2 out of 5

Minor notes in the exciting world of Robo.  RSA is conceptually a good idea – following the snippet format of the first Robo volume to theoretically add to some of our side characters – like the Sparrow – or to explore a fun concept that needs more pages than a few but not enough to merit its own mini – like Robo training with Bruce Lee.  Unfortunately, deciding to fracture these snippets into further snippets across the six issues of volume one ruins most of the momentum, and the majority of them end on flat notes, as though Clevinger just needed some place to toss some details that will work for later stories.  Ideally, with the mix of fresh, non-Wegener artists, Real Science Adventures could be an awesome proving ground of random fun, something Brian is absolutely capable of, with the slew of Free Comic Book Day shorts to prove it.  And within each issue there are two ongoings and two new shorts, and the new shorts generally hit that note, but then a fair share of them are just puzzlingly out there, not even beginning or ending, and so, again, just seeming like historical minutiae that’s either been retro’d into Robo World and that I’m not getting because I don’t know no history OR are blurbs introduced to serve as fodder for something later.  Further jumbling the timeline are the republication of the shorts that appeared in the backs of some of volume 1 and 2.  In part, this is annoying because it sorta’ poos on those of us who bought the original issues in a couple ways – that we could’ve just waited for the trades (assuming those don’t have the shorts, but I dunno) and also that we’re paying dollars for new comics books that have a few pages we’ve already read.  But even for those who didn’t get to see these it was an odd decision because some of them tied into pieces from volume 1 and 2, so their overall effect is a bit ‘meh.’

Wegener’s pulpy covers are a plus.  Unfortunately, content-wise, every issue of volume 1 is hit and miss… leaning a bit more toward the latter category.  Volume 2 shifts to a central story, so we’ll see how this goes in the long run.