3 out of 5

This should work – various issues of Atomic Robo had short little non-sequitor tales in the back by guest artists (all scripted by Clevinger, though, I believe) that would sometimes show more about side characters, sometimes develop some random plot aspect, but more often than not just be an extra few pages of padding on the comic, with Robo facing a various sci-fi villain and punching it out, all in the course of 2 pages or so.  So Real Science Adventures is a comic collection of this style tales – 4 minis per issue, some multi-part, some one-shots.  It should work, since it essentially already did, but it’s just not as much fun as the regular Atomic Robo series.  Why not?

Robo is totally compressed story-telling.  It’s moderately widescreen, but not in a showy fashion, more in the way Grant Morrison used it effectively for All-Star Superman, where each panel actually illustrates entire moments or ideas, not just drawing three panels per page ’cause it looks cool.  Robo will have some very clipped sci-fi babble, 6 panel pages, and then massive action drawn in a pop-pop-pop widescreen style, the most bang for your buck, effortless energy by penciller Scott Wegener.  Robo is so compressed that compressing it even further makes the books almost breathless to read – there’s nothing to absorb.  And though you can say that this is countered by the multi-part storylines, spread over several issues, the same principle still applies – its breathless for a few pages, then you wait a month or two for the next breath that’s somehow supposed to maintain information or motivation from the previous breath.  It’s just too quick, or expects you to wait too long for a blip on the radar.  What works in the monthly format, on occasion – a wink at the end of a full-length story – is exhausting when smashed together.

I’m writing this after volume 1 of Real Science has ended.  It seems my opinion is not alone because the Robo website hints the volume 2 will be more along the lines of full one-shots, which would be great.  Anyhow, I’ll take more of Robo’s world because it’s such a unique and fun one, but this format didn’t do it justice, and if I wasn’t used to the style from the regular series, this probably wouldn’t have held my interest.  Better to have these books in a trade format.