What I Bought Two Weeks Ago

I picked up some back issues online recently, and they just arrived over the weekend. I think I'm finally done tracking down Uncanny X-Men back issues, unless I want to pick up more stuff before issue 200. And why would I want to do that? I'd be exposed to dangerous levels of Cyclops. Among the back issues, there were also issues 2 and 4 of Atomic Robo Real Science Adventures, as I'd kind of concluded they weren't likely to be arriving as reorders at the store anytime soon.

Atomic Robo Real Science Adventures #2, by Brian Clevinger (words), Matt Speroni (colors), Jeff Powell (letters), Ryan Cody (artist, "To Kill a Sparrow"), Rob Reilly (artist, "Monster Hunters"), John Broglia (artist, "Leaping Metal Dragon") - Those are some pretty sweet panther bots Wegener drew on the cover. I especially like the empty nasal cavity on the uppermost one, giving it a bare skull appearance.

There's not much to say about the two serial features. The Allied commando ladies don't manage to successfully escape their blowing up several Nazis, which is how we got to the point where Sparrow bluffed some soldiers with a bunch of unarmed Resistance fighters. And Bruce Lee gets Robo to discuss why he feels the need to learn how to fight.

As for "Monster Hunters", Robo hires a group of guys to try and capture the Yonkers Devil, which showed up in Volume 4, I think. This doesn't go well at all, but it turns out the Robo that's with the guys when they make their attempt was an agent of Majestic in disguise. Because they want to observe the creature. Quite why it doesn't eat that idiot while he's sitting there gabbing on his phone, I don't know. Honestly, I'd almost forgotten about the Yonkers Devil and Majestic, so this was not one of my favorite stories. Rob Reilly's art is nice, though. Clean, energetic, gives the Hunters the right look of fear, overconfidence, or mania for the moment.

The high point of the issue might have been the reprint of Robo fending off another assassination attempt by Thomas Edison, this time involving the ghost of Rasputin. I don't know about Robo, but I would have found that a welcome distraction from studying for finals whether I had lightning guns to defend myself with or no.

Atomic Robo Real Science Adventures #4 by, Brian Clevinger (words), Matt Speroni (colors), jeff Powell (letters), Ryan Cody (artist, "To Kill a Sparrow"), Zack Finfrock (artist, "The Dark Age"), Xevi Benitez (artist, "Most Perfect Science Division"), John Broglia (artist, "Leaping Metal Dragon") - Scipio can talk about sweet octopus love all he wants. I'm with Robo, stab the damn thing!

Again, not much to say about the serials. Sparrow infiltrates the base, gets found. Bruce Lee spends a lot of time use Robo as a punching bag. Which is pretty funny, especially when Robo comments that it feels like he got hit by a truck, and he should know. As for "The Dark Age", it's set in the '90s, but a lot of the comments the comic shop owner makes feel as if they'd be equally applicable today (Obviously not the part about barely selling 100K being pretty sad). I'm not sure if that's Clevinger's point, or just an unfortunate side effect of where the industry is. And "Most Perfect Science Division" details how other countries have tried to build their own Robos. While none have apparently reached his level of autonomy, China apparently built one that is controlled mentally by 5 guys that can at least fight Helsingard to a draw, which isn't too shabby.

Benitez' art for that last feature is a bit different than most of the artists seen in this series up to this point. Thinner linework, more use of speed lines, more of a tendency to draw the action out over multiple panels (a bit like David Aja on that last one, though not to the same degree).