Atomic Robo Volume Four: Other Strangeness

Writer: Brian Clevinger; Artwork: Scott Wegener, Dave Flora, Matthew Warlick, Joseph Dellagatta and Eric Allred

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Created in 1923 by scientific pioneer Nikola Tesla, the sentient robot Atomic Robo is the head of Tesladyne, a think tank devoted to investigating the mysteries of science. For over eight decades, Atomic Robo has tangled with Nazi robots, giant insects, alien vampires, and all manner of weirdness. His adventures have been chronicled in a series of limited series written by Brian Clevinger and drawn by Scott Wegener.

I read the first two issues of the original Atomic Robo miniseries back in 2007, and very much enjoyed them. Unfortunately, at the time I never got around to picking up the rest of the series. Purchasing the trade paperback collection of volume one, as well as the succeeding miniseries, is one of those things that's been on the backburner for a while now.

Scott Wegener and letter Jeff Powell recently did a signing at Jim Hanley's Universe in NYC. That gave me the motivation I needed to get back into the weird and wacky world of Atomic Robo. I went to the signing and purchased the latest collected edition, Other Strangeness.

Collecting the four issue miniseries Revenge of the Vampire Dimension and the 2009 Free Comic Book Day special, Other Strangeness could also be titled "A Week in the Life of Atomic Robo." It examines what a typical week offers Atomic Robo and the scientists of Tesladyne. In this case, that would be a return invasion by those alien vampires, a giant monster attack on Japan, a machine gun-toting dinosaur, and a ghostly visitation.

Brian Clevinger does a superb job at writing stories that are funny and ridiculous. At the same time, though, he treats his characters as fully realized, well-rounded people. Atomic Robo and his colleagues may find themselves in situations bizarre and absurd, but they themselves are depicted in a serious manner, rather than part of the punch line. In this way, Clevinger successfully writes humorous stories, but without achieving this at the expense of his cast. In an almost fourth-wall-breaking level of awareness, Atomic Robo and the staff of Tesladyne recognize just how insane and absurd their lives are. This has the effect of actually enhancing the series' humor.

It also helps that the Tesladyne crew is not a group of faceless "redshirts," i.e. potential cannon fodder for the latest issue's menace. Clevinger gives them unique personalities and identities.

Science was never my strong point in school. So I am honestly not certain if the high concept theories that Clevinger throws out at rapid-fire speed are legitimate fields of scientific study. The important thing is, Clevinger scripts his characters in such a manner that, to the reader, they sound completely real and plausible. It certainly comes across as more authentic then the technobabble gobbledygook that routinely plagued Star Trek: The Next Generation. I mean, you would think that lines of dialogue such as "I should be able to locally filter out the counter-signal that's masking the Biomega levels" and "It could be a temporal shadow cast into our time, or a trans-dimensional echo" would come across as just plain absurd. But Clevinger achieves the difficult task of making them work within the context of his stories.

There appears to be a certain level of deconstruction of the common tropes of superheroes, science fiction, and monster movies. On the surface, that is nothing unique. Since the late 1980s, myriad comic book writers have attempted to frame their stories around observations of how utterly silly and cliched the trappings of genre fiction can be. More often than not, though, this comes across as both pretentious and unoriginal, and you end up with the umpteenth example of a writer jumping up and down, waving his hands in the air, shouting "Look at how stupid and childish superheroes really are!"

Atomic Robo deftly avoids this trap, though. Clevinger notes the absurdities of his material, but he does so in a manner that adds to the fun and humor of the book. For example, in one segment of Other Strangeness, there is a detailed argument presented as to precisely why time travel is in all likelihood a scientific impossibility. However, the issue is being debated between Atomic Robo, a sentient crime-fighting robot, and Dr. Dinosaur, a talking mad scientist dinosaur armed with a machine gun and rocket launcher. So you have two absurd characters arguing over whether or not a third thing, time travel, is even more absurd.

In other words, rather than using deconstruction to take pot-shots at superheroes and sci-fi in order to make himself look all "adult" and "sophisticated," Clevinger utilizes and points out the silliness of deconstruction itself to achieve an even greater level of humor in Atomic Robo.

Scott Wegener does some amazing artwork on this series. In can not be easy conveying emotion and characterization in Atomic Robo, a metal being who doesn't even have a mouth. Wegener utilizes the subtleties of body language, altering the stance and bearing of Atomic Robo from panel to panel to communicate what the series' protagonist is feeling. Likewise, Robo has metal "eyelids," and by drawing these in a variety of raised and lowered positions, Wegener can make Robo's face extremely expressive.

Wegener succeeds admirably at rendering the numerous strange and absurd concepts in Clevinger's stories. Wegener is able to imbue the ghosts and monsters and aliens with a humorous quality, while still giving them a sense of reality, so that they do not veer off into cartoony parodies.

I mentioned earlier how Clevinger had developed the supporting cast. Likewise, Wegener, in his designs for the Tesladyne crew, gives each of them distinctive looks, so that these ordinary people appear as interesting and important to the reader as the exotic-looking Robo himself.

Wegener's artwork and storytelling is strong throughout the entire collection, but it is especially impressive in the book's third chapter, "Why Atomic Robo Hates Doctor Dinosaur." A number of panels do not have any dialogue, leaving it to Wegener to carry the story, a task he achieves very well.

The final segment of Other Strangeness is given over to brief vignettes illustrated by other artists. There's some interesting work here. In a couple of these stories, Clevinger engages in a bit of universe building. There is a more serious examination of just how the advanced technology that Tesla put into creating Robo and other inventions is affecting the wider world. With the advent of the Cold War, we see politicians hoping to exploit Tesla's discoveries to military ends, while hoping they will beat the Soviet Union to the punch. When discovers this alternate arms race, we see the usually flippant Robo expressing utter contempt at the government for the years and money wasted attempting to build weapons, when they could have been used to make the world a better place in so many other ways. I hope that in a future miniseries Clevinger delves further into the ideological conflict between Tesladyne and the military's Operation Majestic Twelve.

All in all, Other Strangeness is a fantastic collection of stories. The writing by Clevinger is both humorous and intelligent. Wegener's artwork is simply fantastic. After reading this, I definitely intend to catch up on Atomic Robo with the previous three trade paperbacks, as well as follow future installments of the series.