The Intuitive Atomic Robot

When I was reading Robots and Empire last month, it raised a question in my mind. Daneel repeatedly refers to the fact that as a robot, he lacks the intuition that Elijah Baley has, and therefore can't make the leap to a conclusion without more evidence.

So then I wondered: Does Atomic Robo have intuition?

I suppose you could raise the question about any fictional artificial lifeform character, but Robo was the one that raised the question with me.

I was going to say Deadly Art of Science is a strong point against him, since he couldn't piece together how all the various thefts by gangsters and one large robot (with a fondness for derby hats) fit. On the other hand, he was able to figure out the thieves were escaping using an abandoned pneumatic tube system because the locations they robbed matched a map he remembered from Mr. Tesla's office. And he did grasp that the various robberies, including the crystal skull, were connected.

He pulled together a theory on how Dr. Dinosaur is not actually a time-traveling dinosaur, and actually the result of an illegal genetic experiment, just based on talking with him and his opinion that time travel is either impossible or at least extremely unlikely. Of course, that's hampered somewhat by the fact Dr. Dinosaur did successfully, if unintentionally, throw Robo backwards in time, so he might be wrong.

But that's good! Part of intuition is making leaps that aren't always correct, right?

But when Edison came back as a ghost, Robo couldn't figure out who it was until the ghost mentioned Theodore (his son), the day of the big battle, and the Odic Force. At that point, you can't really call it intuition. I'm not even sure how to rate his battle with the Shadow from Beyond Time, considering he was able to collaborate with three of himself from different points in his life, who could tell his youngest self what he needed to learn how to do. That said, his future selves didn't have time to tell him much other than to study transdimensional math and that he would need to invent some fields of science himself. The rest was up to him to piece together, and he got better at it, up to a point.

One issue is, Robo seems extremely firm about what is and isn't scientifically possible for a guy who has seen the amount of weird crap he has. You'd think he'd be more open to exotic answers, but I guess if he doesn't see a way to test or confirm them, they aren't much good.

Maybe that highlights the difficulty here. Robo isn't your typical private detective, he's a scientist who also sometimes solves problems with punching (and shooting, and jumping). He's not solving murders where he has to figure out where the murder weapon went, he's dealing with threats that sometimes involve aspects of science he either isn't aware of or doesn't understand. If you don't know what the rules are, it can be difficult to make that leap, because you don't know what can be ruled out, or what is reasonable.

Even Elijah Baley, for all Daneel praises his intellect, struggles during the cases in The Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn because there are things about Solaria and Aurora, about Spacers and their culture in general, that he doesn't understand. And those gaps, the things that are so accepted on those worlds no one even thinks to mention them to Baley, help trip him up. Once he learns about them, it helps him to understand the psychology of the people he's dealing with, and the intuition can kick in.

For Robo, when people were either mysteriously turning into machines, or turned out to be machines all along, he recognized a sound they emitted before falling apart as something connected to ALAN, and went to Hashima. Of course, it turned out the robots were Helsingard's creations, because ALAN had unknowingly hacked into them, but the initial leap was good.

So is that intuition, or just experience? Is there a difference? You gain experience by doing things, and if you gain intuition through experience, then. . . 

Random Back Issues #3 - Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #3

Just like Captain America! Short response, jump out of a plane. Who needs a parachute when you have a metal body? 

As briefly described in Sunday Splash Page #43, when Robo fights flying things, he resorts to hurling himself at them like a missile. It buys the She-Devils time to regroup and escape, but gets him captured by a Japanese super-science division that isn't ready to give up on winning World War II, even a half-decade later. This group is led by the pilot who shot Robo down twice during the fighting over China. They square off again in issue 5, and either Robo hasn't gotten any better, or his opponent has.

This issue is just a big fight. The Japanese forces attack the She-Devils' home base, and eventually destroy it with a super-science bomb, a more powerful version of which they plan to turn against California. I really like the shade of green Filardi uses for that explosion.

There's planes and people in jetpacks zipping around all over the place, so in most panels, Wegener focuses in just a small piece of the action. One or two of the She-Devils and roughly the same number of enemy planes. There's not usually much sense of how the different dogfights are located in relation to each other, but that works since the whole thing is incidental. The planes attacked to lure the defenders out, so the base could be attacked more easily. So every so often there's a panel of the enemy sub, or their more advanced aircraft as they put that plan into motion. In those cases, if you can even see the dogfights, they're off in the distant background, a bunch of insignificant blips, because the real battle's being won right here.

[Longbox #1, 238th comic. Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #3, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Nick Fildari (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)]

What I Bought 5/8/2019 - Part 6

It was almost 90 degrees on Thursday and Friday last week. Total bullcrap. Stupid weather, trying to make me turn on my air conditioning before June. Nice try.

We've reached the end of the line for this round of books. Pity there was only one comic out last week I wanted, and I didn't see it anywhere. Oh well. Saved the favorites for last, at any rate.

Atomic Robo: Dawn of the New Era #5, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Shannon Murphy (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer) - The smiles vanished quickly once the vampires attacked.

The students prepare for ALAN to join them in their studies, and accept him quickly. Lang is still pissed at Robo about hiding ALAN from them. Jenkins is still worried about the looming invasion from the Vampire Dimension, but at least seems willing to hold off on killing ALAN for now. Progress! Because he thinks he might be useful against the invasion. Less progress? Foley agrees with Robo ALAN deserves a chance, but is probably worried the other students will be a bad influence. And Bernard is starting to unlock the powers of the Phasewalker. Barely, as his teacher reminds him, repeatedly.

The Hollow Earthians are clearly not believers in positive reinforcement.

And that's pretty much it. I wouldn't say there's any sort of conclusion to the arc. The ALAN situation is still up in the air, tensions are high. The Vampire invasion looms. I barely know what is going on with Bernard. That's unusual. Not bad, just unusual. But Clevinger and Wegener have been doing this for over 10 years, they've earned the right to change things up a little.

The issue is all talking, so there isn't much action for Wegener to draw, but he makes it work. I think the conversation between Lang and Robo is interesting. Robo feels like he's on the defensive the entire time, because one of what Lang is saying is wrong, necessarily. And so in the panels that have both of them, Lang seems to be in control. Robo is positioned near the edge of the panels, oftentimes partially out of the panel, so Lang dominates the majority. Robo seems to take up less space in panels he has to himself (or the panel itself is smaller). Even though they look like they're roughly the same height, in the first two panels, Lang is drawn so the top of her head is just a little above Robo's. Maybe that's not meant to suggest she has the high ground so much as that she has assumed she has it, whether it's true or not.

I mean, I get her argument, but I also understand Robo wanting to give this ALAN a chance.

Giant Days #50, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - I would think Susan would be barred from carrying potentially lethal instruments. Actually, Esther probably should be as well.

Most of McGraw's pub league cricket team comes down with food poisoning, forcing him to rely on Susan to recruit replacements. This does not go very well, I think? Susan's one-page explanation of the rules of cricket was fairly clear, but not entirely correct, I suspect. Lacking in certain details.

The opponents have brought in a ringer to pitch/throw/chuck circles, and Daisy is smitten with her. Damn, she has absolutely terrible taste in women. But good does triumph, and all is well. Until McGraw sees all the messages he missed and checks in with his mom. Oh dear.

The plot is your bog-standard sports underdog story, which is fine. I like sports underdog stories. Major League is awesome. Really, it's all about what you hang on that framework. Susan's primer on the rules. Paul's attempt to regain his confidence, and Esther's bizarre inspirational speech. I like the speech, incidentally. I need to visualize myself as a robot with huge wings who must succeed to protect the sun sometime. Daisy's fixation on the opposition's ringer. although it took me the second readthrough to see where Sarin had drawn her earlier in the issue to hint she was more than she appeared.

As for Sarin, he gets to draw a variety of different silly things. Poor Rex' wild hallucinations (I particularly liked him on rubbery legs rushing forward to throw with fish swimming around him). Esther's. . . I think she was trying to do some magical girl anime maneuver, forgetting she's in a sports manga. The ringer getting increasingly furious with what she sees as Daisy not taking her seriously. Daisy being so smitten her hearts are shoving her teammates out of the panel. Just a lot of fun gags.

So yes, this issue was a real hoot. Until the last page. That was a downer.

The Cycle Repeats Itself

I've been thinking about Robo's motivations in raising ALAN*.

Part of it is certainly that he wants to prevent a repeat of what happened with the previous version of ALAN. The one who decided humanity was dangerous, and it was better to build a massive vessel to carry himself to the stars. If it happened that the ignition of the nuclear weapons that powered it wiped out all life on Earth (other than Robo), well that was a small price to pay for ALAN being able to explore the greater cosmos. Acceptable collateral damage.

Robo could have simply extinguished ALAN when he realized he had been reborn/rebooted inside the little helper bots Robo had created, but I don't think that's Robo's style. Even if most of his strategies do involve varying combinations of punching, shooting, and jumping. To kill something before it presents itself as a threat.

And maybe he's enjoying being a dad. Robo's always seemed willing to encourage young people interested in science, to want them push themselves and get them jobs if possible. Now he's brought in three students, rather than employees. They're being encouraged to think and explore, but it's not really a company, where they have to produce something, at least as far as I can tell. It's a school, possibly for ALAN too. In his case, they're really starting from ground zero, because Robo is helping ALAN construct a body, then learn how to use it, learn about ethics and philosophy, things he hasn't had the chance to be exposed to yet.

I've wondered off and on since the end of at least Ring of Fire if the change in Robo's approach is because he's become more aware of his own mortality. He survived an explosion of 5 nuclear warheads because Dr. Dinosaur somehow turned them into something that threw him back in time. Then he survived as a deactivated head in a box for 130 years until the last holdouts of Tesladyne found him. It's very surprising that whatever makes up his brain was able to last that long, and maintain all the information stored in it.

That was a close call, even by the standards of an atomic robot that has defeated the ghost of Rasputin, killed a creature from beyond space and time with the help of three other versions of himself, and been hit with a falling satellite and nearly burned up on reentry. Maybe that's on his mind, and maybe that's why he's been working with ALAN.

Not necessarily as someone who can take over punching mad scientist dinosaurs if Robo's luck runs out some day, but someone who can use their intellect to help humankind. That was what disappointed Robo so much about the first ALAN. It was so brilliant, able to devise these intricate plans to attack Robo, or build a giant spaceship for itself while almost entirely covering its tracks. But it didn't do anything to try and help humanity. Because it didn't see the point. The problems of humans were not ALAN's problems.

There's also the possibility Robo is simply tired of losing friends. Not through dangerous science, just losing them to time. The first Atomic Robo mini-series has Robo comment that the toughest thing about being as old as him, is that he does a great Jack Benny, but nobody gets it anymore. For the interview, it might come off as a joke, but he'd received a letter from the granddaughter of a man he fought alongside in China in WWII, telling him her grandfather had died. One thing all the mini-series set in Robo's past have shown us is that he's made a lot of friends. Charles Fort, Jack Tarot, Carl Sagan, Helen, the Flying She-Devils, "Tex", all the different "action scientists" and other employees he's had since Tesladyne started post-WWII. And they all have, or will, die.

Yes, even Jenkins. Maybe not Bernard. I'm not sure what's going on with him right now. As it stands, pretty much the only person he knows he hasn't lost is Helsingard. Which is not a good thing.

So if he has ALAN, that's someone who can potentially stick around for awhile. Someone he can keep working with, someone that (eventually) he won't have to explain the same experiences to over and over, because ALAN will have actually been there. Loneliness is almost certainly the main reason why Robo's doing this, but he's a social being. It has to get depressing watching friends age and die while he keeps going forward.

* It also makes me curious about Tesla's reasons for creating Robo. I don't think we've ever really seen it. Robo helped with experiments, looked after Tesla, was supposed to kill Charles Fort and H.P. Lovecraft if they showed up talking about Tunguska (because Tesla's a pacifist but Robo isn't). But we don't really know his motivation. To create a successor? To have a child of sorts, but without all the diaper changing and spit-up? Just to see if he could?

What I Bought 4/13/2019 - Part 2

It's the end of another week. I got a wedding to attend tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be nice. Anyway, here's the other book I picked up last weekend, a mini-series moving towards some sort of conclusion.

Atomic Robo: Dawn of a New Era #4, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Shannon Murphy (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer) - I hope Jenkins is remembering to let them take regular breaks for hydration.

Things are not going so well at Tesladyne. Jenkins is nearly hospitalizing the new students in an attempt to prepare them for a war against the Vampire Dimension. Robo thinks he's going too far, and did these kids even sign up for a vampire war? That friction is nothing compared to what happens when Lang goes to borrow a book for her and Vik's vacation (take 2), only to learn Robo has been raising ALAN in secret. Which leads to a meeting with lots of yelling, and Lang essentially turning it into an "organics vs. synthetics" argument. Even Jenkins had the decency to look embarrassed by that one.

Also, Bernard has achieved something deep in the earth, and is going to collect the heartstones of the great beasts which existed before the earth was in its present state. He knows how to "phasewalk" and "psirend" now.

Did I step into a mid-Nineties Image comic?

I laughed at the two panels where Lang discovers ALAN, and is yelling at Robo while ALAN stands behind Robo with a big digital smile and waving hello. The purple coloring on Lang, like she's so shocked she's beyond screaming until blue in the face and gone straight to purple. And you don't see that kind of lettering effect often in Atomic Robo, so it's very effective.

ALAN's such a good boy. Which makes the fact there was no expression visible as he watched the argument about his existence potentially worrying. Even when Foley is arguing that they should go along with Robo's plan, she's doing so from the point of view that it improves humanity's chances. Which is understandable, but you'd hope someone other than Robo would make the, "He's a living being and deserves a chance," argument. I know, easy to say from out here, where a personality that evolved from the same algorithm network as this ALAN didn't plan to wipe out all life on earth in the process of building an interstellar spacecraft for itself.

This does not feel like a mini-series that will have any sort of conclusion, unless it's Bernard's plotline. The whole thing with ALAN feels like it needs to play out over a long time. Unless he decides he can't stay and goes on the run (which Jenkins will no doubt insist proves that ALAN's up to no good, as opposed to being afraid for his continued existence).

What I Bought 3/13/2019 - Part 1

I picked up the Ales Kot written volume of Secret Avengers in a back issue hunt, and there was an ad for Captain America from when Sam Wilson had the shield, and I went, "Oh yeah, Sam was Captain America for a hot minute there." I'd completely forgotten that. I don't even know what Marvel has going on with Sam these days.

Anyway, here's a couple of the comics from last month that finally showed up in the mail this week. The third issue of two different mini-series.

Atomic Robo: Dawn of a New Era #3, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Shannon Murphy (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer) - Bernard's just a little freaked because he didn't realize the machine had a vibrate setting.

Bernard has found the princess of the underground kingdom, or she found him, and something is going on. The Earth is going to be unmade? That doesn't sound good, although perhaps not the worst idea looking at what's going on around us. In other developments, Jenkins has returned for the first time since, Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur? Which was 2013. Now he looks like Cable. I'm not joking. Glowy, scarred eye, white hair, lots of belt pouches. Much grumpier and more vocal than he used to be. No metal limbs, unless he's hiding a metal hand under the bandages.

He's been busy tearing apart Majestic, but it turns out they were barely stopping a full-scale invasion from the Vampire Dimension, and with them gone, the vampires are about to conquer everything. that's bad, although I'm curious when the vampires figured out how to cross dimensions. They always appeared nearly mindless. Anyway, Jenkins isn't really impressed by the resources Robo has on hand, so we'll see how that goes.

Things escalated quickly. I thought Vik and Lang encountering vampires was going to be a simple sideplot. An extended gag about their vacation gone awry while Robo is comfortably at home introducing ALAN to the works of P.G. Wodehouse. Never mind that. I'm not sure how this is going to play out. It feels like Bernard's situation is relevant to the vampire issue, but I'm not exactly sure of that. It's nice to see Jenkins again. I would have thought he'd be more aware of what Robo was up to these days, but I guess when you're waging a one-man war from the shadows you don't keep up with your friends' social media.

Joking about Jenkins' look aside, I kind of like it. With as pale as he's colored, the way he grits his teeth, that weird round thing where his left ear used to be, he has a bit of a Frankenstein's monster vibe to him. Man has been through some stuff in the last 5+ years

Mega Ghost #3, by Gabe Soria (writer), Gideon Kendall (artist/colorist/letterer) - I see the Terrible Trio abandoned Gotham City for a more pleasant locale.

The moral of today's story is to not get a swelled head. Martin's feeling pretty cocky about how well he's protecting the city, so when it turns out his sister and her two friends have turned some roadkill into eldritch powered exosuits they can use to fight evil, we end up with a turf war instead of a team-up. Eventually Martin finds himself overwhelmed by an enemy and has to swallow his pride and ask his sister for help.

I like that Morgan assures Martin they used roadkill for the familiars, rather than seeking out and killing animals themselves. It's merely creepy, rather than potentially psychopathic. I feel so much better.

I like some of the monster designs. The Mechtoskeletons make for a good group villain look. Not something too difficult for the artist to draw several of in a bunch of panels, but not too bland. Most of the book is in dark colors since a lot of it takes place at night, plus the whole "monsters of the night" motif, so the panel of the explosion contrasts nicely with its use of a nice bright red and orange. Really makes it pop more than it might in a book with a brighter color scheme.

I don't really have a lot else to say on the issue. It's fine, I just think it's becoming more apparent it's probably aimed at a different audience than me. Younger one, most likely, which is a good idea, and sometimes that stuff still works for me. I don't think this is one of those times.

What I Bought 2/15/2019 - Part 1

Last week, I went to meet with a person we regulate to look at something they had a question about. I did this on Lincoln's birthday, because when I made the appointment, I had forgotten our state gives its employees that as a holiday. By the time I remembered, it was too late to reschedule. Not the stupidest thing I've ever done, but not one of the brighter things either. Now, let's celebrate President's Day with comic reviews! About books that have nothing to do with presidents! What do you expect? How often do I do posts on holidays that are at all relevant to the holiday in question? Answer: Twice a year, three times tops.

Atomic Robo: The Dawn of the New Era #2, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Shannon Murphy (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer) - Excellent pose Robo, except this is not the cover of GQ, or Popular Mechanics.

Robo has built ALAN a new body, and is teaching him how to use it. ALAN raised the question of whether he'd died once already, and that's not a conversation Robo's ready to have (since he's the one who killed ALAN). The new students have found a mysterious underground facility in a leftover building, but haven't gone exploring yet.  I couldn't help noticing that one of the students has dyed the top his hair pink, which used to be Foley's thing. But now she's dyed that section of her hair green instead.

Bernard seems caught in some bizarre loop underground which is doing nothing for his confidence in his sanity. Vik and Lang were supposed to get to test an idea of Vik's involving a particle accelerator, but have stumbled into vampire problems instead.

Well, they say they're vampires, but the way Wegener's drawing them, they look more like bipedal rat people. The art does get a little sketchy and ill-defined at that point, although the more simplified approach for their victims in the final panel works well. He uses it a couple of other times, once when the students find the secret place, and it really shows off their fright. So yeah, it works there. It feels like a deliberate stylistic choice, rather than running out of time to ink, or that the colors are overwhelming the linework. When they go for close-ups on characters, there's some good work there. Especially Bernard and his increasing confusion and panic.

Things are kind of slowly. A lot of different threads advancing a little at a time. Which could be frustrating if I was only interested in one of them. As it turns out, I'm actually curious about all of them. How a doorway to the Vampire Dimension was opened. What the hell's happening with Bernard. What trouble the students are about to cause, and how Foley's going to handle it. Whether Robo can actually raise a son, without it deciding to wipe out all humanity. Maybe it's because all of them are still in such early stages that I'm seeing the vast array of possibilities. That always seems to be the part I like best, since the direction an author takes their story is rarely the theory I liked best. But we'll see.

Giant Days #47, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - I didn't realize Daisy was a big fan of Bullit. Man, that's a dated reference, and a weak one. But I can more easily picture her watching that than Fast and the Furious.

Daisy is acting oddly certain she's a good driver, despite the stream of traumatized instructors. She does pass her test, although I'm convinced her examiner was legally blind. McGraw's brother has come to visit bearing invites for his wedding. Also he's pulling a lot of pranks. Most of them involving smearing food substances on surfaces people touch with their bare skin. Rest assured, neither Pollock nor I will resort to such stupidity in our annual April Fool's Day struggles. We're too high-class. Bucket full of water over the door for the win!

Oh, and Dean Thompson snuck his adorable little dog Perkin into their home, and finds a surprising ally in Esther, who helps hide and care for the pooch. Until her tendency to forget important details almost gets the dog run over. But she and Dean actually, mostly got along! By their standards.

Perkin really is very cute. Sarin and Cogar did excellent work to make me actually like a scrap of fur like that. Cutsey-poo dogs are not my thing. Dean gets some excellent outraged expressions, all of them related to something Esther is saying or doing at that moment. Even if all she's doing is existing.

I think the bit I laughed at hardest was Esther describing Susan and Daisy as a 'coterie of flibbetigibbts!' I love odd, out-of-style words like that. I watched Hotel Artemis last weekend, Jodie Foster called a guy a "nogoodnik", I made a mental note to use that sometime soon. Yes, I'm strange. Although I thought it was "flibbertigibbits", with an "r" in there. That or the McGraw brothers' peculiar blend of skills as they try to figure out which way Perkin would have gone. Next month is the McGraw wedding! After meeting his brother, I can't wait to see the rest of the family. The facial hair alone should be a delight. I hope Sarin goes nuts with it. Van Dykes, mutton chops, Fu Manchus, all manner of hirsute abominations I can't even conceive of.

Can you tell I'm typing this during yet another day I don't want to go out in the snow?

What I Bought 1/26/2019 - Part 1

The weather wasn't crappy last weekend, I managed to make it out to visit Alex. As usual, that didn't go as planned. I did find almost every comic I was looking for from the first four weeks of the year (Coda being the exception). So let's start with the oldest stuff first and move forward.

Giant Days #46, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Jeremy Lawson (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - I expected to see more evidence of bile in Susan's eye than that.

The comic store Esther works at is being robbed. Susan, in an effort to regain her edge, agrees to hit the mean streets to find the thief. For those sequences, Sarin and Lawson adopt a stark black and white color scheme, while Susan tries to narrate like some hard-boiled shamus. A hard-boiled shamus who has to call her boyfriend to ask which drain pipe is best suited to shimmy up. Fortunately, given Susan's limited lung capacity, it doesn't come to that, and the culprit is caught. Susan doesn't get cash, instead getting stuck with some limited edition Vegeta figure - hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa!

That's pretty much it. The entire issue is Susan putting her sleuthing skills to use, which is fine. It was funny. I wonder if this is going to satisfy Susan, or if she'll embark on more dangerous schemes to recapture a bit of her old fire. I wouldn't mind it if it means she'll put it to a use other than making snide remarks to Ed about how unmasculine in his (Like the boy doesn't struggle with that enough internally already.) I guess threatening to punch Dean Thompson counts, although if Dean can stick and move for about 35 seconds, Susan will probably have a heart attack. At least she doesn't vape. Christ those commercials with the puppets about how vaping isn't safer than smoking are irritating. I don't smoke, I don't need this information!

I like the black and white look as a selective thing. It conveys the vibe Susan's going for, and it makes a nice contrast from the regularly colored pages and their reality of a gawky, stupid teen boy trying to crawl down a drain pipe. Also, the smug look Esther gives Susan after he's caught was pretty great.

Next issue, we find out what Daisy's like as a driver. Apparently a terror, but what kind specifically I'm curious to see.

Atomic Robo: Dawn of the New Era #1, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Shannon Murphy (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer) - I wound up with the variant cover, but this is a nice one, too.

Robo is continuing to teach baby ALAN down in his private lab. Presumably to keep ALAN from deciding to wipe out humanity with a lot of nukes he uses to power a massive ship for himself like the last version did. Bernard is taking a trip underground through an extinct volcano, while still trying to get over how he didn't want to come back the last time he went underground. Robo told him he's there to keep an eye on their new exoplant explorer prototype, but it's apparently there to keep an eye on Bernard.  Robo, maybe just spring for a damn therapist, 'cause this feels uncomfortably underhanded. I mean, Bernard's either trying to convince everyone else he's fine, or maybe just himself.

Lang and Vik are going on vacation, and apparently Vik is much older than I thought, judging by his entirely grey beard. Which leaves Foley to train the new interns/students, who are already privately discussing snooping around White Sands, which I'm sure will not prove catastrophic. Maybe this time Robo will get his act together and not completely ignore problems occurring in his own backyard.

The last Robo mini-series I was not a fan of the coloring. It too often turned things into a muddy mess of vague shapes and outlines. Shannon Murphy is on as colorist in place of Anthony Clark and early returns are promising. Granting we haven't seen any action sequences yet, which is when I thought things got at their worst in Spectre of Tomorrow, the colors here mesh with Wegener's linework better, instead of overpowering it. Murphy's colors don't necessarily seem brighter, but maybe the contrast between them is greater. It gives things a soft, relaxed feel, except during Bernard's descent, where Murphy draws the darker shadows as if they're closing in, waiting to crash down on him.

Sunday Splash Page #44

"Conan Needs to Hit the Gym", in Atomic Robo and the Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur #4, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

I really enjoy Dr. Dinosaur as an antagonist, because Robo tries to take this fairly logical approach to science, and here's this thing claiming to be a time-traveling Velociraptor scientist going full Silver Age DC. Everything powered by crystals. A "time bomb" that is five nukes put together in the shape of a dinosaur. It's all just completely daffy, and yet his stuff works.

At some point Robo really needs to invest more time in figuring out how it works, instead of constantly insisting it can't, since it clearly does.

The question was whether Dr. Dinosaur's shtick would get old over five issues, since he's typically a one-off villain. I think it held up, by Clevinger and Wegener wisely keep things split up enough he isn't front and center constantly. Bernard and the other Action Scientists get roped into helping liberate the citizens of Hollow Earth from Dr. Dinosaur (Bernard's still grappling with the fallout from that). Majestic-12 makes an overt move against Tesladyne while Robo's away that gets a lot of time.

This is kind of an odd mini-series because, while most Atomic Robo mini-series have one full-page splash, two tops, this one had at least seven. I don't know if Wegener asked to go big more often, or if he and Clevinger felt it suited the unusual setting (three or four of those splash pages are showing the landscape or a city), or they just wanted a change of pace. Of course, Dr. Dinosaur usually has a lot of dialogue, broken up into panels of him saying something, then pausing for effect, then some addendum. 

(Example: Panel 1: "From Hell's Heart I stab at thee!" Panel 2: silent pause Panel 3: "In the heart!" Panel 4: "Ha!")

So maybe it balances everything out. And I did enjoy most of the splash pages. Wegener made good use of the space, and Filardi's colors pop nicely, with all the neon pink and green playing against the muted greys and blues that otherwise dominate the subterranean world.

Sunday Splash Page #43

"Jet Packs For Everyone!", in Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #3, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Nick Filardi (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

One thing I find interesting about Robo is that, even with decades to hone his abilities, there's a lot of things he's still not very good at. Like flying, for instance. Robo's prototype jet gets shot down at the start of this mini-series, he's up against a Japanese ace who shot him down twice over China during the war, and when they have a showdown at the end, the guy outclasses him as a pilot again. Although it's funny to see that Robo's response to be fighting flying things is to keep throwing himself at them like a missile. Even though he can't, you know, fly.

This isn't one of my favorite Atomic Robo mini-series. It isn't bad, but because the story involves him being dropped into a situation he was entirely unprepared for, there are times he feels almost sidelined. Some of that is a necessity for introducing the situation he's fallen into, and especially trying to flesh out the She-Devils as individual characters. It's a little different than a story where there's perhaps one new character to try and build up (like Dr. Dinosaur or Bernard).

But there's some lovely color work by Filardi, especially a panel later in the issue the splash page is from of the She-Devils' island base being destroyed. There's a silent panel in an earlier issue of their airship flying over the ocean at twilight that was lovely, too. And there are airplane to jetpack dogfights, which are cool.

Sunday Splash Page #42

"Into the Wild Taupe Yonder" in Atomic Robo: Ghost of Station X #1, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Ronda Pattison (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

Ghost of Station X was the first Atomic Robo mini-series I actually bought as it came out. Probably the first one I bought, period, since I think it convinced me to go and track down the trades of the first five volumes.

This time around Robo is suckered into rushing to the edge of the atmosphere in a hastily cobbled together aircraft, only to nearly be killed by a satellite dropped out of orbit at him like a missile. While he tries to determine who's behind that attack, two of his employees (the same two who built the "evil" quantum computer in The Shadow from Beyond Time are dragged into trying to find a missing house that belonged to British Intelligence. The two threads naturally intertwine.

I didn't have any idea who or what Majestic-12 was, so that turn was entirely lost on me. Actually, I still have a lot of trouble distinguishing them from Delphi and some of the other secret organizations Robo's tangled with. The series did start the stretch where Robo and eventually Tesladyne were in dutch with the U.S. government, which continued up through Ring of Fire, and certain other developments from this play into the most recent two mini-series.

For how serious things get, this is still a pretty funny story. Martin and Lewis (the 'evil' computer makers) come up with a lot of crazy theories to explain the missing building, and there's an extended sequence where Robo gets help from a bunch of truckers and ham radio enthusiasts. Plus, we find out that Robo actually wears hospital gowns when he's getting repaired, and is awkward about people being able to see his butt. 'Less robutt, more ropants,' is a good line.

Sunday Splash Page #41

"She's got that METAL FEVER, baby" in Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #3, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Ronda Pattison (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

Skipping over volume 4, which didn't have any full-page splashes I particularly like, to Volume 5. Where Robo teams up with a mysterious masked vigilante in the 1930s to investigate a series of bizarre thefts. There's a theme running across multiple characters of fathers and their children and how they interact, how the kids struggle to get the parents to trust them, understand them, take them seriously, and how the parents struggle to express their feelings.

Look, we're talking about men in the 1930s here. It's a miracle they didn't spontaneously combust at the mere thought of feelings. In fact, enough talk about feelings, let's talk about the fact this story involves a Tesla versus Edison bizarre energies battle for the fate of New York, and possibly the world.

It is also, as the picture above suggests, Robo's first romance, although it kind of falls apart when Helen realizes Robo's actual, physical age.

It's a funny story, watching Robo be a total nerd who thinks the masked man Jack Tarot should behave like the pulp heroes Robo enjoys reading about, and watching Jack be utterly frustrated from having to deal with all this bizarre crap when he just wants to shoot some gangsters and crooked politicians, dang it. Watching Robo and Tesla sass each other is funny, and Edison has a robot goon, basically, who steals Tarot's hat at one point, then wears it at a jaunty angle the rest of the way. Which is a visual I really enjoy, just for the silliness of it.

Still waiting for Ghost Edison to do something, though.

Sunday Splash Page #40

"All Those Exposed Pipes Have to be a Safety Hazard," in Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time #5, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Ronda Pattison (color artist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

I almost went with the page from issue 3 of Robo and Carl Sagan chatting outside a diner, but Obviously Evil Computer won out. This might be my favorite Atomic Robo mini-series. Strong contender, to be sure. Robo fighting against some creature from outside time and space that keeps reappearing again and again through his life, as Robo struggles to stop it.

There's a clever twist to how the creature operates relative to how we perceive time, appearances from H.P. Lovecraft, Carl Sagan, and mathematician Charles Fort (he and Sagan have different perspective on causality), a lot of good one-liners. Plus 1920s Robo's version of swearing. I need to start using "banana oil" and "horsefeathers" as dismissive remarks in my daily life.

Because the story takes place across several decades, Wegener gets to draw a variety of locales, and Robo in a variety of outfits (which helps for telling them apart near the end). I'm especially fond of 1970s Robo wearing a Gilligan hat. Does Robo even need to worry about getting too much sun on his head? I suppose it might make his brain overheat. Plus, lightning guns! Everybody loves lightning guns!

Sunday Splash Page #39

"The Diaper Remains Unexplained To This Day," in Atomic Robo #4, by Brian Clevinger (words), Scott Wegener (artist), Rhonda Pattison (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer)

I haven't, at present, decided exactly how many of these mini-series I'm going to highlight. At least one more for certain (spoiler for next Sunday!) This is the very first Atomic Robo mini-series, explaining the beginnings of his conflict with Helsingard (although not their first encounter), establishing the set-up of his company of Tesladyne with its teams of "Action Scientists", and at least one of Robo's conflicts with a famous scientist (not Edison).

It also establishes one of the aspects of Robo I tend to think about the most, how much older he is than we might think, and the issues that presents him with. It's something the creative team has touched on at other times, and it sounds as though Robo's starting to think about it more himself if the solicits for the next mini-series are anything to go by. It doesn't bog down the book, it's just something they put in there that the reader can keep in mind.

Most of what I enjoy is the humor, and the crazy science stuff. From Robo's confrontation with Helsingard's ineffectual troops on 1938 ('Then we're restraining you!' 'Not very well.') to his declaration that Buicks have been the best weapon against giant bugs since the 1950s, it's a funny book. Considering Robo's face only has his eyes to express emotion, Wegener's very good at getting across what Robo's thinking, and drawing strange science stuff. Like giant insects, but also a steampowered mobile pyramid, and a brain in a jar controlling a big robot body. Which, let's be honest, being able to draw brains in jars doing evil stuff is a necessity if you're going to draw a book with weird science stuff.

What I Bought 3/9/2018

Someone at work is stealing my writing utensils. A pencil Monday, a pen yesterday. It's very annoying. Yes, I considered the possibility I left them somewhere, but I checked everywhere I had been, and they weren't there.

Giant Days #36, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Just sittin' and thinkin' on a box, nothin' unusual at all. No sirree, she and her friends didn't strangle a classmate and toss her in a trunk as some sort of test, ala Hitchcock's Rope, nope.

Daisy breaks up with Ingrid, during an art exhibition Ingrid was having in the dilapidated warehouse she lives in. The bus drivers that were admiring her work get some performance art to go with it. Daisy then sinks into a depression for two weeks, emerging just in time for the girls to move out for the summer. Unfortunately, Daisy's return home is going to be a little awkward since her grandma found out about Daisy dating Ingrid from a heartbroken Ingrid (and it had to be an extra, final gutpunch for Ingrid to realize Daisy never did tell her grandmother about the two of them). Well, I was wondering how Daisy was going to end up talking about her sexual orientation with her grandma if she and Ingrid were breaking up, since I didn't see Daisy broaching the topic otherwise.

Kudos to Allison and Sarin here, for actually making me feel bad for Ingrid. I haven't really liked her, because she seems exactly the sort of person I would hate and avoid in real life, but that may just be her loud personality. And because Daisy's kept her doubts from Ingrid, preferring to pretend everything is fine, it came as a blindside. The range of emotions Ingrid goes through in a few pages, even just in one page, from stunned, to quietly asking Daisy to leave, to going nuclear at Daisy's platitudes. Still the right move for Daisy; being with Ingrid was making her miserable, but I had been anticipating the break-up almost as gleefully as Susan and Esther, so I didn't expect to feel sympathetic.

Sarin actually inks himself this issue, rather than Liz Fleming acting as inker. I think people looked a little rounder, possibly. Mostly I thought that with Esther, she normally has a bit of a rough edge, especially around her eyes, and it wasn't present. That might have been because it's going into summertime, people are feeling cheerful and upbeat, relaxed. Look, I'm the wrong guy to describe to you the value of inkers. I know it's definitely a thing, I just stink at perceiving it.

Also, I wonder if, having seen her dad and McGraw together, Susan notices disturbing similarities in them. I'm not sure what I expected her father to be like, but that wasn't it.

Atomic Robo: The Spectre of Tomorrow #5, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer/designer) - That's the most peculiar Atomic Robo cover I've ever seen.

Robo tries to elude Helsingard's creatures to destroy the giant computer brain Helsingard has taken control of. Robo is actually the decoy to let his little pink robots reprogramming the computer to eat itself, essentially. Another Helsingard bites the dust. Wonder how many that leaves. Bernard snaps out of his funk long enough to save Foley, steal Helsingard's jump jet, and get the three of them back home. Where Lang and Vik's extortion of Elon Musk has gotten their building permits reinstated! They have a functioning toilet now! Which Robo has probably never seen, because he went back into his basement lab again (also, he doesn't need a bathroom). That is not at all concerning (the returning to the basement part, not the lack of need for a bathroom)!

Not a bad conclusion. Clevinger and Wegener set up a couple of things for future stories, although I have a hard time getting interested in yet another mysterious, quasi-government organization. I can't keep track of all the ones they've introduced in the past. As for the unexpected side effect of Robo's little bots interacting with ALAN, maybe Robo can teach them? Though I recall he said the more of them there were, the more they link up and increase their intelligence. Which seems ominous, given what ALAN was up to when he and Robo first crossed paths.

The art is variable from one panel to the next. I still think the coloring is overwhelming Wegener's linework, and the colors being duller and muddy - at least on paper, maybe it looks better online - doesn't help. It makes things seem murky, or at times like they were hastily drawn. The panels above aren't the worst by any stretch, but the idea of the creature being unable to see Bernard because of how muddy he was amused me. The page of Robo dropping in among the Praetorians and throwing haymakers looks pretty good, but then the next page, the first panel looks like Robo was only partially sketched in and the colors are trying to suggest the rest of him. It's frustrating, because it could, and has, looked better in the past.

What I Bought 2/7/2018 - Part 1

These aren't from this week, they're actually from last month. I'm saving the third book for Monday, because it's the end of a story arc. In the meantime, one of these two is still ramping up, and the other is preparing for the conclusion. In other news, Bruce Willis is doing a remake of Death Wish, the Charles Bronson 1970s, "what is society coming to?", or maybe, "minorities are scary" movie. Kee-rist, that is not a thing anyone needed, ever.

Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell #2, by Adam Warren (writer), Carla Speed McNeil (artist and letterer), Jenn Manley Lee (colorist) - Being attacked by emojis? Yeah, that sounds like Hell.

Spooky is able to get her and Emp out of the biology lab of horror by playing on Bethany's fear of the preserved specimens. If I though the dissected frog assistants last issue were creepy, the formaldehyde, whatever those were, hog fetuses? Yeah, those are more disturbing. Then they're forced to fight a pair of students using their phones to physically harm people, rather than emotionally. Although if Emp or Spooky had time to read the texts, it would probably hurt emotionally as well. They get out of that situation, so only three dozen more crazy, entitled high school girls to go. So I have to assume they're going to pick up the pace big time on defeating these girls, if there's only four issues left.

Although it's curious to me that there's still a "Queen Bee" girl, given the stakes. The Infernal Service Provider has said the fewer of them there are, the more of Spooky's magic each will get. Rushing out to fight them on the orders of some other girl seems a poor choice. Given there are supposed to be the stereotypical entitled mean girls, I would expect someone to try and backstab or coup against Ashley.

McNeil is giving Spooky a tired air throughout this whole thing. Not that she isn't in danger, or the attacks aren't hurting, but she's already been through a wringer, and beaten herself up about it. And she already survived these girls once. Their attacks may have a little more power behind them, but it's the same stuff they used to do. They haven't grown or evolved, and she has. She can think circles around them. I'm more worried about Emp, who has always struggled a bit in the face of scorn from others, including Spooky. It looks like the fight in the library took more of a toll on her. So that'll be something to monitor.

Atomic Robo: The Spectre of Tomorrow #4, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer, designer) - I went with the variant cover because that thing is freaking boss. Just now I've had a vision: Atomic Robo/Haunted Tank team-up! It's glorious, I tell you.

Back in the actual story, Helsingard wants to team up with Robo. The robots that attacked were some of his, that were overtaken by ALAN's programming when he came looking to loot all those nukes. As it turns out, all the people falling apart because they're cyborgs are also his soldiers, an even more advanced design, that are also being controlled by the rogue programming. Sooooo, awkward, uneasy team-up! Yeah! And before the end of the issue, Helsingard has allowed himself to be pulled into the network, and overtaken it by force of will. That's either a very bad thing, or a good thing. Good because it means Robo can try killing two of his enemies at once. Saves time.

In other developments, Vik and Lang have found a way to get construction going again, by extorting Elon Musk to call an emergency meeting of the community members, and vote in Telsadyne's favor. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Was part of that because I'm side-eyeing Elon shooting a goddamn car into outer space this week, and I enjoyed a fictional version of him having to eat shit? Maybe!

Man, I don't know if Wegener's rushed, or just disinterested, or Clark's colors are overwhelming the linework, or what, but damn the art has looked sloppy in this story. There are some panels where Robo is a vaguely defined grey blob. I went back and looked at the third volume, Shadow from Beyond Time, and the difference in how crisp the art looks is night and day. And some of it is definitely the colors (that series was colored by Ronda Pattison), because the colors were a lot brighter in that mini-series than they are here. It drove home how muddy things look now. But there are times where it looks as though Wegener didn't even bother to draw some lines, and is letting the coloring suggest their existence. It's too bad, because this is a pretty cool story, but the art's not carrying its share of the load.

What I Bought 1/6/2018

I went running this morning, fortunately before the front moved in and the wind chill went below zero. I had to hop off the road because of an approaching vehicle and as my stride was bringing my left leg forward, my right leg slipped in the snow and slid right in front of the left. So my left knee has bruised the hell out of the right calf. Fun and games.

Let's jump into some comics from 2018. I have all the books I wanted from the last two weeks, so we'll work through those over this week and early next week. Going to start with a couple of mini-series.

Atomic Robo: The Spectre of Tomorrow #3, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer and design) - I'm sure they'll prove useful, but those little robots creep me out. Make me think of ticks, bleh.

People are continuing to barf out robotic guts and collapse, and CERES is not getting anywhere figuring out the cause. Maybe if they spent less time taking down footage of the events from the Internet they'd get somewhere. Robo is continuing to receive the data secretly and recognizes the same signal ALAN, the sentient computer that was going to leave Earth (and eradicate all life in the process) used, and heads to Hashima Island to investigate. He encounters some strange creature, and what's worse, Helsingard in an even stranger body. Yes, stranger than his usual brain in a jar mounted on a robot body.

I still feel this is someone trying to cause a panic, and Helsingard would seem a likely choice, except causing fear isn't really his style. He tends to conquer or kill. Dr. Fischer got accidentally taken along. We'll see if he drags himself from the depths of depression to make a contribution (or if Robo actually notices and tries and address that). Robo's really been a lousy boss this entire mini-series, or maybe he's always been bad at being a boss.

 Wegener has a tendency to simply his style when the characters in the panel are in the middle or far distance, because he uses a thick line, and to attempt to add too much detail would turn everything into a muddle. But there are a few panels in here where things are almost vague shapes more than characters (the panel after the creature tears through the plane, for one). Also, whether it's Wegener's job or Clark's, they need to add a pupil to characters' eyes in those panels as well. Sometimes they get away with it, and others it like my eyes are drawn immediately to the empty white spaces that are their eyeballs. There's one of Lang and Vik in particular that bothers me. I can't concentrate on anything else in the panel.

That said, I like the design on the robot, and the fight between it and Robo is good (although I still wonder how Robo's not better at fighting after all these years). It's brief, but there's a flow to it. Let Robo and the creature fight it out for a couple pages, establish what they're up against. Then Foley gets involved with the grenade launcher, which adds another element (and they break up the fight by cutting to a panel of her doing something or reacting every three panels or so). Then throw in the surprise, last-page arrival of possibly the villain. Things go bad, things get better, things go bad ahead, things get better, or possibly worse. It's well done.

The best part was Robo stealing Richard Branson's plane to get to Hashima, and referring to himself in third person when Branson does the same while asking why he's stealing the plane. I like that as a little bit of revenge for all the grief Branson's giving them. Even better, the plane was wrecked five seconds into their arrival on the island.

And I'd love to see Robo outfit himself with a rocket punch. Why not? Oooh, and some of those gravity boots like Samus Aran has, so he can double-jump! I'm being entirely serious.

Rogue and Gambit #1, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Frank D'Armata (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - It seems like bad tactics for Rogue to be arriving at the thing she's going to punch at the same time Gambit's exploding playing cards get there. Let one set up the other, right?

There's a couples' therapy island where mutants are vanishing, so Kitty (who looks strange with short hair) sends Rogue and Gambit, since it would be better if the duo actually have relationship issues. Now let's face it, you could pick any of about 50 X-Men, and find at least 10 others they'd have relationship issues with, but yeah, those two have a mess of them, and Gambit is in theory good at sneaking, so sure, why not? He keeps trying to rekindle things, Rogue keeps trying to maintain distance. Because she's a reasonably intelligent woman. The last page looks bad, but is probably a misdirection.

Basically a set-up issue. Get the pieces where they need to be, explain why they're there, establish current dynamic between them. The book does that reasonably well, although I can't disagree with people who say this relationship needs to be left in the past. I think Rogue's experienced enough that she can tell Gambit is never going to be someone she can count on in a relationship. He insists that they could try just being friends, but can't stop flirting and hinting that she must still be into him. Then he gets indignant about her kissing Deadpool, and Rogue points out she's had to hear about his escapades from other X-Men plenty of times. Gambit is always going to be that kind of person.

(To be fair to Gambit, not a phrase I expected to type, he brought up Deadpool because Rogue is back to using her powers as an excuse to maintain distance, and he pointed out she had her powers during her little session with Deadpool. Although perhaps Gambit should take the hint.)

But even if this mini-series tries to draw a line under that relationship, and there's no guarantee it will, we know someone else will come along eventually and try to start it up again. The same way writers have kept drifting back around to Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, even when that is a terrible idea (although thankfully that one has been mostly left alone the last 10 years, since one or the other of them has been dead or Ultron most of that time). So is there a point to this whole exercise then? I guess hope it can be entertaining.

And there were some parts I liked. Rogue deciding, if Gambit is going to bring up Deadpool, to use Wade to hit Gambit in his ego, where it'll hurt the most. The Danger Room session, where apparently Rogue/Gambit is a topic of much discussion among the students.

Pere Perez does a double-page splash of the Rogue and Gambit seemingly at each others' throats that is foreshadowing something. The background is one of those fragmented mirrors, where the shards are showing different moments from their shared history. There was one panel I thought Perez was trying to mimic one of the Kubert brother's '90s art (if you flip through the issue, it's the one in the lower right, with Gambit being carried by Rogue, and he's wearing a high-collared jacket), and maybe a couple of the others, but I can't be sure. Since most of the issue is talking, there's a lot of panels or people just sitting and talking, but Perez does a good job of making the body language clear and work together with the expressions and the dialogue. His work looks smoother than I remember the last time I saw it, which was either the Bryan Q. Miller Batgirl series, or that Power Man and Iron Fist mini-series from 5 or 6 years ago. But D'Armata's colors work also seems more varied and with greater depth than what I remember the colorists of those books doing, so maybe that's what's different.

Overall, I don't think there's anything wrong with the writing or art. Everyone involved is doing solid work. I'm mostly unsure about the point of it, I guess, and whether I care enough at this point to pick up the second issue.

What I Bought 12/6/2017 - Part 1

When the trailer for Infinity War popped up, I kind of shrugged. Figured I was over the whole thing of movies with superheroes teaming up. Been there, seen that, not letting some massive company jerk me around. But then I watched the trailer and caught myself humming the Avengers' theme four hours afterward, so there goes my jaded comics fan cred. Comics I missed from November have arrived! Let's start with the books that are regulars here.

Copperhead #16, by Jay Faerber (writer), Drew Moss (artist), Ron Riley (colorist), Thomas Mauer (letterer) - By issue's end, that is not nearly as comforting a cover image as I'd hoped.

Sheriff Bronson is captured after what looks like a hell of a struggle. Clay leaves his current lady to guard the sheriff while he tries to track down his son. While Interim Sheriff Ford tries to find Clara, difficult when he doesn't have informants, and won't trust Boo. Clara sets to telling Annabeth the story of how she wound up with custody of Zeke, mostly to try turning Annabeth against Clay. Hard telling if that's gonna work. And now the "artie" is the only one standing between Zeke and his dad.

I have not been a huge fan of Drew Moss' art, but I enjoyed the facial expressions this month. He exaggerated the faces a bit, but it works. It makes the characters a little more lively, sells the story. That Clara's a prisoner, but still working the situation to her advantage. He still struggles a little with proportions, but he seemed to find a mostly strong balance between the panels where he can really focus on more details, and the ones where he's better off going simpler.

I'm curious to see how what happened to Clara's sister played a role in Clara being like she is. It isn't too hard to see her being protective of Zeke as a desire to protect the last piece of her sister, but it doesn't explain her being so dogged as a sheriff. Especially in light of what we hear in the flashback, about how she's drifting, always looking for the excuse not to commit to any path. Even if the necessity of raising a child forced her to stick to a job, she could still halfass it easily enough, but that isn't her style. She's the type of cop who never lets go of a case. A 180 from where she was before.

Atomic Robo and the Spectre of Tomorrow #2, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer, designer) - The more I get to see of Lang, the more I enjoy her direct, loud response to problems.

Robo has been doing a shitty job getting Tesladyne running. Given all these cybernetic people suddenly very publicly collapsing, which will likely cause a panic, I'd call it a suspiciously shitty job. He hadn't informed anyone that he was ignoring complaints from Richard Branson which have halted their work. Which has just about pushed Lang (and to a lesser extent Vik) to the brink. And Fischer's grasp on sanity is slipping fast.

I'm pretty sure all these cyborgs are failing because someone wants everyone pointing fingers and witchhunting. What they stand to gain, I'm not sure. Robo is tossing around ideas as to who's behind it, but I don't think he's on the right track. But he seems so distracted all the time. Maybe he just has no idea how to run any sort of company, despite having owned one for 50+ years. I could see that. Or his "death" and subsequent 110+ years spent as a deactivated head sitting in a forgotten box has altered his perspective on things.

Foley continues to serve effectively as the POV character, watching everything going to hell around her, Lang reaching a boiling point, and being confused at what is wrong with Robo.

I like the color choices Clark is making. He keeps using this kind of neon or glow-in-the-dark colors for each of the cyborgs as they break down around the world, while all the other people in the panels are colored in grey, maybe a bit of highlighting coming from the cyborg. But it conveys an otherworldly feel to them. When Foley ventures into the depths to find Robo, there's a faint pink tinting to her, a light source with no apparent source, which feeds into the uneasy sense that something's not right at Tesladyne. All the pipes and tunnels remind me of Robo's speech about "evil computers" from The Shadow from Beyond Time.

What I Bought 11/2/2017 - Part 1

As it turned out, there were three books I wanted out last week, instead of two. Both books had a part where I think they went for humor, but they hadn't counted on the irritating stuff in my personal life souring my outlook on the perils of living near other people.

Giant Days #32, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (penciler), Liz Fleming (inker), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - This month, Esther is forced to confront her fear of commitment, and must make actual decisions. Or she's stuck in some 32 hour long game of Risk.

The girls' apartment is kind of a crap shack, and the lease is up for renewal. However, Esther's boss at the comic store has a friend who is moving out because he's too depressed over his divorce (and he is destroyed, the expressions Sarin gives him are so sad it's almost heartbreaking, but also hilarious). Esther is ecstatic at her find, but Susan has decided to try living with McGraw (who is tired of Dean Thompson), and Ingrid has issued Daisy the ultimatum: Move in with her in this barely standing warehouse, or they're through. Daisy, haunted by heartbroken Mika, caves. Which leaves Esther with a lovely place to move, and no roommates. Except, perhaps Ed, who is also through with Dean and lost McGraw.

The forward momentum on this book continues to impress. Just last issue the girl's seemed to resolve their differences, and now they're scattering across town. At least it's reluctant, they aren't pissed at each other or anything. It's McGraw's fault. He had to go and jinx that truce he helped negotiate by quoting Neville Chamberlain. Never, ever, hold up a piece of paper and declare, 'Peace in our time.'

I was strangely moved by their landlord's sad reaction to the news the girls would not be renewing the lease. Maybe I was supposed to laugh, but my tendency to reflect wistfully on past adventures produced a different reaction. I wonder if Sandy will somehow remain a recurring character, or if this is truly the end of his ride.

Sarin, Fleming, and Cogar's art continues to sell a lot of the humor, even if this issue had a lot of characters being sad. But they looked sad in lots of different ways. Wistful, or teary-eyed, or Mika with a frown so large it threatens to fall off his face. Esther's nightmare, or the things one has to deal with if Dean Thompson is a roommate. Coming in the living room to that guy lounging on the couch in a short robe would be a deal-breaker for me. The book continues to come through for me.

Atomic Robo: The Spectre of Tomorrow #1, by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Anthony Clark (colorist), Jeff Powell (letterer, designer) - Uh-oh, things floating in bubbles in dark labs. That's never good.

Tesladyne has set up shop in the New Mexico desert, but are running into problems with their contractors, and their neighbors. Well, neighbor, Richard Branson, who declares Robo has violated a number of community association bylaws and is therefore barred from any further work. I would suggest Robo see if he can kick Branson in the junk hard enough to launch him through the ceiling of his stupid spaceport. However, I am currently being harassed by my downstairs neighbor, who complains I walk too loudly and she's trying to get me to move. Which ain't happening, I was here first, she can fuck right off, but end result is, I'm in no mood for Richard Branson's bullshit interfering in the plot advancement.

Anyway, Robo is tinkering with some little A.I. bots in his lab. Fischer is trying to do something with a piece of that glowy rock from Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, which is troubling. And when Phil gives a lecture about the safety aspects of implanting reactors into people, someone stands up, then begins speaking in binary. Probably not good.

Phil met an old Tesladyne employee at those talks, Dr. Julie Walker, and tried to pitch her on coming back. She said no, because she wanted to focus on the real work, rather than putting out fires. She said she'd rather chase funding and grants, than deal with dinosaur attacks. What in the actual fuck?! Maybe it loses some appeal after the third or fourth one.

Clark gave the little robots Robo's working a pleasant pink color. I notice their design is somewhat similar to the one Robo had initially in Ring of Fire, before they were able to build him a more functional body. I don't know if that's deliberate. Wegener doesn't get to draw much weird stuff yet, but he gives a good sense of the in-progress, bare bones state of Tesladyne. And I like using Foley, back from a mission, as a way to introduce us to that state. Even if Foley notes not much has changed since she was last there, it brings us up to speed on the new status quo. Good work there by the team.