Magnus: Robot Fighter #2

By Fred Van Lente, Cory Smith & Mauricio Wallace

Magnus: Robot Fighter issue two picks up with Magnus trapped in a futuristic world where the few living humans are treated as slaves and scum by the now majority robot population. Magnus is confused and just wants to know where he is and find his displaced family. Too bad for Magnus that he’s trapped in robot jail but maybe his newly discovered skills will come in handy not only escaping but also fighting back the hordes of robots so he can find out what exactly is going on.

This new robot inhabited world that Magnus seems to find himself in gets more interesting the more we are exposed to it. This issue showed us some of the inner workings of the robot police station/jail and some of their unusual procedures that are both practical but also humorous. Just the robots reaction to finding a book on Magnus was a pretty funny scene. Considering the dire situation Magnus seems to be in, there was a decent amount of humor in this issue which was actually welcoming. Also in this new world, all curse words are just substituted with the word “bleep” which was a little on the nose but still made me crack a bleeping smile. Personally the only thing that didn’t work for me in this issue was the character H-8-R, who is an older model robot that speaks a sort of Ebonics after many upgrades to his system.  Other than that it was a great follow up issue after such a strong debut issue.

Cory Smith’s art really captures the futuristic robot world so well and makes it look so beautiful and intimidating all at once. Even the simplicity of making the jail all white walls that also serve as large screens that display various media and information was a pretty smart idea. There are plenty of other designs in this issue that just help make this robotic world seem much more vast and rich. From the variety of different robots we’ve seen so far to the layout of the evidence room where objects are kept in crystal hexagons, there were so many interesting things to take in and look at in this issue.

So far, Dynamite has been doing a bang-up job of handling these Gold Key characters, and Magnus: Robot Fighter itself has so far been the real standout series. This creative team has really done a magnificent job with updating Magnus for modern readers and still keeping all the robot-punching that classic fans have grown to love. This story and world are more than enough to keep a reader interested and coming back for more every month.