Monday PSA: The Amazing Spider-Man — Riot at Robotworld!

February 5th, 2007

Filed under: Comics

The Amazing Spider-Man: Riot at RobotworldThe Amazing Spider-Man: Riot at Robot World was published in 1991 by Marvel Comics and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, with a grant from IBM to commemorate National Engineers Week.

Peter Parker is assigned by the Daily Bugle to cover Robotworld, the new museum/exhibition hall that just opened, designed to educate the public about robots. He meets with Ana Lopez, a mechanical engineer and the project’s head, as well as three high school students who are accompanying her. The group tours the exhibition while they educate Peter on what exactly robots are (scientific genius Peter Parker does show a slight case of ONISGS Syndrome here).

About halfway through the exhibit, the robots suddenly come to life and begin attacking. Peter dodges out of sight (”I need more film”) and returns moments later as Spider-Man. He fights robot after robot, including the giant Tyrannosaurus rex featured on the cover. Meanwhile, Ana and the students run to the control room where they find that Ultron has taken over the exhibition. When Spider-Man arrives in the control room and faces off against Ultron (very unsuccessfully and very painfully), Ana and the students use the distraction to rig a remote control box and shut down Ultron.

I’m of two minds about how easily Ultron was defeated. On one hand, as a long time Avengers fan, I am appalled by how quickly he was taken out of commission. It takes the Avengers at least three issues to defeat him, and he always comes back stronger than before (though the remote control shut off is a clever way around that whole adamantium armor issue). On the other hand, I can see how an engineer and a group of students shutting down a big bad guy by building a remote control would be appealing and inspiring to high school students interested in engineering.

Overall, this PSA comic is better than most. Writer Dwayne McDuffie writes believable characters and includes the clever quips we expect from Spider-Man. He also manages to throw in allusions to Buckminster Fuller, Isaac Asimov, the Terminator, and the Three Stooges. The penciler, Alex Saviuk, turns in some impressive art as he make excellent use of visual flow, perspective, and angles to give the book an exciting fee — unusual for a PSA comic.

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5 Responses to “ Monday PSA: The Amazing Spider-Man — Riot at Robotworld! ”

  1. TayJK
    February 6th, 2007 at 9:50 am

    I know that this basic plot (minus Ultron) is just screaming at me referances to one movie, but I can’t for the life of me think what that movie is. Can anyone read my mind (and no, it’s not I, Robot)?

  2. Conor E
    February 6th, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Hmm, Westworld is the only “trouble at robot amusement park” movie I can think of.

  3. Scott
    February 6th, 2007 at 9:59 am
    Official Comment

    Well, there’s Westworld where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong…

  4. Sleestak
    February 6th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    Good lord. What citizen in the Marvel Universe would ever willingly visit a place called Robot World? That’s suicide. You just know by the end of the day something would go terribly wrong.

  5. TayJK
    February 7th, 2007 at 12:49 am

    Scott and Conor E - That’s the one. I knew it was something obvious. While the out-of-control-robot plot has been used many time (itself being a subplot of Science-gone-wrong plots) such as in I, Robot, the Matrix and The Terminator, Westworld is the only one of those involving an amusement park. Oh, and sex with robots, unless their’s a movie out their I missed.

    Sleestak - Because it’s the Marvel Universe. When something goes wrong at a place like Robot World, you know that a superhero and/or random people will stop whatever is causeing the problem before it becomes serious.

    Of course, this is from a earlier version of the Marvel Universe. Nowadays, the robots would kill everyone at the park but the guy who was warning everyone this would happen and/or the guy who invented them, then go kill people in New York (doesn’t matter if Robot World is in Jersey, California, Australia or the Moon, when villians go on a rampage, then end up in New York at some point) where any of the dozens of local super people can stop them.

    I would suspect Iron Man would become involved, team up with someone else (probably Spider-Man), have his suit taken over by the robots, fight Spidey, then the entire problem is solved somehow.

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