(W) Mark Russell (A) Mike Deodato (CA) Rahzzah In Shops: Aug 04, 2021 SRP: $3.99
In the year 2056, robots have replaced human beings in the workforce. An uneasy co-existence develops between the newly intelligent robots and the ten billion humans living on Earth. Every human family is assigned a robot upon whom they are completely reliant. What could possibly go wrong? Meet the Walters, a human family whose robot, Razorball, ominously spends his free time in the garage working on machines which they’re pretty sure are designed to kill them in this sci-fi satire from Mark Russell (The Flintstones, Second Coming) and Mike Deodato Jr. (The Amazing Spider-Man,The Resistance).
Wednesdays (and now Tuesdays) are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in
Each week our contributors choose what they can’t wait to read this week or just sounds interesting. In other words, this is what we’re looking forward to and think you should be taking a look at!
Find out what folks think below, and what comics you should be looking out for this week.
First Degree: A Crime Anthology (Humanoids) – Over a dozen tales of crime fiction.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Liberation #1 (Titan Comics) – The series based on the popular video game is back for a second arc!
Lucky Devil #1 (Dark Horse Comics) – Cullen Bunn’s new series featuring art by Fran Galan. A new horror series by Bunn? Yes please!
Me You Love in the Dark #1 (Image Comics) – Skottie Young and Jorge Corona’s new series about an artist who leaves the grind of the city and moves into an old house in a small town.
The Nice House on the Lake #3 (DC Comics/DC Black Label) – The first two issues blew us away and this is a series we have no idea where it’s going but are all in to see.
Not All Robots #1 (AWA Studios) – In the year 2056 robots have replaced people in the worforce and an uneasy co-existence develops. Every family has a robot that they rely upon. What can go wrong? Read our early review.
Re: Constitutions (First Second) – Part of the World Citizen Comics line, this book explains the role constitutions play in government and some of the issues due to that.
Run Book 1 (Abrams Comicarts) – The second series telling the amazing life of Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis. It’s the next chapter in the history of civil rights.
Skybound X #5 (Image Comics/Skybound) -Each issue has featured debuts and shown off what makes Skybound great. Check out this finale which promises to be a big one!
Snelson #1 (AHOY Comics) – A 90s edgy comic is desperate for a comeback and goes on tour with a group of sociall conscious comedians.
Transformers: King Grimlock #1 (IDW Publishing) – Steve Orlando and Agustin Padilla take on the Transformers powerhouse in a new limited series that has him transported to a savage world where the strong rule.
X-Men #2 (Marvel) – We’re a bit mixed on the debut issue but we’re intrigued with all of the groundwork that was laid down. So, we’re coming back to see where all of that goes.
The robot takeover doomsday scenario, where humanity gets replaced by the machines they created, has been the basis for many a sci-fi story, but the aftermath is rarely given time to shine. Just what is life under robotic law and what does the new day-to-day look like after humanity’s gone extinct? Say Ultron finally gets one over the Avengers, what’s next? Aren’t robots near-perfect beings with infinite knowledge? Museums and libraries would become obsolete as robots store everything in their memory and can access it at a moment’s notice, not to mention grocery stores and bars. Well, maybe not bars.
Mark Russell (Prez, Billionaire Island) and Mike Deodato’s new AWA Studios comic, Not All Robots, offers readers an answer: the robots will eventually become more like us. Once you get to the top of the food chain, it’s possible that the only way forward is to downgrade. That is, unless they’re content with being static automatons surfing their own databases without a need to move around or physically engage with anyone.
Not All Robots is another great Mark Russell satire on the ridiculousness of existence and the things we do with our existential dilemmas. Humanity, what’s left of it, is very quickly becoming obsolete as worker robots have become the sole providers of living families by completely taking over the workforce. Humans are quite simply redundant at this point and robots are catching on to the fact of how superfluous they’ve become. There’s even a talk show within the story called Talkin’ Bot that puts everything into perspective and I am one-hundred percent certain this show will actually exist a few years from now.
The comic centers on a house bot called Razorball. He’s the main provider for the Walters, the family that owns him. Razorball has become a disenchanted worker, cynical at every turn. He complains about life, the monotony of it, and his disdain for all the unnecessary things he has to do at work.
Deodato (Marvel’s Original Sin, The Resistance) illustrates Razorball as a somewhat outdated and clunky machine, in need of an update or to be updated by a newer model. That’s where the Mandroids come in, robots that can easily be confused with humans given the quality of their build. In other words, the future.
Not All Robots #1
It’s hard not to confuse Razorball with the average Joe, an unhappy guy that hates his life and his job and feels unappreciated by society. Russell’s genius, though, comes in how he takes that archetype and injects classic Asimov-like science fiction ideas into the story to not let the metaphor consume the narrative entirely. The associations are easy to make between Razorball and his human counterparts, but there’s a real sci-fi heart beating at the center of it.
Deodato crafts a universe’s worth of worldbuilding into the story with futuristic vistas and designs that firmly place the story within the realm of plausibility. It keeps the characters grounded and the story human. Deodato’s panel layouts and overall page structure—which has evolved throughout his career and stands as one of his signature skills as an artist—keeps things busy too, as if the new standard of life is governed by on-going activity carried by the never-ending stamina of a well-oiled machine.
Russell, on the other hand, isn’t just content with making fun of humans through worker robots. The idea that machines have forced people into a sedentary lifestyle echoes current debates on how technology is eliminating jobs people used to do by hand and got paid for. The robots act as living cautionary glimpses into what our reality could turn into if progress is allowed to continue pushing forward unfettered. Also how disenchanted robots will get once they realize how mundane human existence actually was.
Not All Robots is a funny, scary, and plausible take on humanity’s self-authored descent into obsolescence. Readers will laugh hard the entire way through, but they’ll also have no choice but to think about the consequences of our exponential growth into a machine-dominated world. The kicker, though, is that regardless of how advanced these robots turn out to be, they might not have a choice but to become a bit human to find some meaning in the new status quo.
Story: Mark Russell, Art: Mike Deodato Publisher: AWA Studios Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy and maybe consider throwing your iPhone into the ocean
AWA Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
