Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Atomic Awesome

I know I've raved a bit about Atomic Robo before.

While collecting comics over the weekend, I got the latest trade paperback collection. I'm up to 7 TBPs now:

  1. Atomic Robo: the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne
  2. Atomic Robo: The Dogs of War
  3. Atomic Robo: The Shadow from Beyond Time
  4. Atomic Robo: Other Strangeness
  5. Atomic Robo: The Deadly Art of Science
  6. Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X
  7. Atomic Robo: Flying She-Devils of the Pacific
Each and every volume is a work of glorious, twisted genius.

"The Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne" is the introductory volume. It's all about establishing Robo, Tesladyne, and Action Scientists as well as a few of the myriad antagonists. Stephen Hawking has an awesome cameo.

"The Dogs of War" covers Robo's time in World War II and is homage to the grandfather of one of the creators.

"The Shadow from Beyond Time" is homage to H.P. Lovecraft (who has a brilliant cameo).

"Other Strangeness" may well be my favorite volume, for it introduces Dr. Dinosaur. I can't get enough of Dr. Dinosaur. The Robo-Dr. Dinosaur dynamic is such that I can't eat or drink while reading it for fear of my life.

"The Deadly Art of Science" slips away from the awesome randomness of "Other Strangeness" and explores Robo's early years and his time learning to shoot and add the "action" monicker to his action science role.

"The Ghost of Station X" was pretty hard-core. Someone interesting has a really cool cameo in it.

"Flying She-Devils of the Pacific" would make an awesome movie and/or TV series. It's post WWII and there's chaos in the pacific as localized pirates and warlords raid caches of weapons left behind by the Allies and Japan after Japan surrendered. A number of extremely-talented people, all of whom just happen to be women, build a sophisticated airship and jetpacks and go around kicking the ass of these dangerous pirates and warlords.

Oh, and Robo gets involved.

I can't properly express how entrancing and entertaining this series is for me. I can't recommend it highly enough.

No comments: