Atomic Robo: The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur #3, by Brian Clevinger (words), Scott Wegener (art), Nick Filardi (colors), Jeff Powell (letters) - I like a lot of things about Wegener's art, but dynamic covers do not seem to be his strong point. Hardly the only artist that's true for, though.Robo and his action scientists are still trapped deep underground. Robo gets separated from them trying to distract that giant rock-thing on the cover. A subterranean equivalent of a bear, perhaps. Meanwhile, the scientists try to make their way back to Dr. Dinosaur to find a way to get those nukes away from him. Considering Dr. D has already torn the whole "time bomb" apart trying to figure out what Robo stole from it, they've got time. Which is good, seeing as they were captured by some of the Rock People and encouraged - at glowing spearpoint - to ingest glowing crystals. Which has kicked off a hallucinatory episode. And probably cancer. But definitely hallucinations. Back in the world, the smear campaign against Robo has succeeded masterfully, and Majestic-12 is using an alleged visit to Tesladyne by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as cover to attack loot everything valuable, and destroy the rest. Including the employees.
There's still no indication of whether Dr. Dinosaur is being used by Majestic-12, if it's the other way around, or if these are simply a pair of unfortunately timed, but unrelated, problems. The fact that the news keeps mentioning six missing nukes, only one of which is at Tesladyne, and Dr. D just so happens to have 5 nukes for his time bomb, makes me figure these aren't unrelated problems, but there's been no indication so far. If you're thinking I broached a similar topic when I reviewed the last issue, you're probably right (it's been so long I can't remember, and I'm too lazy to go back and check). There wasn't much to discuss in this issue. It's all set-up, no dialogue stood out as particularly clever, just not a lot for me to say. I like Filardi's coloring for the different places underground. Especially the red for when they're near the magma river.
Rocketeer and the Spirit: Pulp Friction #3, by Mark Waid (writer), J Bone (art), Rom Fajardo (colors), Tom B. Long (letters) - Cliff, perhaps you should be less concerned with feeling watched, and more concerned with being a foot tall.All the players have returned to Central City, Betty separately from the others, brought by this Trask fellow. Turns out whatever scientists Trask and the Octopus have in their employ have devised a way to transmit matter through TV broadcast waves, rather than just images. And Trask plans for Betty to play the guinea pig who shows it's safe to use. While all that's going on, Cliff's being freaked out by the Spirit's mausoleum hideout. You'd think a guy who worked for the Shadow would have a higher tolerance for weird stuff than that. Cliff gets away from the Spirit as soon as possible, and tries visiting Betty in her hotel room, only to be brushed off by your typical snooty hotel employee. By the time he straps on the rocket pack and reaches her room, Trask has already beamed her back to Octopus' secret hideout, surprising the Spirit who was attempting a quiet infiltration. Cliff's having some trouble chasing Trask, and it seems as though the experience of being teleported has left Betty's mind blank and pliable. So she's going to kill the Spirit for the gratification of some more investors. I'd be more interested in the teleportation than the mind control, but that's me.
Sooo, J Bone. Quite the shift artistically from Paul Smith or Loston Wallace. Having Fajardo handling colors, rather than J Bone himself, seems to have muddied the artwork up a bit. It doesn't lack for clarity or anything, but the lines don't seem as crisp as I remember from Hollywood Horror. Maybe that's a time crunch thing, though. I like the green Fajardo used in the panel of them examining Betty's skull. It's that unearthly, eerie, sci-fi/horror sort of green.
Pretty sure I know how this thing with Betty played out, but we'll see. I was right about the matter transport thing, so maybe I'm on a roll. Or maybe that was my one correct prediction for the year.
3 comments:
Who publishes Atomic Robo and Action Philosophers? I keep looking for them at my beloved comic book shop, and can't seem to find them...and I WANT to!
This sounds awesome.
I don't know about Action Philosophers, but Atomic Robo is by Red 5. Depending on how good your store is, you might have to request they specifically order a copy for you. That's how it goes for me. Although there are 6 (I think?) trades for Robo, each one it's own mini-series that have been out for awhile. You can probably find those fairly cheap on Amazon by now.
You don't need to start from the beginning to follow along (the mini-series jump around in when they take place, anyway), but they're all pretty good
Thank you, Calvin!
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