paper ball at
it) yet they somehow managed to yield quite intricate and scientific
results.
As the issue dealt with what was at first believed to be a ghost I'm
pretty sure I detected a bit of a Ghostbusters influence in
the design. The characters wore brown jumpsuits at one stage and
they used equipment reminiscent of the tech the Ghostbusters
used. It's not a bad thing that the issue takes inspiration from
Ghostbusters as the issue did have a very Ghostbusters
feel overall with the mix of science, humor and ghosts. The issue
also features; quite possibly, the sharpest dressed undead/ghost
ever although I won’t quite spoil who it is for you although he
certainly looks very dapper in his suit…and yes that sentence would
only ever make sense when you’re talking about Atomic Robo.
Atomic Robo is a
very fun comic. There’s some great humor and a crazy story that’s
just par for the course for Robo and the people over at Tesladyne
Industries. While it’s a very fun and crazy story it’s also a very
smart story with smart characters and while some of the concepts may
go over your head the mix of serious and fun in Robo makes it
a really enjoyable read. Certainly worth your money if you’re a fan.
