Unbeatable Comics: Atomic Robo

Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #1
writer: Brian Clevinger
artist: Scott Wegener

Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures #3
writer: Brian Clevinger
artist: Ryan Cody, Gurihiru, John Broglia, Christian Ward

Atomic Robo is one of the greatest comic book properties almost nobody knows about.  I'm not saying that it's an obscure indy title with limited budget, distribution, and awareness.  It's published by Red 5 Comics, and has been nominated for the prestigious Eisner Awards.  Red 5 is probably several steps below wide recognition, but it's had some cult hits on its hands, including Zombies of Mass Destruction.  Anyway, Atomic Robo is like Hellboy if Hellboy wasn't so Gothic.

Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener have been creating Atomic Robo comics since 2007, and I've tried my best to read each of the successive mini-series released along the way (as well as a series of Free Comic Book Day giveaways).  Flying She-Devils of the Pacific is the seventh, and it proves beyond a doubt that this is not getting old anytime soon.

As with every Atomic Robo story, our hero stumbles into a sensational situation.  This time it's a not-implausible scenario where all those weapons and stuff left behind by WWII troops in the Pacific have become subject to competing parties looking to exploit them.  Robo runs into a band of, well, flying she-devils, American women who don't much care to return to their normal lives and have become pirates securing these weapons from more sinister forces looking to do evil with them.  Although he's indestructible and a match for the scientific genius of those he's worked with over the decades, including creator Nikola Tesla, Robo is invariably depicted as baffled by just about everything, but game to play along, because one way or another he'll figure his way out and save the day.  These are parodies of the traditional superhero archetype, but written smartly, using science in ways Mythbusters would appreciate, without knocking the reader over the head with it, perhaps more like Fringe, actually, if Walter Bishop's pet cow Bessie were a robot and did all his adventures for him.

The one thing Hellboy really has over Robo is a strong supporting cast, including the BPRD.  Real Science Adventures seems to be an effort to expand on that, an anthology series with different artists working alongside Clevinger, some starring Robo and some that don't.  The six-part "To Kill a Sparrow" doesn't, for instance, but it's recognizable as an Atomic Robo story all the same, set during WWII and featuring some adventurers looking to steal the Crown of Thorns back from the Nazis.  The one-off "Tesla's Electric Sky Schooner" features Clevinger's version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, if they were all real historic figures, and is done in manga style.  The six-part "Leaping Metal Dragon" also continues this issue, with Robo attempting to learn from Bruce Lee, in ways Robo probably never considered.  "Atomic Robo and the Electromatic Dream Machine" is the most surreal entry of the issue, stripping Clevinger's instincts to its most minimal approach, and is probably as good a summary of the Atomic Robo phenomenon as you'll get.

I'm always hoping Robo will get more fans, and the fact that he now has two books seems encouraging.