Hall, Thomas & Bradford, Daniel – Robot 13 #3

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Robot 13 #3

Hey look, an exclusive!  Or at least something approaching an exclusive.  Thomas was nice enough to send me an advance .pdf of this book (due to come out on March 10th) and, even though I usually don’t deal with anything other than physical comics, the timing of this one was perfect, what with all the chaos of my recent move/house-sitting going on.  This is the story of a land of monsters and one man-made hero with amnesia.  Or at least that’s my initial impression of this first issue.  Yes, first issue.  Even though it says “#3”, the end of the story indicates that this is book one of a story, so I’ll go with that.  It appears to be set in modern day (judging from a bombing at a restaurant), but you can tell from that cover and the sample that it’s not a modern day that most of us see on a regular basis.  So anyway, the story begins with a giant cyclops (called Colossus on the cover) learning that an unnamed man of metal has returned.  Vowing to kill this mystery man, he sets out and the scene shifts to an old blind hermit on a hill tending to, well, a man of metal.  It’s a creepy looking man of metal, as he has a fishbowl for a head containing a human skull, but he seems like a nice enough guy, even if he can’t seem to remember anything about himself.  Anyway, the giant cyclops does eventually locate the metal man and things get ugly from there.  It’s always a bit touch and go with me when I read a fantasy like this, but this was a blast.  I loved that loopy, almost Mike Mignola-ish art, and the writing did a nice job of setting up the series and making the metal man a sympathetic figure.  Hey, any first issue that makes me want to see more did its job.  Look out for it on March 10th, no price was included but I’m going with the random figure of $4.