4 out of 5

And now we step back into Robo’s formative years.  ‘Deadly Art of Science’ takes place after the issue 1 and 2 appearance of vol. 3’s space/time monster, but prior to most everything else we’ve seen.  It’s a teenage Robo, obsessed with pulps and desirous of adventure, which of course works as a fun juxtaposition to the laid back action scientist of modern day AR.  Which is why it’s been a smart move for Clevinger and Wegener to break up the timeline – if this were tweaked a little bit into more of an origin tale, it wouldn’t have resonance.  But instead we’re settled into the idea of Tesla’s ‘son’ as a rewarding and exciting experience that the creative team has proven sustainable for more than a Big Idea, so now with several key pieces in place, we can settle into some world building.  Still, this means that our pacing takes a bit of a shift while the arc ramps up, and though there are several ‘classic’ Robo moments here – like Edison’s enemy robot in a hat – vol. 5 lacks a bit of the ol’ widescreen punch since its really more about its characters than the mobsters committing science crimes motivator that kicks things off.  But we’re not specifically a character driven book – people like Jenkins are made cool over volumes of moments and not a whole ‘Jenkins’ arc (for now) – and that’s certainly part of the cool, balanced appeal to Clevinger’s snappy writing.  It just makes it sort of a shame when we get some really fun players like vigilante Jack Tarot (Donovan McAllister), who comes to NY from Chicago investigating the science crimes and who Robo follows to his secret hideout… then badgers into taking him on as an apprentice… mostly to keep him away from gadget tinkering daughter Helen.  Of course, this is why ‘Real Science Adventures’ seemed to have come into play, so Brian could flesh out these bits and pieces he’d added onto the world.

The ‘romance’ between Robo and Helen is great, weird fun, developing ‘naturally’ and playing out with surprising good-nature (not in comparison to AR’s themes, but the normal path here – normal for other books – would be to back out of this subplot or to ignore the illogic) and seeing the blend of Robo as robot and as a machine ‘designed’ by Tesla to have human responses is interesting, further clarifying just what makes our character more than just a robot but less than an invincible superhero.  While the story pacing might plod initially, Wegener continues to grow in leaps and bounds, handling the inaction and talking heads with wonderful eye-direction in panels and an effective use of spacing / backgrounds to break up the read.

I think the most valuable thing about Volume 5, though, is that it really starts to sell the notion that the AR timeline is legit.  It’s certainly been proven by this point that the concept for the series extends beyond WWII, but the mentions of plot points already covered without it seeming like extraneous winking speaks well of how smoothly the time-jumping is being executed.

Boop.