Atomic Robo

Atomic Robo is a comic book series depicting the adventures of the eponymous character, created by 8-Bit Theater writer Brian Clevinger and artist Scott Wegener.

Publication history
The series began as a six-issue limited series published by Red 5 Comics starting in October 2007. It was nominated in the "Best Limited Series" category of the 2008 Eisner Awards, won by The Umbrella Academy. Colorist Ronda Pattison was also nominated in the "Best Coloring" category subsequently won by Dave Stewart. The first six issues of the series have been collected as Atomic Robo Volume 1: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne. Atomic Robo Volume 2: Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War was released as a trade paperback on February 18, 2009. The third series, Atomic Robo Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time, was released in trade on December 23, 2009, and a fourth, Atomic Robo Volume 4: Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness, has been released in issue format and will be published in trade in the summer of 2010. A fifth volume, Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science, was released in November 2010 and came to its conclusion in May 2011. In April 2012 Atomic Robo Volume 6: The Ghost of Station X became the second Atomic Robo miniseries to be nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Limited Series. Starting in March 2012, an additional title was published, Atomic Robo Presents Real Science Adventures, in which all writing was done by Brian Clevinger, but there were five different stories or chapters of stories, continued each issue, each drawn by a different artist.

Storylines
Volume 1: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne shows some of Robo's adventures in the 20th century, featuring giant ants, a trip to Mars, a walking pyramid, and two showdowns with his arch-nemesis, Helsingard. Volume 1 is currently being released on the iTunes Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Each issue is released once a month.

Free Comic Book Day '08 - Atomic Robo must stop a rogue Russian scientist from destroying the atmosphere.

Volume 2: Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War deals with Atomic Robo's missions during World War II, fighting Nazi "weird war" projects. Robo must destroy walking tanks known as the Laufpanzers before they end the Invasion of Sicily. He must team up with British spy, the Sparrow, and must work with soldier James Milligan to end the Weird War once and for all.

Free Comic Book Day '09: Why Atomic Robo Hates Dr. Dinosaur - Atomic Robo fights Dr. Dinosaur in 1999, refuting his idiotic claims of creating a time machine out of sticks and rocks. Dr. Dinosaur then offers Robo what he claims to be the secret of time travel, which turns out to be a box of active hand grenades.

Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time deals with Atomic Robo fighting against a creature based on Lovecraftian horror. The five-issue story details four battles with the creature, each at a different point in Robo's life.

Volume 4: Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness (titled Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension in its release as individual issues) is a four-issue series of one-shot stories taking place in the space of one week, including a sequel to Why Atomic Robo Hates Dr. Dinosaur, entitled Why Dr. Dinosaur Hates Atomic Robo.

Free Comic Book Day '10: Flight of the Terror Birds  - Atomic Robo, Benjamin and Lang go hunting for a prehistoric bird.

Volume 5: Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science' the fifth series that ran for 5 issues from November, 2010 to May, 2011. Featuring Robo, Tesla, and Jack Tarot, the man whose picture is on Robo's desk in Volume 4.

Free Comic Book Day '11: National Science Fair - Atomic Robo is the celebrity judge at a science fair when Dr. Dinosaur interrupts the proceedings.

Volume 6: Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X is the sixth series that ran for 5 issues from August, 2011 to February, 2012. Robo must contend with repeated assassination attempts orchestrated by an unknown enemy with seemingly limitless influence and resources, with the fate of all life on Earth hanging in the balance.

Volume 7: Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific is the seventh series, which ran for 5 issues. In the aftermath of WWII, Robo joins forces with a mercenary band of rocket-pack flying women to stop a rogue Japanese super-science counter-attack on America.

Major characters
Atomic Robo is a robot possessing "automatic intelligence", created by Nikola Tesla in 1923. He is a core member of Tesladyne Industries, "a thinktank dedicated to exploring the fringes of scientific inquiry", whose Action Scientists often respond to paranormal and supernatural emergencies. Robo has a developed sense of humor, and makes numerous wise cracks at his foes' expense. In the past, he has secretly worked with the United States government as well as NASA. Robo's personality is based on Clevinger's grandfather.

Baron Heinrich Von Helsingard, one of Robo's major enemies, is a Nazi scientist who has attempted to gain immortality, along with godlike power and world domination. His experiments have reduced him to a series of cloned brains preserved in jars and implanted into various robotic exoskeletons, with a new brain becoming 'activated' whenever its predecessor is destroyed. He has been described by Robo as someone who "attacks Tesladyne regularly."

Jenkins is a member of the Action Scientists, who first met Robo when the latter rescued him from the vampire dimension. His almost super-human combat competence represents a running gag for the series, and Robo has been jokingly referred to as his sidekick.

The Sparrow is a covert British spy with whom Robo teams up to take down Skorzeny during World War II.

Otto Skorzeny is the main antagonist of the second volume. He leads the Laufpanzers, walking German tanks, into battle.

Vanadis Valkyrie is a German scientist whom the Sparrow is sent to assassinate. She is working on her Wehrwolf Formula, to be used in creating Nazi super-soldiers.

James "Scottie" Milligan is a soldier who rescues Robo from the clutches of Skorzeny during World War II. James Milligan is loosely based on Wegener's grandfather, who shares the same name and nickname and also fought in World War II.

Dr. Dinosaur is a dinosaur who claims to be from the past. He seems to be a Deinonychus or Velociraptor. He is promised to be a major villain in the following issues. A favorite saying of his: "Except for things going horribly wrong, everything is going exactly according to plan."

Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor and rival of Nikola Tesla, appears in the fourth volume. Following an experiment from 1931 seeking to harness the Odic medium into an immortality drug, he has been transformed into a ghost-like entity that materialized in 1999 in Robo's office complex. In the fifth volume, the details of this experiment - and his defeat at the hands of Robo and Nikola Tesla - are revealed.

Jack Tarot is a vigilante gunman appearing in the fifth volume who acts as Robo's reluctant mentor.

Collected editions
The series are being collected into trade paperbacks:


 * Volume 1: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne (180 pages, June 2008, ISBN 0-9809302-0-0)
 * Volume 2: Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War (also collects Free Comic Book Day story, 160 pages, March 2009, ISBN 0-9809302-2-7)
 * Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time (152 pages, January 2010, ISBN 0-9809302-5-1)
 * Volume 4: Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness (140 pages, September 2010, ISBN 0-9809302-8-6)
 * Volume 5: Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science (152 pages, July 2011, ISBN 0-9809302-4-3)
 * Volume 6: Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X (152 pages, June 2012, ISBN 0-9868985-0-3)
 * Volume 7: Atomic Robo and the Flying She-Devils of the Pacific (152 Pages, February 2013, ISBN 0-9868985-2-X)

Interviews

 * Interview with Scott Wegener about Atomic Robo and his work for Marvel comics