5 out of 5

It’s interesting returning to this now, at a point when we’re in to volume 8.  I remember picking up issue 1 ’cause of the cool cover and a flip-through that seemed to show promise for it’s ‘couldba been generic’ snippy thinkin’ robot setup.  I was impressed by the book and the one that followed and the one that followed; Clevinger has a particularly zippy sense of writing that allows Robo to speak in a manner both flippant and informed, where we accept him as a genius scientist but equally accept his seeming cluelessness.  While there are already BIG ideas in volume 1, everything is a bit scaled down – the big idea to small idea ratio isn’t so grand, and Wegener’s art isn’t as blocky and flashy yet; we’re still a somewhat humble series.  As I finished issue 5, it was a grand feeling of discovery – getting in on the ground floor of something legit; a less weighed-down Hellboy but a more serious Goon – an amazing combination of plotting and fun, purposefully executed as such by its creators.  There’s honestly a bit of sensory overload on your first go-round of the series – the narrative jumps around between eras and skips out of one storyline at a very odd point – plus the shorts in the back of the issues that introduce one-off villains or give us Jenkins ‘origin’.  Brian would stick to this style of writing and even sharpen its edges such that you can’t be certain sometimes what the linking theme is from issue to issue, yet somehow it remains comprehensible and memorable, thanks to the blend of scientists Robo kicks around with, who give us the full range of dorks and disbelievers to bounce pseudo science talk around only to be rebuffed or rephrased by Robo or one of his team.  It’s a fun formula to keep things modern and yet drop some mini-science into the works, and it’s a formula that I’m happy to see was there from the start.  There’s also a key bit of narrative in issue one (on the title page) that helps to put the entire series into scope: that through Robo, we get to view history differently.  So it might not be directly about the pyramid wearing diapers or the re-animated brain of a Nazi Scientists, but just about the slew of experiences to which our lead gets subjected.  This message comes across pretty gorgeously with a very general framing bit of a reporter asking Robo what the hardest part of his job is/was – then cue 6 issues – then cue the answer.

Volume 1 circles around Robo battling evil occult scientist Helsingard throughout the ages, and on the way gives us indications of Robo’s relation to government, to celebrity (there’s Sagan, there’s Hawking), to friends, and to co-workers.  It’s a pretty brilliant intro arc in that it’s about everything and yet directly could be said to not be about anything.  The pacing could be mistaken for the emptiness of modern ‘compressed’ comics, but it feels so much more rich than that because the characters all feel so realized.

Incredible fun with enough of a smart edge to make it a cool comic that you hope goes on forever.