Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness Vol IV By Brian Clevinger

 Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness Vol IV

By Brian Clevinger

“No! You're an idiot and your origin story doesn't make any sense!” Atomic Robo to Doctor Dinosaur

So, I'm not gonna spend too much time on introductions here, since we've reviewed the past 3 volumes already. Just be aware we're talking about a world where comic book super science works and Atomic Robo is the living avatar of that. We got a lot to cover so let's get to it.

Other Strangeness isn't a unified story about Robo's struggles against one of the many threats that lurk in the universe. It is mostly set in the late 90s and early 2000s, so it still functions as a look into a specific period of Robo's life (A very special time in US history.  When history was supposedly over. Get bent Fukuyama!). At this point Robo is riding high on the hog, leading Telsadyne in investigations on the very edge of human learning and living knee-deep in Action Science. Robo isn't just wealthy, respected, and politically connected; he's a damn celebrity and frankly, he deserves it. He's not just devoting his life to pushing the frontiers of knowledge in between bouts of fighting living and undead Nazis. He's also our nuclear-powered, steel-forged guardian angel. While much of his life is secret from the general public, everyone knows he's averted multiple mass extinction events. Just don't think too much about why he had to avert multiple mass extinction events in the first place! After all, you need to be able to sleep at some point in your life.

It's not like Atomic Robo is the only guy in the business of pursuing the extreme edge of science and punching evil while doing it. In this issue, we're introduced to the Japanese institution of Big Science Incorporated and its team of super scientists, the Super Science Team Five (This is incredibly Japanese.). Just in case you're wondering, yes each member dresses in a suit that is a different bright primary color from the others. Big Science Inc and Super Science Team Five are a bit mono-focused compared to Telsadyne however, as they focus their energies on containing and stopping a single threat. The strange biological monsters that defy all manner of laws of biology and physics called Biomega. They operate much like Kaiju with some extra weird almost alien biology but I'm sure everything will be fine (They’re just Kaiju.). After all, after being fought off in the 1970s no one has seen a biomega emerge from the oceans. How many giant alien monsters that ignore everything we know about science could be hiding in the Pacific ocean anyways right? (Probably a great many!  What is this false sense of security?)

We also find out that our nearest neighborhood universe has an earth where everyone was turned into blood-drinking vampires (Oh No.). They're so close that any experiment that monkeys about with the universal barriers can bring them over by accident. Like various experiments in hyperspatial technology or quantum barriers or so on and so forth. Thankfully these experiments are easy to reverse so long as a single vampire never escapes into the “wild” from the initial infection point. We'll be fine (No, no we won’t!). It helps that the vampires seem to have lost most of their intelligence, so they're not able to create their own technology to jump dimensions. To do that, they would have to have to turn someone who was driven and brilliant and not tear him apart while doing so and how likely is that? (Pretty fuckin’ likely!  STOP JUMPING DIMENSIONS!  OR IF YOU DO, HAVE FREAKISH CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS!   DO IT ON MARS! {plays Doom theme})

Finally, we have the glorious Dr. Dinosaur! One of the most magnificent comic book villains ever. Now whether he's a threat to humanity is open to debate but he is certainly the biggest threat to Robo's sanity and pride. If you believe Dr. Dinosaur, real name H'ssssk, he's a refugee from the Mesozoic Era, a Velociraptor mutated into a genius by mammal energies echoing backward through time to wipe out the dinosaurs (Woah.  That might make him bitter.). As Robo points out, however, he has no feathers and is way to big to be a Velociraptor, although he's pretty close to the build and size of a small Deinonychus (Then he is an artificial construct.  No Feathers=Not an actual Dromaeosaur.  I HAVE SPOKEN!). If you believe Robo, Dr. Dinosaur is most likely the result of illegal genetic experiments on one of the many Pacific islands that hide secret super science labs run by various nations such as Russia, the United States, France, the UK, Japan, China, and more. This volume doesn't provide answers to the question of where the hell Dr. Dinosaur came from but it does show the first meeting of Dr. Dinosaur and Robo. As well as explaining why these two hate each other. So, so very hilariously much. 

We also get introduced to allies and friends of Robo, such as Dr. Bernard Fischer. Who has degrees in paleontology and paleobotany. He's also studied a fair bit of geology but I'm sure that won't come up (If he’s a paleobiologist, he has studied and will use a lot of geology.  Period.{Yes but he’s applying for a job in Action Science!}). Dr. Fischer's biggest qualities are that he's some kinda weirdness magnet, like having vampires phase into reality during his job interview, kind of magnet. He is also absurdly lucky, like, incredibly bad luck or amazing good luck, there is no in-between. That said he can keep his cool just enough that he's an asset. We're also reintroduced to the unstoppable Jenkins, in this case by watching him tear through a small army as if they were dummies made of plywood filled with blood. So. Much. Blood.

There's a lot of scene-setting in this volume but it's worked into some really nice slice of lifestyle storytelling and done in a very entertaining way. Mr. Clevinger basically uses a series of short more-or-less self-contained stories to set up elements of Robo's world that establish that Robo isn't the only super scientist in town. As well as setting up the fact that our tranquil little civilization is in fact ringed around by terrors beyond our ability to meaningfully comprehend, never mind resist, without the protection of these groups of Super Science practitioners. Which I'm sure won't be an issue, I mean it's not like a government will decide that leaving the security of humanity to a bunch of free-range nerds is a bad idea or that one of these threats will slink under the radar and bite us all (Honestly, given the global response to HIV and then COVID, I think leaving it up to free-range nerds might be better.). What makes this satisfying is the fact that even the stories setting up elements for later use have their own payouts; as well as working as single self-contained episodes which means I can simply enjoy them for their own sake.

As you might have guessed I really did enjoy this volume. There wasn't a single unifying threat. Despite that all the stories, save the Dr. Dinosaur ones, were connected enough to make it work. Also, Dr. Dinosaur needs no justification, he really is one of my favorite villains and this introduction shows him as capable of being a danger to Robo. While also being insane and hysterically funny. Atomic Robo and Other strangeness gets an A.

I hope you enjoyed this review.  If you did consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote on upcoming projects for as little as a dollar a month.  Speaking of upcoming projects, I will be skipping a week to put in more work on such a project.  My paterons will be getting a sneak peek at that and I hope you’ll join us.  See you soon and until then Keep Reading!

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Star Wars By Jonathan W Rinzler and illustrated by Mike Mayhew

 The Star Wars

By Jonathan W Rinzler and illustrated by Mike Mayhew

So as I'm sure most of you were aware, A New Hope didn't just leap out of George Lucas' head fully formed but was the result of a writing process that took several years. The first hack at it was in 1973, a two page outline called Journal of the Whills. Lucas shared with his agent and his agent told him bluntly that he couldn't make heads or tails of the document. Lucas accepted the criticism and trudged back to the writing desk and came up with a ten-page document Star Wars: Story Synopsis. This was shopped around, rejected by United Artists, passed over by Universal but accepted by 20th Century Fox. However the suits at Fox weren't just going to shove money at Lucas, they wisely wanted a full script first.

In May 1974, Mr. Lucas completed The Star Wars: A Rough Draft. Which gave us characters, a plot, and the first outline of the Star Wars galaxy. Not happy with it, Mr. Lucas went back and rewrote it. At least 2 more times before producing A New Hope in 1977. The Star Wars however was not thrown away but was allowed to molder on the shelves of the Lucas archives. Fast forward to the 21st century, Mr. Rinzler was hired to write books that would look at the behind-the-scenes processes and events of making Star Wars, both the main trilogy and the prequels. This gave him access to the archives and during his work, he discovered the rough draft. He approached Mr. Lucas and was at first rejected; to be fair I wouldn't want to share my rough drafts with the public either (None of us would…).  However, with the help of Dark Horse Comics producing a few pages of artwork and storyboards he got the go-ahead from Mr. Lucas a few years later.

Dark Horse published the eight-issue run of The Star Wars from September 2013 to May 2014. The comic tells the story of Annikin Starkiller and Luke Skywalker and their efforts to protect the planet of Aquilae from the forces of the New Galactic Empire. Now in this version, the characters are very different. In fact, Luke is a Jedi Bendu General in his 60s and Annikin is a young man just entering his prime. Furthermore, Luke and Annikin are not related, Annikin is the son of another character named  Kane Starkiller. In this version of the story, Kane asks Luke to train Annikin to become a Jedi Bendu, being unable to do so because he has become more machine than man (But not twisted and evil? {Not so much} Huh).

The plot follows Luke and Annikin with their allies such as the alien Han Solo and the secret agent Clieg Whitsun as they attempt to keep Princess Leia and her younger brothers from being captured by Imperial Shocktroopers. This is complicated given that the Empire has brought a gigantic Space Fortress into the Aquilae system causing a collapse of organized resistance. The Empire may be on the verge of victory with the death of Leia's father and the capture of her mother but much like how I pointed out in my Arslan review, as long as one member of the royal family stays free there is a center for resistance to form around. So Luke's plan is to basically keep the royal children from being captured while he assembles a rebel alliance to try and destroy the space fortress and throw the Empire back.

To do this, he not only has to gather old allies but recruit new ones, such as the Wookies of Yavin Four led by their Prince Chewbacca (Which, it turns out, actual prince.  Though what the hell is it with all this Space Monarchism? {George Lucas was copying Japanese Samurai movies and Flash Gordon, you do that you’ll have space monarchies.  You should write me some socialist Space Opera} I have been nursing that idea…). Meanwhile, Annikin has to deal with his romantic feelings toward Leia and try to complete his training (Well at least she isn’t his sister this time around…{Except they never reveal who Annikin’s Mother was…Dun Dun Dun!}). They are in turn hunted by the forces of General Darth Vader, a hulking scarred man, and the Sith Knight Valorum. Darth Vader doesn't get a lot of screen time in this version with Valorum serving as the more central antagonist. The Jedi and Sith are both portrayed as rival warrior orders without much explanation as to why they're opposed to each other and we don't see much in the way of Force powers here. The Jedi and the Sith just appear to be really well-trained fighters and swordsmen. Although I'll note that even regular Shocktroopers carry laser swords in this version so people and creatures are getting chopped into bits all over the place.

This is very much a rough draft and it shows. The cast is simply too large for the size of the story and the plot is also too packed with events and factions. Honestly, I feel Mr. Rinzler, in his desire to stick as close to the script as possible, did himself a disservice because that led to a poorer story. Especially since he only had eight issues to get this all wrapped up in. Which forces him to move at light speed. For example, the Wookies are supposed to be brutal fighters who attack everyone, until they meet Annikin and now they're best friends with the Jedi. We're also never really clear on why the Empire has decided to crush this planet, although there is some vague talk of “scientific and genetic” treasures. Also, the Force called the Force of Others in this story is very ill-defined. It seems to function more as a popular religious belief than anything else.

That said if you're a Star Wars fan there's a lot of value to be had here. You can see story elements from the prequels and you can see the seeds of A New Hope and other stories in this comic and that alone makes it an interesting read. If you're not a Star Wars fan, give this one a miss. If you are, go ahead and take a look but temper your expectations. That said I wouldn't mind someone tackling this and seeing if they could create something different from it than what Lucas did but that's just me. If I have to grade this, I have to give it a D+ at best for the fact that we have incomplete characterizations, only half-realized world-building, and a cast that is too big to be really used in a smart fashion. Which I feel isn't fair all things considered. That said I am a Star Wars fan, if not as intense as some and I enjoyed the peek into the process this provided. So your mileage I think will vary by a great deal.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s review.  If you did you should consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month you get a vote in upcoming reviews, projects, and more.  Join us next week for the review selected by our ever wise patrons of Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness.  Hope to see you there!  Until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Heroic Legend of Arslan Volume 3 By Yoshiki Tanaka

 Heroic Legend of Arslan Volume 3

By Yoshiki Tanaka

I've covered Volume II and Volume I recently enough that I think we can just leap into it. If you haven't read those reviews please check last month and the month before. Anyways let's just jump into it.

With the capital city of Pars under occupation and Arslan being the only member of the royal family still free and running loose, the nation of Lusitania seems on the verge of complete victory. However, the war ain't over yet and like a lot of overconfident powers, the Lusitanians are making a series of brutal and serious mistakes. While they had taken the capital in part by inciting the Gholam slave class to rise up and tie up the defending forces, this was done by loudly promising freedom, land, and money to anyone who rose up. Well, the Gholam did their part only to find themselves still treated as slaves. Worse they are mocked for asking the Lusitanians to keep their word. With one soldier comparing them to livestock.

This isn't the only mistake that the Lusitanians are making, they're also publicly burning cultural works of Pars and abusing the free population (It takes modern militaries one soldier per twenty civilians to occupy with minimal internal resistance.  This is not going to create minimal resistance.). By doing so they're making enemies of the common men and women of Pars who could have been lulled to indifference or at least nonresistance. Of course, the common folk could have been made irrelevant by an alliance with the Gholam but that ship is also being sunk as I mentioned. Meanwhile, the elite classes of the occupying force are being split due to the King, Innocentius VII, falling in love with the Queen of Pars, Tahamine. This is causing horror and disgust in the other members of the high church and nobility but the King seems rather blind to this we'll discuss this more in a future review.

On top of this, the traitor Kharlan and his master Silvermask are clearly pursuing their own agenda  (Traitors usually do…). This volume is actually fairly important in revealing a lot about Silvermask. I won't go into spoilers but frankly, it means Kharlan's motivation was relatively straightforward. This only increases my irritation at his insistence that no one would be able to understand from the last volume. That said, neither one of them has taken their eye off the ball and are throwing everything they’ve got at the search for Arslan because they know this game isn't won until every member of the royal family is off the board. Which is more than I can say for anyone else on Team Antagonist

Speaking of Arslan, he's been using this time wisely, getting Narsus onside and escaping the armies hunting him. He's also gathering more allies and information. We see two more members get added to this troop of retainers to our aspiring heroic royal. One of which is the priestess Farangis, a drop-dead gorgeous, intelligent, and deadly woman who seems to have ice in her veins and nerves of steel. Seriously, we're introduced to her riding through a recently conquered territory wearing something that seems more in place in swimsuit illustrated magazine (WTF? {Look man, I just review the stories okay?}). When she encounters a squadron of Lusitanian cavalry, she simply rides right through them and when they chase her, she starts shooting them all dead from horseback. I know this is a heroic epic but man everyone is ridiculously lethal here but then I suppose those who aren't don't live long enough to get an introduction scene(Yes, in stories like this, it ends up being a study in armoring long-range bombers.).

Of course, Farangis brings her own baggage in the form of Gieve, the minstrel from Volume II. Gieve had done his own looting during the fall of Pars' capital and made a run for it. Now I don't blame him for that, it wasn't his country and it wasn't his fight(And in a situation like yeah, yeah, you loot.  Because you’ll need that stuff to survive later.). I even appreciate his skill and willingness to throw down with a squadron of Lusitanian cavalry to help Farangis. What has me rolling my eyes is the fact that he talks himself into it for a chance to get into her... err... Swimsuit(Men.). Even then I could let it pass if he didn't continue trying to trot out every tired lie and pick up line to try and get into her good graces. Maybe I'll warm up to Grieve but honestly, as a character, he falls flat to me (You just don’t like him, buddy.  That isn’t falling flat.  It is just being a shit.  Unfortunately, a lot of men are just shit. {I can point to a good number of women who are shit, I don't think it's a gender-specific trait}). Maybe I'm just cold to that archetype. I'm way more enjoying the by-play between Narsus and Daryun. Thankfully, Farangis doesn't put up with his crap and makes it clear that she only tolerates him hanging around as long he's useful but toleration is all he'll get.

While the revelation of Silvermask's motive and true identity is kind of a big deal, the introduction of Farangis is something I think is going to be important to the series. I won't discuss my thoughts on the revelation until another review because I do want to avoid spoilers. That said, most of this volume feels like setup. We're seeing a lot of story and plot elements being set into play that don't pay off in this volume. It's good that Mr. Tanaka isn't rushing but I kind of wish we got Arslan moving, the boy needs an army if he's gonna have an impact; if nothing else so that Daryun can take breaks when he gets tired of plowing through large groups of armed men like they're small children with sticks. I'm still enjoying the series, however. Still, this is better than average. Heroic Legend of Arslan Volume III gets a B- from me. Read it but maybe read Volume IV right after.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s review. If you did, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidread Where for a dollar a month you can vote on upcoming content. I have two polls active right now! Hope to see you there. Our next review is The Star Wars, based

on a rough draft of A New Hope. Until then, stay safe and keep reading!

Red text is Dr. Ben Allen, your editor

Black text is Garvin Anders, your reviewer.

Magus of the Library Vol IV By Mitsu Izumi

Magus of the Library Vol IV

By Mitsu Izumi

At this point, I feel like I should just point you back to the last three reviews on the series if you need to know the concept and background of the story. So if this is your first review, go ahead and take a look and catch up. For those of you who have kept up, good news! Theo Fumis, our hero, has passed the examinations and made it into Kafna training! Bad news, compared to the training, the examinations were a walk in the park (Uh Oh!). This volume brings us to the beginning of Theo's training and we can see the Kafna are not messing around. I mean, seriously they open the first day of class with a test just right off the bat. That's bloody cold, no chill in the central library (None at all.  Not even a hello…).

What's interesting is the variety of trainees though; we have trainees of different religions and nations and cultures all thrown together. There's also a wide range of ages present, with the eldest being 35 and the youngest being 11. That said the overwhelming majority of the trainees are girls, for reasons we learned in the last couple of volumes. Theo isn't the only young man here however, Alv has made it and there's also a new character Sumomo. Sumomo is a nice enough boy.  However, being the youngest of a family of nine sisters, two of which became Kafna, definitely left a mark on the poor boy as he regards girls as dangerous (Woah.). This is more of the youngest child being a bit scared of his elders kind of thing than what you would find on Reddit though so I'll let it pass (Yeah, I’ll let it pass as a survival strategy rather than incel energy.).

We learn more about the supernatural disaster that shaped Theo's world in this volume.  For example, we learn that everyone is cut off from the sea, because large parts of the continent are still covered by a dangerous blighted fog that corrupts or kills whatever it touches (That… is gonna mess up global ecosystems really well. See, soil nutrients get washed out of the soil and into watersheds, where they get transported to the sea.  Barring rock weathering, the only way to get things like phosphorus back onto land is by transport via living things.  This is why dams kill forests upstream, fish like salmon can’t bring those nutrients back upstream). To the point that most believe that life itself is impossible within the fog. However, we learn that's not entirely true and something's lurking in the fog even if no one is entirely sure what it is.

We also learn that there's at least one monotheist religion that starts the day off with a round of morning prayers; they also represent their god as having the head of a Triceratops (There are worse things to use as a godhead.). Another thing we learn is that students at the end of their training get assigned to one of sixteen offices and three of those offices are considered more prestigious than the others. Those being the Treasury, Guidance, and General Affairs offices. Not in small part because the leadership of the library tends to come from those offices.

While most of the trainees are burning with ambition, Theo is just struggling to deal with the new weight of training. It doesn't help that being a Kafna was the height of his ambition, so now being asked to look further ahead he finds... He has no idea, he just wanted to work among the books and help give back to the Library what the library had given him. I honestly just find myself wanting to give Theo a comforting pat on the head and tell him it'll be alright as long as he tries his hardest but this is a serious job he's embarking on (Honestly that might be all he needs.).

We learn in this volume that the central library is engaged in a bitter battle against those who wish to use the infrastructure of the libraries to push certain ideologies and views on people while hiding other ones. The Kafna have to run a strict regime of constant inspections to prevent books from disappearing or forbidden organization methods being used to promote one set of ideas over the others (I like this militant eccumenicism.). To put it bluntly, the central library is waging war against leaders and factions who wish to control the flow of information and they can only win by constant vigilance. Meanwhile, we also get the hint of internal politics being played out in the library.

This is because one generation is passing away and with it the last remains of the living memory of the dangers of disunity and how division almost destroyed everyone. The new generation meanwhile is living in a society where xenophobia hasn't been banished yet and there is the temptation to pursue self-interest over the good of everyone. Theo's world approaches a dangerous transition point where if one generation refuses to learn the lessons of their elders they could end up losing everything that has been gained.

Theo, lost in his own problems, is largely blind to this and to be fair he is a rural village youth barely old enough to shave. So it wouldn't be fair to expect him to be steeped in geopolitics. As he flounders in his own self-doubt and struggle, we do have the reappearance of someone capable of inspiring Theo to new heights. A woman who can not only do that but will revel in it and make it as super dramatic for Theo as possible.  Because if she can't do it in a way that is cool and fun, what's the point? I'm course talking about Sedona Bleu, who has grown into a powerful member of the Protections Office. I have to admit I enjoy Sedona taking extra effort just to add a flair of the dramatic to her interactions with Theo.   Even if it is just slightly ridiculous.

I enjoyed Volume IV and in a way, it seems to be setting the table for a new story featuring Theo. Whereas the last three volumes could all be read as the story of how Theo came to his ambition to be a Kafna of the library and how he realized that ambition. Volume IV is showing us how Theo is very much like the dog that finally caught the car he was chasing. It's also building up to the wider story we're seemingly about to embark on. As always the art was great and the storytelling is well done.  I imagine some folks might not like the pace but I'm enjoying having a writer who isn't in a hurry and wants to spend some time on characterization before throwing us into the fantasy epic. Volume IV of Magus of the Library gets an A from me.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s review.  If you did and would like to have a voice in future reviews and a sneak peek at our special summer project, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote on upcoming reviews and projects for as little as a dollar a month!  I’ll be updating our reward tiers this month so stay tuned for future updates. In fact, my patrons have a poll up regarding the summer project right now!  Next week however I return an ever-wise patron favorite in The Heroic Legend of Arslan Volume 3!  Hope to see you there until then, stay safe and Keep Reading. 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders