Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Atomic Robo The Flying She-Devils Of The Pacific #1Atomic Robo: Volume 7 - The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific #1 of 5
Red 5 Comics
Clevinger & Wegener

The seventh volume (eighth if you count the current science volume running) of Atomic Robo begins with a very strange issue. The comic is an entertaining story but it feels by the numbers for a first issue in terms of setting up a story, which is very uncharacteristic for Atomic Robo. This isn't a bad thing at all, but it feels like a story that you would expect from the big two with their cape and tights stories. This is a good start, but it is not the best of the Atomic Robo bunch at this point.

The opening to the comic book posed the most difficult challenge in terms of the art. Robo is flying his one-man aircraft when he is attacked by other flying machines. He is rescued by a collection of characters with jetpacks. The action is really tough to discern what is going on.

For the most part, this issue is a great visual story. Wegener provides a big cast of unique looking characters and provides his trademark emotions for the mouth-less Robo. However, the opening of the issue was really tough to follow. I found myself re-reading pages and panels over and over again to try to figure out what was happening. It wasn't until I completed the issue front-to-back the second time did I finally figure out what was going on in the opening. Perhaps the fact that I couldn't figure out good guy from bad guy because of the zoom out approach was the problem. I'm not really sure.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsRobo's rescuers take Robo in because his craft is destroyed and they don't want to leave him stranded in the Pacific. From here we get an introduction into the Flying She-Devils. The characters are good and there is a lot to explore with them. However, the back end of the book feels like it's the kind of story where the reader is told everything under the guise of "oh, your new here, let me tell you everything about what we do, why we're here and what our problems are." This type of storytelling isn't very interesting and I expect more from Atomic Robo.

Atomic Robo is a great character and his stories are the perfect mix of humor, action, science and sarcasm. This issue launches a ton of new characters and new threats for Robo to tangle with. This comic is a solidly written and a well drawn book. I'm sure this story is going to ramp up to usual Robo chaos in the comic issues. This is definitely worth a look. Atomic Robo represents everything that is great about comic books.

3 out of 5 Geek Goggles