3 out of 5

In short: this is an enjoyable Robo romp, one that maybe doesn’t stand as well on its own as past Robo arcs – tying into recent-er events much more directly, post-Robo being accused of weapons-harboring, and ALAN (Automatic Learning Algorithm Network) and various government agency dealings – but that has to be expected after 10+ arcs of loose world-building.  And besides, you still get the gist, as this ain’t the complicated dramedy canon of Marvel or DC : Robo’s on the outs with the public, rebuilding Tesladyne to function somewhat autonomously, and has taken an emotional dip as a result, isolating himself from his teammates (much to their humorous consternation, as one plot thread here follows their struggles to circumvent red-tape construction violations for Tesladyne).  While AR pouts and the action scientists barter with neighbors Richard Branson and Elon Musk – I’m a little snippy with including real life people in the comic, but Clevinger doesn’t rub it in our faces like the Simpsons, so much as using it as a funny, but likely, set of similar thinkers who’d bump into each other in the imagined reality of Robo – a sudden threat emerges when some type of 001001-spouting virus overtakes people around the globe.  Antics ensue; Robo gets his mojo back; Clevinger sets up insurmountable odds with fantastically exciting payoffs; and there’s an incredibly satisfying character reemergence.

So what’s up with the middling rating?

Well…

Two things.  One minor, one major… and sort of troubling.  To the minor: ever since Clevinger’s move to IDW, and I’m not exactly sure why this is, but the scope of each arc hasn’t felt as impactful.  The A-story of Robo’s tackling this new threat and the B-story of Tesladyne vs. Richard Branson is a great setup, but it’s all rather mundane feeling; pleasant to read, but mundane.  Brian has excelled in mixing the actionry with the day-to-day paperwork stuff and keeping it chipper, but it’s slow to the punch in this arc.  Still: these are characters and a world we dig, and that we know, so despite this, it’s not a bore, I just miss some of the previous momentum.

The major thing: I don’t know what the hell happened with Scott Wegener’s art in this book, but it looks like thumbnails.  His big and blocky style has a learning curve in terms of reading the spacing and action, sometimes, but he’s gotten better and better over the years, but from issue one, panel one, this looks so, so rushed.  I have no idea if he’s on other projects, or if there’s something going on in his personal life, or if he’s maybe just trying something new that I don’t like, but the book was downright ugly and visually boring at points, leaving regular colorist Anthony Clark with this wiiiide open spaces to fill…  Issue five has an inking assistant – Jenn Doyle – and it’s interesting to note that the art breathes a lot better in this issue.  The lines are still very heavy and detailing is relatively nil, but it gained back some of its energy, so kudos to Doyle.

I guess future issues will tell if this is a permanent change or not; unfortunately, the look of the book really affected my reading pace and potential enjoyment.