Vol 3, Issue 3! Also giant robots.

Last Updated on Monday, 20 July 2009 10:42 Written by Brian! Monday, 20 July 2009 10:42

vol-3-issue-3-also-giant-robots

It’s Monday and you’re all asking, “Where’s Scott? Where’s Scott?” My first instinct is to say “WHO CARES?!” but the real answer is that he’s kicking all kinds of ass on Robo 3.5. Meanwhile, you’re stuck with me for this week’s Monday blog!

So, we finally got a release date for the next issue of Atomic Robo and it’s this Wednesday! My unbiased opinion as a comics professional is that you should go and buy that comic. It’s got a robot, the first Action Scientists of Tesladyne — Science Agents in the parlance of the era — and it ties into the Cold War before going…somewhere else.

Changing gears slightly, I’ve had Giant Robots on the brain for reasons that are none of your damn business (yet).

I’ve been resistant to the idea of Giant Robots in Atomic Robo, which is completely at odds with both A) the fact that I think Giant Robots are super cool and B) the fact that Scott wants to draw Giant Robots wreckin’ all kinds of shit.

But I have this pet peeve. I hate it when world-changing technology is introduced into a setting and…nothing happens.

Using Giant Robots as our example: to have just one Giant Robot that works like in the anime and movies would require the development of a host of new technologies and whole new industries. I mean, the engine alone! You need to be able to produce a significant, constant amount of energy safely and consistently while under battlefield conditions and you have to make it small enough to fit inside the robot. Once you’ve solved that one single part of the Giant Robot Problem, you’ve probably — directly or indirectly — just revolutionized energy production and distribution. Maybe the revolution is limited to only residential, or commercial, or industrial uses, but that’s still pretty damn huge. I mean, that’s going to touch upon politics, finance, foreign policy, military strategy, and on and on.

Our Giant Robot can’t even walk yet, and you’ve only changed the rules of one of the pillars of modern civilization.

Then there’s the new technologies and industries that are only now possible because of the Giant Robot. Then there’s the economic, political, and military implications and applications of the Giant Robot itself as well as all the new ideas that lead to and spun out of its creation. And on and on.

What I’m saying is that within ten years of Miraculous Technology X becoming a reality, it is quite likely that while it wouldn’t be an unrecognizable world, it would be a world recognizably not like the one we know.

Look at the internet in 1995. Look at it again in 2005. Look at it today. The internet didn’t just drop into our world fully formed and do nothing but link up a couple computer nerds. It changed the world in profound ways and continues to change it.

Comic books just have Miraculous Technology dropped into them and there’s no ripples. Think about what would have to be developed to make possible Life Model Decoys for about two minutes — never mind the industries, legal and illegal, that would grow around them — and you’ll see what I mean.

Mainstream comics do this all the time, and not just with technology. It’s common knowledge that aliens exist and walk among us in Marvel and DCU. Indisputable evidence that life not only exists outside of the Earth, but that it’s intelligent, and it flourishes! This ultimate maddening mystery, solved forever, apparently has no affect on…anything! Confirmation that intelligent life is a natural and common product of the cosmos; that we are not alone in the infinite and befuddling dark; that we are citizens in a larger and more amazing community than we could ever have dreamt of ourselves means less to your average Marvel or DCU citizen than the scores of last night’s game.

I dunno. Something about doing that strikes me as thoughtless hackery…he said while writing comics about a fully autonomous human-level robot intelligence powered by a nuclear reactor the size of a softball.

Okay, yes, Atomic Robo is a pile of technology that, if invented today, would have drastic effects on nearly every level of our society. The fact that he’s invented in 1923 ought to take all those changes and multiply them by a factor of a hundred. Which is why we have plausible in-story reasons why the technologies responsible for Atomic Robo never went anywhere or changed anything.

And that’s how I’m able to have this pet peeve, write this comic, and look at myself in the mirror every morning. We introduce all kinds of crazy technologies that ought to change the world in profound ways, we just also show that those technologies never quite get there. They’re always too impractical, too lost, too secret, or too utterly destroyed to impact the world around them.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 10:42 am and is filed under comics, technology, volume 3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • http://www.warongod.com/ Noah Allen Schafer

    Just want to say, “Totally!”

    I thought your similar thoughts on time travel in the FCB story this year were both hilarious and genius, no small feat. It’s both impressive and frightening how much there is to consider and how little we regularly do. But we muddle through.

    I could go on at length, but I too am lazy. Props for keeping Atomic Robo a vehicle for sanity!

  • http://www.warongod.com Noah Allen Schafer

    Just want to say, “Totally!”

    I thought your similar thoughts on time travel in the FCB story this year were both hilarious and genius, no small feat. It’s both impressive and frightening how much there is to consider and how little we regularly do. But we muddle through.

    I could go on at length, but I too am lazy. Props for keeping Atomic Robo a vehicle for sanity!

  • http://teknoarcanist.deviantart.com/ Brandon

    I have ALWAYS wanted to see a Giant Robot story done as a parallel for the Cold War and nuclear proliferation; ie numerous nations all scrambling to create the same illogically destructive weapon before one another, in order to win at a model of warfare whose very existence they make obsolete.

    (News commentators discussing how ludicrous and insane Giant Robots are; Carl Sagan explaining that even a handful of Giant Robots would be more than enough to devastate all civilization; etc etc)

    As far as Robo, here’s at least one way you could address the story: a giant robot is built in isolation, Robo destroys it, and now it’s in pieces. These pieces are traveling in the global ‘Weird Crap’ black market (something Robo would be familiar with). He has to hunt them down and dispose of them for just the reason you described: dropping them out of the sky would massively change things in ways no one could predict; the equivalent of a techno-industrial shit-storm. Which would be bad.

  • http://teknoarcanist.deviantart.com Brandon

    I have ALWAYS wanted to see a Giant Robot story done as a parallel for the Cold War and nuclear proliferation; ie numerous nations all scrambling to create the same illogically destructive weapon before one another, in order to win at a model of warfare whose very existence they make obsolete.

    (News commentators discussing how ludicrous and insane Giant Robots are; Carl Sagan explaining that even a handful of Giant Robots would be more than enough to devastate all civilization; etc etc)

    As far as Robo, here’s at least one way you could address the story: a giant robot is built in isolation, Robo destroys it, and now it’s in pieces. These pieces are traveling in the global ‘Weird Crap’ black market (something Robo would be familiar with). He has to hunt them down and dispose of them for just the reason you described: dropping them out of the sky would massively change things in ways no one could predict; the equivalent of a techno-industrial shit-storm. Which would be bad.

  • Scott!

    Thanks for handling the blog this week Brian. I guess sharing webspace with you doesn’t suck that bad.

    It’s been a while since I’ve heard the “Why I Hate Giant Robots” rant, but it’s a good one that deserves to be shared with the world.

    It’s that kind of thinking that reminds me of why I love Robo so much. Left to my own devices this would never really occur to me and I would just draw the giant robot and be done with it.

    Actually, we did have one giant robot, in the Vol.2 back-up story by Josh and Jonathan Ross. And Brian was not pleased!

    It was all my fault. Brian was pissing and moaning about how hard the little B-Stories are to write so I thought I’d be a big help and just tell the artists to go nuts, tell an entirely visual story and we would fill in the words later. Stan Lee would have been so proud.

    I really, really, REALLY wanted to do a Robo -vs- Giant Robot thing in Korea but knew I’d never get the chance so I gave the idea to Josh.

    Brian was not to pleased with me . . . Since then my authority to add new things to the Roboverse has been seriously curtailed and is only allowed under the strictest of adult supervision.

  • Scott!

    Thanks for handling the blog this week Brian. I guess sharing webspace with you doesn’t suck that bad.

    It’s been a while since I’ve heard the “Why I Hate Giant Robots” rant, but it’s a good one that deserves to be shared with the world.

    It’s that kind of thinking that reminds me of why I love Robo so much. Left to my own devices this would never really occur to me and I would just draw the giant robot and be done with it.

    Actually, we did have one giant robot, in the Vol.2 back-up story by Josh and Jonathan Ross. And Brian was not pleased!

    It was all my fault. Brian was pissing and moaning about how hard the little B-Stories are to write so I thought I’d be a big help and just tell the artists to go nuts, tell an entirely visual story and we would fill in the words later. Stan Lee would have been so proud.

    I really, really, REALLY wanted to do a Robo -vs- Giant Robot thing in Korea but knew I’d never get the chance so I gave the idea to Josh.

    Brian was not to pleased with me . . . Since then my authority to add new things to the Roboverse has been seriously curtailed and is only allowed under the strictest of adult supervision.

  • http://potpies.blogspot.com/ Lauren

    Atomic Robo remains a stocky pillar of reason in a fluctuating and wobbly genre. The grounding logic in the Robo-verse, even at it’s zaniest, is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.

    Also? Jenkins.

  • http://potpies.blogspot.com/ Lauren

    Atomic Robo remains a stocky pillar of reason in a fluctuating and wobbly genre. The grounding logic in the Robo-verse, even at it’s zaniest, is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.

    Also? Jenkins.

  • Scott!

    Jenkins is a force of nature. Our little mash-up of Clint Eastwood and Race Bannon. :D

  • Scott!

    Jenkins is a force of nature. Our little mash-up of Clint Eastwood and Race Bannon. :D

  • TayJK

    Adult Supervisions? What adults are you refering to? Lydia? Sosa? Brian? Come to think of it, are there any adults involved in the Atomic Robo process?

  • TayJK

    Adult Supervisions? What adults are you refering to? Lydia? Sosa? Brian? Come to think of it, are there any adults involved in the Atomic Robo process?

  • Andrew

    I was going to mention that B-Story, how is Brian explaining the Giant Robot away?

  • Andrew

    I was going to mention that B-Story, how is Brian explaining the Giant Robot away?

  • http://www.nuklearpower.com Brian!

    Consider how many resources must have gone into that thing. The money, materials, time, and brainpower that had to be committed to its construction.

    It debuts on the battlefield and gets taken out in a matter of minutes by one operative and a WW2-era plane.

    I can’t think of any better reason to have derailed the giant robot arms race described by Brandon above than that.

    Speaking of a secret weird science arms race, I’ve proposed that Tesla tech would take up that role. Like the nuclear arms race was the public face, the space race was the pissing contest, and the Tesla race was this whole other shadow war that no one really knows about. Which, on the face of it, could be incredibly cool. The problem is doing it right and making sure it fits into real history in a compelling way. So, I’m not sure if we’ll address that or to what degree it will be addressed if we do.

  • Brian!

    Consider how many resources must have gone into that thing. The money, materials, time, and brainpower that had to be committed to its construction.

    It debuts on the battlefield and gets taken out in a matter of minutes by one operative and a WW2-era plane.

    I can’t think of any better reason to have derailed the giant robot arms race described by Brandon above than that.

    Speaking of a secret weird science arms race, I’ve proposed that Tesla tech would take up that role. Like the nuclear arms race was the public face, the space race was the pissing contest, and the Tesla race was this whole other shadow war that no one really knows about. Which, on the face of it, could be incredibly cool. The problem is doing it right and making sure it fits into real history in a compelling way. So, I’m not sure if we’ll address that or to what degree it will be addressed if we do.

  • Josh B.

    @Brian

    I reckon that’s too good an idea not to be used. One of the greatest things about Tesla is that almost anything can be attributed to him, tech wise, and its believable.

  • Josh B.

    @Brian

    I reckon that’s too good an idea not to be used. One of the greatest things about Tesla is that almost anything can be attributed to him, tech wise, and its believable.

  • http://www.nuklearpower.com Brian!

    Well, we already planted the seed of it in the epilogue to Vol 2. Skorzeny may or may not have been lying, but what he describes would constitute the first act of the “Tesla War”. So, you may be on to something!

  • Brian!

    Well, we already planted the seed of it in the epilogue to Vol 2. Skorzeny may or may not have been lying, but what he describes would constitute the first act of the “Tesla War”. So, you may be on to something!

  • http://teknoarcanist.deviantart.com/ Brandon

    Yeah I did sort of get that vibe from Skorzeny’s little reveal; like the whole reason people in the Robo universe have to deal with nazi werewolves and vampire dimensions on a regular basis is because tesla invented a robot.

  • http://teknoarcanist.deviantart.com Brandon

    Yeah I did sort of get that vibe from Skorzeny’s little reveal; like the whole reason people in the Robo universe have to deal with nazi werewolves and vampire dimensions on a regular basis is because tesla invented a robot.

  • Scott!

    @Brandon – Yeah kind of. Maybe its a chicken and the egg thing? I know a common theme in Batman is that his crazy villains only exist *because* there is a Batman. We sort of accidentally comment on that in 3.4.

    But we’re going to retcon that to be a deliberate statement about issue.

    But really, within the structure of Robo’s work, there have always been these crazy elements. Helsingard was scheming and plotting half a century before Robo was built. There were masked vigilantes and “mystery men” in the first half of the 20th Century, decades before Robo.

    So these weird things always existed, but maybe Robo raised the bar a bit. The crazy bar.

  • Scott!

    @Brandon – Yeah kind of. Maybe its a chicken and the egg thing? I know a common theme in Batman is that his crazy villains only exist *because* there is a Batman. We sort of accidentally comment on that in 3.4.

    But we’re going to retcon that to be a deliberate statement about issue.

    But really, within the structure of Robo’s work, there have always been these crazy elements. Helsingard was scheming and plotting half a century before Robo was built. There were masked vigilantes and “mystery men” in the first half of the 20th Century, decades before Robo.

    So these weird things always existed, but maybe Robo raised the bar a bit. The crazy bar.

  • http://www.nuklearpower.com Brian!

    That’s how I see it. It was already a weird world, but Tesla’s work and Robo specifically took it up a notch.

  • Brian!

    That’s how I see it. It was already a weird world, but Tesla’s work and Robo specifically took it up a notch.

  • http://teknoarcanist.deviantart.com/ Brandon

    “I was already BUILDING a planet-destroying Death Ray on the moon! I didn’t realize it was a THING!”

  • http://teknoarcanist.deviantart.com Brandon

    “I was already BUILDING a planet-destroying Death Ray on the moon! I didn’t realize it was a THING!”

  • Avi

    Batman villians exist because the story would be boring otherwise.

  • Avi

    Batman villians exist because the story would be boring otherwise.

  • http://www.maliciousbastards.com/ Vid

    I always wondered about that. I mean, assuming that the engine is really just a giant version of a block engine ( yes, an over simplification ), where the [expletive] are you going to find a place to safely pour that much molten metal in to one shape. Not to mention the time it would take for all that metal to cool. Or the equipment you would need to then move a building sized chunk of solid metal in one go.

    Logistical /nightmare/.

  • http://www.maliciousbastards.com Vid

    I always wondered about that. I mean, assuming that the engine is really just a giant version of a block engine ( yes, an over simplification ), where the [expletive] are you going to find a place to safely pour that much molten metal in to one shape. Not to mention the time it would take for all that metal to cool. Or the equipment you would need to then move a building sized chunk of solid metal in one go.

    Logistical /nightmare/.

  • lorstew

    I like the machines designs form the Metal Slug series. Just saying, they look feasible to fabricate, although maybe not practical expense wise, but still doable.

  • lorstew

    I like the machines designs form the Metal Slug series. Just saying, they look feasible to fabricate, although maybe not practical expense wise, but still doable.

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