Atomic Robo - The Shadow From Beyond Time

So I called Jack yesterday to check on my comics. Last week, I'd contacted him to say I'd be at a new address and to give that address. The piece of paper the address was written on was lost, so the comics hadn't left. Why Jack didn't try contacting me, I don't know. Comics should be on their way now, which doesn't help anybody today, and they won't get here before I leave town to visit my dad early next week.

I'll try reviewing another trade instead, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener's Atomic Robo Volume 3. I started buying the trades last year, and I've decided I'm going to purchase the new mini-series (Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X, starting in August) as it comes out. Which told me I'd better catch up. I don't think it's necessary, as Clevinger is good about including whatever backstory a particular arc requires within the arc, but it can't hurt.

This volume is all about Robo trying to stop an extra-dimensional monster from overwriting the entire universe. Essentially, it's atomic science versus Lovecraftian horror, in some ways literally since one incursion begins with Lovecraft himself*. Tesla and a few others stopped it at Tunguska in 1908, but Robo has to face it down in 1926 New York, in Oregon in 1957, in Peru in 1971, and within his own Tesladyne HQ in 2009. If the creature succeeds in overtaking the universe at any time, it can then spread backwards through time so that it will have always controlled the universe, and any past setbacks it may have faced will never have happened. Which is problematic, though in true heroic fashion, Robo turns that into an advantage. Robo also employs various people to help him, from Charles Fort to Carl Sagan** to his action scientist employees.

Clevinger writes it well, injecting humor into the story in a way that works, even though the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. It's like an action movie that way, with different characters getting cool one-liners. Also, the threat is so bizarre in some ways that playing it deadly seriously probably undercut it to a certain extent. And there are something situations where you can't help but laugh at the oddness of it. He also conveys Robo's growth over time through his dialogue and interactions with others. 1926 Robo doesn't think things through much, and he can't really keep Lovecraft or Fort under control as they talk over him. The later Robo's become progressively more confident, clever, and in control.

Scott Wegener's art impresses me for how much he gets across with so few lines. Especially with Robo, who has no mouth. If you're going to get across his mood, it'll have to be with his eyes and his posture, and Wegener does that very well. Robo speaks with his entire body. Wegener and Clevinger as seem to like what I'd describe as a "silent beat" panel. There's a panel where somebody says something, the next panel is the others in the scene regarding the speaker silently, then the next panel the scene's moved on. I'm sure there's a more appropriate name, but "silent beat" is the best description I could think of. I think it works because there's enough detail in the silent panel that my attention holds there long enough that things sink in. Then i move on to the next panel and the fallout is that much more effective.

Other notes:

- When Fort and Lovecraft show up looking for Tesla, Robo flashes back to two years earlier, when Tesla told him to immediately shoot any two men who show up mentioning Tunguska. I'm not clear why. I understand he was a pacifist, and so creating a weapon to destroy something, even if it wasn't clear whether the thing is alive, might make him unhappy. But the universe is at risk.

- I like that Robo's fashion sense changes with the times, though I'm a little surprised. I'd think he might find a look that worked and stick with it. I suppose a scientist shouldn't be content to reside in the past.

- Robo enjoyed radio sci-fi dramas in the '20s, and Conan comics in the '70s. Which is an interesting shift. Maybe decades of battling science horrors stranger than any radio drama could conceive of, caused him to seek entertainment value in fantasy instead. Or he just thinks dudes who run around in loincloths and kill wizards by stabbing them are cool. Hmm, maybe Dirk Daring's method of problem solving was similar to Conan's (and Robo's). Apply violence to the problem.

- I thought it was funny Robo hates bugs, but thinking about it, I understand his concerns. There's nobody qualified to open him up and clean out his insides if bugs get in there and die or nest. It probably isn't feasible for him to open himself up either, though maybe he can manage that. Feeling insects crawling around inside you would have to be distracting, and creepy. It's still funny, but I get where he's coming from.

- Sagan says trust in causality is the foundation of sanity, and doubting it would be a living nightmare. Charles Fort says causality is an illusion caused by linear thinking, and nonlinear events happen all the time. These feel contradictory, but I'm not sure they are. If causality is an illusion, than trust in it is a sucker's game, but failure to trust in it could cause one to lose their sanity and endure a living nightmare, which seems like what happened to Lovecraft in this story. If you trust in it but have subsequent experiences which demonstrate it's illusory nature, would that make things even worse? At any rate, Robo handles it well, so perhaps one can trust in causality, but recognize the cause doesn't always precede the effect as they perceive it.

Tomorrow, I'm going ahead and trying those episode reviews I mentioned as possible content in my "Five Years of Blogging" post from last December.

* Having not read his work, was Lovecraft really racist? He initially believes Robo to be some sort of pygmy man, and figures he can't possibly have the intelligence to do more than parrot speech. He also states that they should be able to operate Tesla's machines because even if the man is a genius, he's only an Eastern European.

** Sagan was also in Volume 1, since he was the guy who convinced Robo to accompany the Viking lander to Mars and make certain it landed safely. So there's at least one scientist Robo gets along with, even if both Edison and Hawking hate his mechanical guts.