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