Rotogin: Junkbotz

    (Image, 2003)
™ and © Image Comics, Inc.

Rotogin wants to be The Fast & the Furious with giant robots, except, instead of relentless, speed-fueled excitement, nothing much happens here except a slow-motion set-up of characters and their background.

It takes place in one of those near futures where mobile battle suits are as common as cell phones and a trio of smalltime combat-tech “hot rodders” get involved in the underworld of illegal mech battles. Of the three, the one with obvious star quality is Dakota, who is without a doubt as cute as a bag of buttons, with the whole bare midriff thing going on and one of those perversely popular intentionally ugly hairdon’ts, but she says precious little and does even less.

It’s a handsomely mounted entry into the Anglicized anime style, though, from the faces of his figures, I’d guess J. Korim’s favorite artist growing up was Barry Blair. (And won’t that make a lot of people feel old?) If only the story and characters were as strong.

— S.A. Bennett
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