4 out of 5

Volume 1 dipped its fingers into several pools to give us a taste of how far-reaching Robo could be, given the opportunity, and then volume 2, given the opportunity, suffered a tad from the predictable zingers, excessive explosions, and narrower focus of sequel-itis.  Volume 3 has proven its point by now, so Clevinger gets the chance to begin to flex his big-screen small-screen pseudo-science muscles, coming up with mad concepts and a story that awesomely play out over 5 time-jumping episodes.  Er, four time-jumping episodes.  The only fumble here is a hiccup in structure, which requires front-loading this 5-parter with two issues of setup, making the remaining three issues – each of which are separate time periods, initially starting seemingly far away from our core story – somewhat of a jarring distraction from how we’re seeing things build.  It all pays off and makes structural sense in the end, but even reading the issues back to back, I had to re-open issue 2 and double-check I hadn’t missed some pages… nevermind when I was reading this as it came out, separated by months.

Wegener’s art is at odds with the story at points.  Clevinger has to reset himself with each new time period and in sidling us into celebrity cameos – the 20s, a ‘teen’ Robo meeting Charles Fort and H.P. Lovecraft, the 70s, with Charles Sagan – so Scott is limited to some static talking head panels that require more back-and-forth banter than the one-page explanation spreads or ‘let’s discuss this while running’ that takes place in issue 2 and 3.  And in limiting Scott, the simplicity of his work doesn’t fare too well, some backgrounds and attempted jokes penciled therein appearing bland or oddly timed.  But once given the opportunity to toss in some big machines and fun costumes, things liven up… not to mention the main ghoulie, who is an hilarious blob of teeth and eyes.

A ‘extra-dimensional’ creature is attacking the world from different points in time, thanks to it not existing linearly.  Much awesomeness is milked from explaining this, and much entertaining WTF-ness comes from the way the monster can infect and morph people, insects, whatever.  And besides zapping the thing with big lightning guns, of course the only way to deal with a creature outside of time is to… well.  Robo spends his downtime learning just how to handle such a problem, and it’s every awesome sci-fi time travel trope mashed into something funny and inventive, with some great Jenkins jokes.

Back-matter in the individual issues varies in entertainment.  The best is an ‘interview’ with Robo, otherwise there’s nothing that really adds to the character in a way we haven’t seen in the previous volumes’ backmatter.  But the editorial in issue 3 or 4 is telling of what’s so great about Robo, half-jokingly naming several potential upcoming Robo volumes… several of which have since been released, three years later.  The efforts in extending this character throughout history (and into the future, I’d suppose) is so much fun; that same foresight is what makes volume 3 a truly great read, even though our creators each stumble a bit for proper pacing.