Atomic Robo

• Title: Atomic Robo Vol. 8 #3 (of 5)
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Brian Clevinger
• Artist: Scott Wegener

As Tesladyne prepares to repel soldiers coming after both the company and Atomic Robo after Majestic 12 has done a solid job framing them as nuclear terrorists, the company’s leader has his own troubles in Venezuela trying to stay alive and stop the crazed Dr. Dinosaur from detonating his nuclear-powered time bomb.

Most of Atomic Robo’s story concerns the robot trying to keep himself, and his human companions, alive from the attacks of the odd creatures under the crazy dinosaur’s control while Dr. Dinosaur calls on the help of a few of his rock soldiers to put the bomb that Robo tricked him into disassembling back together. Because of this we don’t get any more great banter between the pair, but both provide their own fun separately deep under the jungles of Venezuela.

Next issue I’d expect to see more of Jenkins leading the group to repel the soldiers who have finally arrived and, hopefully, more back-and-forth between Atomic Robo and Dr. Dinosaur. Worth a look.

[Red 5, $3.50]

• Title: Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures #11 (of 6)
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Brian Clevinger
• Artist: Scott Wegener

Dangerous technology in the wrong hands is the common theme of all three stories in Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures #11. In the main tale, Nikola Tesla and his team are attacked by the Black Coat Army agents of the Triumvirate. Scattered, and with their base destroyed, the various agents eventually find themselves taken captive in the secret underground tunnels of New York City where the scope of Franklin Reade, Robert Trydan, and Jack Wright‘s plans are finally revealed.

The same theme runs through the first back-up story which features an Oval Office conversation between President Harry Truman and James Forrestal concerning the creation of a secret government science program to weaponize stolen Tesla technology.

The second back-up story, years later, involves Atomic Robo answering a distress call from the military who have gotten into a spot of trouble into the Vampire Dimension while using that same lost technology (a fact that doesn’t go unnoticed by the incensed Robo). Worth a look.

[Red 5, $2.75]

• Title: Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures #10 (of 6)
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Brian Clevinger
• Artist: Scott Wegener

The good guys start to fight back in the latest issue of Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures as Nikola Tesla leads his team of Charles Fort, Winfield-Scott Lovecraft, Ehrie “Harry Houdini Weiss, Master Wong Ke-Ying, and Annie Oakley to retrieve his stolen property and make their own strategic strikes on the evil industrialist threesome of Franklin Reade, Robert Trydan, and Jack Wright.

From their attacks, which include the destruction of one of Wright’s factories, Tesla and his team are able to discover the Black Coat agenda and at least begin to prepare themselves for the planned attack from the treacherous combination of a steel and steam engine manufacturer, a weapons designer, and the head of an international gang of criminals.

I was happy to see the return of both Ke-Ying and Oakley (although Annie isn’t given much to do this time around) as it looks like there will be plenty of trouble for all of Tesla’s associates to handle beginning next issue with the reprisal from the Black Coats. The issue also reprints the amusing “The Yonkers Devil” as a back-up story. Worth a look.

[Red 5, $2.75]

• Title: Atomic Robo Vol. 8 #2 (of 5)
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Brian Clevinger
• Artist: Scott Wegener

Everything considered, Atomic Robo has had better days. A secret black-ops unit of the United States Government is framing the robot as a nuclear terrorist in order to seize Robo for their own, and while searching for evidence of Cryptids in the jungles of Venezuela suspiciously close to an old Nazi Science city under Kukenan Tepui Atomic Robo and his team run into the robot’s least favorite person (who just happens to be an insane dinosaur scientist) – Dr. Dinosaur. Let the insanity begin!

I really enjoyed the first issue of the latest volume, but this one raises the stakes with some great banter between Robo and Dr. Dinosaur, the dinosaur’s “facts,” and the increasingly impossible situations Robo and his team find themselves in including the dinosaur’s rock minions with lasers in their faces, a secret underground city with a time bomb and lava pit that the deranged dinosaur has plans for.

I simply can’t recommend the awesome of this comic, and the first two issues of the latest series, enough. Bring on issue #3! Must-read.

[Red 5, $3.50]