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Atomic Robo #7-9
Atomic Robo: The Hell and Lightning Collection
In this well-oiled for your non-sexualized gaze collection, Atomic Robo teams up with jet-pack clad lady pirates, travels to Hollow Earth, and at long last, becomes a cowboy. Collects The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific, The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, and The Knights of the Golden Circle for your reading delight. Or maybe more?
424 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 2016
34 people want to read
About the author
Brian Clevinger
227 books96 followersBrian Clevinger is best known as the author of the most popular sprite webcomic, and one of the most popular webcomics overall, 8-Bit Theater. He is also the author of the self-published novel Nuklear Age. Clevinger has recently received attention for his Eisner-nominated print comic Atomic Robo.
Claiming that his "favorite comics are the ones where the jokes are on the reader," Clevinger is an expert in using anti-climax, interface alterations, and the occasional false ending to play with the reader's expectations. It is a testament to both his sense of humor and his writing skills that these "jokes on the reader" are usually beloved by his fanbase.
Claiming that his "favorite comics are the ones where the jokes are on the reader," Clevinger is an expert in using anti-climax, interface alterations, and the occasional false ending to play with the reader's expectations. It is a testament to both his sense of humor and his writing skills that these "jokes on the reader" are usually beloved by his fanbase.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 4, 2020
I really like this series. It is intense, adventurous, kind of scientific, funny, and sarcastic. All the best things for a series about a sentient robot adventure scientist.
August 29, 2016
The third and final (for now) triple collection of Atomic Robo stories collects The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific, The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur, and The Knights of the Golden Circle.
Despite not usually being told in linear fashion, these three stories all feed into one and another as events from the first story inform the second, and the third follows directly on from the conclusion of the second despite chronologically taking place earlier (time travel is fun that way).
Robo's wit and deadpan snark carries the story, and I'm pretty sure Dr. Dinosaur is the best fictional dinosaur in anything ever. Every time he opens his mouth something hilarious comes out.
Wait, there's going to be a massive gap between this collection and the next one?
...Applesauce.
Despite not usually being told in linear fashion, these three stories all feed into one and another as events from the first story inform the second, and the third follows directly on from the conclusion of the second despite chronologically taking place earlier (time travel is fun that way).
Robo's wit and deadpan snark carries the story, and I'm pretty sure Dr. Dinosaur is the best fictional dinosaur in anything ever. Every time he opens his mouth something hilarious comes out.
Wait, there's going to be a massive gap between this collection and the next one?
...Applesauce.
June 16, 2018
Ooof.
Everything I loved about Atomic Robo seems absent from this collection. Instead of some joyful tangling of tropes with interesting narrative twists, this volume presents typical genre fiction with very little flair.
The strongest of the stories is The Flying She-Devils Of The Pacific, a twist on The Night Witches. While there's not as much fun character action previous volumes, it still seems to be a humorous adventure book. Previous storyarcs glossed over any death or heavy consequences for the characters, and that served the series well. Atomic Robo was a nice escape from comics determined to be Important or Thought Provoking. And while I'm all for writers trying to expand their horizons, Clevinger isn't as good at dramatic sequential storytelling as he is at short, quippy deconstructions of sci-fi and adventure tropes. With Scott Wegener's art, this is still a four star story.
I found The Savage Sword Of Doctor Dinosaur fairly unreadable. Dr. Dinosaur isn't the kind of villain who can carry six issues of a story. He's a cameo character. And a great one. But the pacing of this story, where you go back and forth from the angry villain kidnapping the heroes, to the background characters explaining...something incredibly boring...was so frustrating that I couldn't even finish it. Two stars.
The Knights Of The Golden Circle is a western involving Doc Holliday and Bass Reeves. If you have a family member who watches Westerns, you've already seen this story a thousand times. The involvement of a time displaced robot designed by Tesla should allow for some humor or deviation from the typical storyline, but when it hadn't happened by the end of issue two, I started skipping pages, and didn't find anything that caught my attention.
I think both the second and third stories could have been fun single issue stories, but neither of them made for pleasurable five issue arcs. It just doesn't play to the writer's strength, and doesn't seem to allow the artist to be as inventive as he was in previous volumes.
I think if I hadn't read this back to back with The Lightning Collection, I might have given it three stars, but it is a Massive Letdown after the complete bonkerstown joy of the previous collection. The weird 8/11 (not a typo, it's a...play on(?)...homage to(?)...parallel universe imagining(?) of 9/11 but it involves Atomic Robo, the Flying She-Devils and a squadron of Japanese soldiers who never got over World War II...it's...it's not good) references in Savage Sword Of Dr. Dinosaur seemed tonally out of place with everything around it.
I recommend it to people who like to see tropes embraced, and fans of Wegner's art.
Everything I loved about Atomic Robo seems absent from this collection. Instead of some joyful tangling of tropes with interesting narrative twists, this volume presents typical genre fiction with very little flair.
The strongest of the stories is The Flying She-Devils Of The Pacific, a twist on The Night Witches. While there's not as much fun character action previous volumes, it still seems to be a humorous adventure book. Previous storyarcs glossed over any death or heavy consequences for the characters, and that served the series well. Atomic Robo was a nice escape from comics determined to be Important or Thought Provoking. And while I'm all for writers trying to expand their horizons, Clevinger isn't as good at dramatic sequential storytelling as he is at short, quippy deconstructions of sci-fi and adventure tropes. With Scott Wegener's art, this is still a four star story.
I found The Savage Sword Of Doctor Dinosaur fairly unreadable. Dr. Dinosaur isn't the kind of villain who can carry six issues of a story. He's a cameo character. And a great one. But the pacing of this story, where you go back and forth from the angry villain kidnapping the heroes, to the background characters explaining...something incredibly boring...was so frustrating that I couldn't even finish it. Two stars.
The Knights Of The Golden Circle is a western involving Doc Holliday and Bass Reeves. If you have a family member who watches Westerns, you've already seen this story a thousand times. The involvement of a time displaced robot designed by Tesla should allow for some humor or deviation from the typical storyline, but when it hadn't happened by the end of issue two, I started skipping pages, and didn't find anything that caught my attention.
I think both the second and third stories could have been fun single issue stories, but neither of them made for pleasurable five issue arcs. It just doesn't play to the writer's strength, and doesn't seem to allow the artist to be as inventive as he was in previous volumes.
I think if I hadn't read this back to back with The Lightning Collection, I might have given it three stars, but it is a Massive Letdown after the complete bonkerstown joy of the previous collection. The weird 8/11 (not a typo, it's a...play on(?)...homage to(?)...parallel universe imagining(?) of 9/11 but it involves Atomic Robo, the Flying She-Devils and a squadron of Japanese soldiers who never got over World War II...it's...it's not good) references in Savage Sword Of Dr. Dinosaur seemed tonally out of place with everything around it.
I recommend it to people who like to see tropes embraced, and fans of Wegner's art.
August 24, 2018
Everyone's favorite robot tech. tycoon and adventurer extraordinaire is back in three Atomic Robo stories in this collection. My thoughts on each of the three stories:
The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific: While flying an experimental plane in the early 1950s Atomic Robo encounters women who've continued to live and fight in the Pacific and live on their own island. They'll need to team up to fight a die-hard mad scientist determined to restore the glory of Japan. This story is fine. It works on its awesome high concept ideas, but it's probably the least funny of any Robo story and the characters outside of Robo are very generic. The "Strong Independent Woman" archetype has rarely been used so often. Still, the coolness of the plots makes it a decent read even if it's the weakest in the volume.
The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur: Doctor Dinosaur is back and he has a plan to use his army of rockmen and atom bombs to restore dinosaurs to ruling the Earth. To be honest, I was nervous about this one because Dr. Dinosaur is a great villain, but it could be really hard for him to carry a whole story. No worries. He doesn't have to. We have a seperate plot of a government siege of Tesladyne while Robo's away. While this is more often than not, just an "okay" B-plot, it does avoid Doctor Dinosaur overload. This story has some great humor with Doctor Dinosaur stealing every scene he's and superb action.
The Knights of the Golden Circle: Picking up where the last book ended (believe it or not), this story finds Robo in the Old West as he fights an outlaw badman whose actually working for a nobleman bent on world domination. To stop them, Robo teams up with Doc Holiday and the awesome Bass Reeves (who is not enough fiction.) There's some great Steampunk elements in this, but more than anything I appreciated how Clevinger managed to capture the spirit of the Old Westerns in Robo who is facing the end of his life. A very fun read.
The book also includes the three Free Comic Book day offerings for 2013-2015. The 2013 is pretty good and has a nice twist that does set the stage for later events. 2014's is okay. 2015 features Doctor Dinosaur and while not as good as the previous Doctor Dinosaur FCBD offering, this is still pretty fun.
Overall, a solid enjoyable collection of Atomic Robo stories.
The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific: While flying an experimental plane in the early 1950s Atomic Robo encounters women who've continued to live and fight in the Pacific and live on their own island. They'll need to team up to fight a die-hard mad scientist determined to restore the glory of Japan. This story is fine. It works on its awesome high concept ideas, but it's probably the least funny of any Robo story and the characters outside of Robo are very generic. The "Strong Independent Woman" archetype has rarely been used so often. Still, the coolness of the plots makes it a decent read even if it's the weakest in the volume.
The Savage Sword of Dr. Dinosaur: Doctor Dinosaur is back and he has a plan to use his army of rockmen and atom bombs to restore dinosaurs to ruling the Earth. To be honest, I was nervous about this one because Dr. Dinosaur is a great villain, but it could be really hard for him to carry a whole story. No worries. He doesn't have to. We have a seperate plot of a government siege of Tesladyne while Robo's away. While this is more often than not, just an "okay" B-plot, it does avoid Doctor Dinosaur overload. This story has some great humor with Doctor Dinosaur stealing every scene he's and superb action.
The Knights of the Golden Circle: Picking up where the last book ended (believe it or not), this story finds Robo in the Old West as he fights an outlaw badman whose actually working for a nobleman bent on world domination. To stop them, Robo teams up with Doc Holiday and the awesome Bass Reeves (who is not enough fiction.) There's some great Steampunk elements in this, but more than anything I appreciated how Clevinger managed to capture the spirit of the Old Westerns in Robo who is facing the end of his life. A very fun read.
The book also includes the three Free Comic Book day offerings for 2013-2015. The 2013 is pretty good and has a nice twist that does set the stage for later events. 2014's is okay. 2015 features Doctor Dinosaur and while not as good as the previous Doctor Dinosaur FCBD offering, this is still pretty fun.
Overall, a solid enjoyable collection of Atomic Robo stories.
August 22, 2019
Still more Atomic Robo goodness, with WW2-adjacent adventures (with flying female pirates!), more encounters with Dr. Dinosaur (in the Hollow Earth!) and ... some time-traveling cowboy adventures? ... all the while building up (and exploding with) a modern-day plot by the government to take Robo (and his Tesladyne secrets) by force.
A scosh more serious than earlier volumes (esp. in that last storyline), and thus not quite as fun, Atomic Robo remains an incredible favorite of mine. Good stuff!
A scosh more serious than earlier volumes (esp. in that last storyline), and thus not quite as fun, Atomic Robo remains an incredible favorite of mine. Good stuff!
September 16, 2021
I really like this series of books. Fun, light, science-y, action-y stories that are good for a few laughs. I like the art quite a lot. I do sometimes find myself a bit lost in the panel transitions. Sometimes it's down to the art (confusing angles, lack of clear action direction), and sometimes the writing. And sure, maybe sometimes down to my over-quick reading.
April 28, 2018
Fact! Dr. Dinosaur cracks me up.
October 16, 2016
I had pre-ordered this hoping for a few new things. It is mostly a collection of previous trades I already have, a couple FCBD issues I don't have, as well as a few pages of extras at the back, also gorgeous cover art. Worth it for a fan, but if not go with selective separate issues in the plotlines you prefer.
January 1, 2017
One of the finest comics of my lifetime.
August 22, 2017
The more I read Robo the more I just can't get enough of this series. Totally got my daughter hooked on it. And who doesn't love Dr Dinosaur?
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews