Friday, Friday, weekend time's upon us. Will I have a fun weekend? Who knows? Not me, because I'm writing this on Tuesday. Last two of the May books.
So there's a one-armed robot named Screw Driver that gets run out of town for stealing. But he used to be a law-enforcing robot called Ranger One. Most of this is Fuentes and Nahuel showing how things got to that point. Ranger One was created by a woman whose deputy husband was recently slain. The robot's popularity caused them to make more cop-bots until one came to the idea the best way to prevent crime is to kill the people that could commit crimes. Meaning all people.
Cue the predictable human response to destroy all robots, and that's more or less how Ranger One ends up a one-armed fugitive, uninterested in helping his creator look after what is either her daughter, or a robot she built based on her daughter. That part is unclear. The kid was born alive, at least.
Nahuel avoids having all the automatons look the same. Ranger One has a
tall cylindrical head, a bit like Scud the Disposable Assassin but with
only one big eye. But the rogue, who calls himself Razoneck starts out
with his central eye surrounded by a curved helmet and a circular
microphone/exhaust port for a mouth. He may have alter attached a human
jawbone to his face, too. None of his subordinates look like him. So
there's a level of individuality that suggests these are real beings and
not simple tools gone bad.
It's kind of an odd book, or I'm just not familiar enough with steampunk. Ranger One's activated in 1877, during the blighted presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. But there are flying cathedrals, and Ranger One introduces himself by playing a song by Kenny Rogers, who explains has not been born yet. I'm disputing that fact, unless Highlander was about Kenny Rogers and I didn't know it, but it's a strange approach. Is Fuentes trying to do some evolution through the different types of Western heroes. Go from the Roy Rogers singing cowboy to more of a Randolph Scott sheriff to an Eastwood style antihero? If so, the story's cycling through pretty fast.
Jones' attempt to let someone else steal an original printing of Shakespeare's writing, so she can recover it later and get the finder's fee, is ruined when the Bearded Lady and her Freakshow try to fight instead of just running away. So Jones ends up with the book, without it getting successfully stolen.
Then Captain Lightning shows up, asking her to stop the fabled Section Zero from stealing a mysterious rock from the local evil super-science corporation. Jones agrees, figuring it might make the Captain less suspicious of her. Section Zero does show up - two of them anyway - and they fight with our title characters across the city. Jones recovers the stone, then loses it down a geothermal vent when Captain Lightning tells her to hand it over. They argue a bit, a guy who looks like Mightor from the Hanna-Barbara cartoons finds the rock deep underground, that's pretty much it.
Kesel's still introducing more mysteries, or more hints. I'm pretty sure the "Volte Foundation" Captain Lightning mentions as someone the rock could be trusted with is probably run by the Captain's secret identity, and Jones thinks the guy is planning some run at becoming mayor. We got some more villains, though I'm not sure if ClownCar is just a bunch of clowns or one clown taht can duplicate himself, Multiple Man-style.
Not really much more on the origin of Jones' powers, beyond that we see them continuing to expand. She can make the lenses of her goggles function like binoculars, there doesn't seem to be a strict limit to how many additional limbs she can create. Let's Hahn play around with her look a bit, between those abilities and the stealth costume she whips up for the break-in.
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