Atomic Robo

Since 1923, a nigh-unstoppable robot has been working, first with inventor Nikola Tesla, and then the fighting scientists of Tesladyne Labs, to protect the Earth from weird science menaces like giant monsters, ancient robots, vampires from another dimension, giant insects, gangsters in the Old West, ancient conspiracies, artificial intelligences, Nazi mad scientists, and dinosaur mad scientists. (Among others.) He’s been assisted, at various times, by spies, action scientists, masked crime fighters, and a squad of female fighter pilots in the South Pacific during WWII. Atomic Robo is one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite comics, told by the same writer and artist team since 2007. And it’s all available for free.

I will admit, I didn’t read Atomic Robo from the very first issue. I can’t remember when I started. I think I saw Greg Rucka talking about it online, and if it’s good enough for Rucka to recommend, it’s good enough for me to at least take a look at. So I read the first collection, The Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne, and fell in love.

That first book spans a big chunk of Robo’s career, from 1938 to 2007. We see him sent on a mission to stop mad Nazi scientist Helsingard in his secret base in the Himalayas. We see him fighting alongside the Flying Tigers in China in 1940. We see him going after giant ants outside Reno, Nevada, and up against an ancient giant pyramid tank manned by robot mummies in modern-day Egypt. And then it all comes full circle, as Robo’s adventures in the thirties come back to haunt him today.

Atomic Robo represents one of my favorite genres, the action comedy, where the action and drama is played straight and the comedy comes out of the situations and the characters. Ghostbusters, Men in Black, and Beverly Hills Cop are some of my favorite examples of this genre in movies. The stories and threats aren’t particularly goofy, beyond the obvious sense that ghosts or aliens or weird menaces can be unbelievable. But the way the characters react is often hilarious, mostly because they react like people, not heroic stereotypes. Even if one of those people happens to be an almost 100 year old robot.

The series acknowledges real science and absurdist pulp science fiction in equal measures. For example, when confronted with a bunch of ants grown to giant size, Robo points out that such a thing is a scientific impossibility, because giant ants would collapse under their own weight. But then he is forced to acknowledge that, impossible or not, there are still a bunch of giant ants that need stopping.

As the series has gone on—it has been collected into 12 volumes, with a 13th on its way, plus several volumes of spin-off series—it has added onto and built out the world that Robo and his team live in. Along the way, we’ve seen the comics embrace all sorts of genres. There are wartime espionage thrillers, wartime battle comics, historical adventures, Lovecraftian demons, masked heroes from the golden age, and even a Western. And what other comic frequently features scientist Carl Sagan as a guest-star?

Despite the long run, Atomic Robo is a series that can be joined at any point. Each volume is fairly self-contained, although the more stories you read, the more you understand Robo’s world and the events in it. 

I have said this before about creator-owned comics series like Trekker or Section Zero or Monster Island, and I will say it again about Atomic Robo: I often see comics fans online complaining about losing interest in favorite comics (which are always, without exception, corporate-owned superhero comics) because of things like changing creative teams, or an apparent lack of respect for long-term continuity and consistency, most obviously typified by completely restarting (or “rebooting,” a term I hate for its ambiguity) a series from scratch. And also the perception that comics are no longer “fun.” Which apparently means that Spider-Man no longer reads like it was written and drawn in 1982, but whatever.

Well, here you go. Like so many other creator-owned series, here is yet another comic that hits all the notes that these fans are asking for. Consistent continuity? Check. No reboots? Check. It’s even baked into the premise that the main character physically doesn’t age, so he can continue to have adventures for years to come, as well as flashing back to adventures all the way back into the first quarter of the last century. Consistent creative team? Check. All 13 volumes of the main series (and counting) have been written by Brian Clevinger and drawn by Scott Wegener. They started out looking great, and have only gotten better. And fun? If you can read an Atomic Robo story without laughing out loud at some point, then you might as well shut up, because you obviously don’t know what fun is.

Don’t take my word for it; they’ve published a manifesto online promising all that.

And I don’t even know where to get started about the art. Actually, I do: it’s clear that Scott Wegener can draw anything, because he pretty much does in this series. World War Two battles? Check. The Old West, complete with cowboys, horses, and steam-powered zeppelins? Check. The Roaring Twenties attacked by a monster from beyond Lovecraft? Check. A team of Japanese superheroes defending a high-tech Tokyo from a giant monster? Check.

But, beyond all that, here is how I know that Scott Wegener is a fantastic artist: this series features a main character with a completely immobile face, except for how wide his eyes are open. And yet, through body language, composition, and the position of those eyes, Wegener still manages to show Robo displaying the entire range of emotions. 

And the best part? You don’t have to take my word for any of this. YOU CAN READ IT ALL FOR FREE! Every page of Atomic Robo and Real Science Adventures are available for free on their web site. So anyone who is genuinely looking for great, fun adventure comics, and not just looking for Spider-Man circa 1982, has no excuse not to try out Atomic Robo.

Having said that, even though I do read each new strip as it’s posted, I also buy the collections to reread. And they totally hold up. I think that speaks to the quality of the strip. On the one hand, you’ve got companies like Marvel and DC clinging to a market share by trying to convince readers that they need to read the latest issue of this series if they are going to really get the full picture of the stories in that series. On the other hand, you’ve got creators like Clevinger and Wegener putting their comics out for free, and hoping that the quality will be enough to get people to pay for collections. (Which people seem to be doing; their kickstarter campaigns for the collections tend to blow through their goals in the first couple of days.) 

And that’s about all I have for this week. As I write this, we are still self-isolating in our house. I’m fine, my wife is fine, my family is fine, and Rumplestilskin, Morticia and Gizmo are all fine. I hope the same goes for you and your families and friends.

The plush Robo head I received as a Kickstarter reward.

Stay safe, and I will see you next time!