Cover art of Vol. 3 trade paperback.
Atomic Robo Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time is the third volume of the Atomic Robo series. This volume involves Robo's encounter multiple times with a paranormal entity, only known as the Shadow from Beyond Time. The collected trade paperback edition's was pushed back farther to further 23rd, due to two printing delays, along with the re-release of the trade paperback for Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne.
Issues[]
Spoiler warning!: Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)
Issue #1: Horror on Houston Street[]
- Released in April 29, 2009 for the west coast, a week later on the east coast
April 3, 1926. During another night of studying for a Physics exam, Robo's peace and quiet gets interrupted by a paranoid H.P. Lovecraft and a yet somehow calm Charles Fort. They seek Tesla to discuss about a creature that ignores the laws of time and the universe, and could be the end of the world as we know it. It turns out that the creature was inside Lovecraft all along and the monster unleased itself, escaping the laboratory and wreaking havoc in the city streets. Robo concocted a plan to stop it.
Issue #2: The Doom that Came to Robo[]
- Released in May 20, 2009
Robo and Fort chase the monster down in a patented autocar. Along the way, Tesla calls Robo and hilarity ensues as he tries to cover up the situation to his creator. As the monster transforms legs, Robo decides to overload the Lightning Guns and ram the monster. As Fort watches from a distance, the monster calls Robo's name as it swallows the car and explodes.
Issue #3: At the Farm of Madness[]
- Released in June 17, 2009
The time period cuts forward to December 9, 1957 when Robo calls down three scientists to form the first team of Action Scientists. At this time, Tesladyne was just a small company and had much difficulty in selling their scientific inventions. Robo gets a tip from the Oregon State University Astronomy Department that something fell in the town of Cloverdale, Oregon. Robo presumes that it was one of Sputnik I's boosters and that it would help Tesladyne move forward if they could find out about Russian technology in the middle of the Cold War. Upon their arrival in the small town, unexpected things happen as the presumed booster turns out to be the Shadow From Beyond Time itself. The monster turned the townspeople and one of the Action Scientists into mutated zombies and they chase after Robo and his team as they escape. The monster captures them and Robo rips his way through its body.
Issue #4: The Crawling Chaos[]
- Released in July 15, 2009
The comic speeds up once more to 1971 when Robo consults Carl Sagan about the arrival of the Shadow From Beyond Time and it's intentions to destroy humanity. They set up camp in the Machu Piccu in Peru four months later with the intention of capturing the creature and examining it in a dimensional cage. The plan backfires as the monster escapes and attacks Robo as a swarm of insects: his phobia. With Sagan's help, he blasts the swarm with the Lightning Gun and a hand reaches to grab Robo into the monster.
Issue #5: From Beyond[]
- Released in August 19, 2009
We now cut to present time in Feburary 9, 2009, when Robo checks out Martin and Louis' invention from the Exotic Physics department. Their creation of a large, steaming Quantum Decomputer strikes Robo as evil when he hesitantly agrees to see what it does. What it does however, is summon the Shadow From Beyond Time. It attacks the complex and mutates Louis when Robo charges and gets into the monster's body. Inside, Robo meets his past selves from the other issues, causing a nonlinear episode in which he sees himself repeating the same thing he has done in the past. The three future Robos advise the 1926 Robo to study Hyperdimensional Mathematics and Temporal Mechanics if he were to stop the Shadow From Beyond Time in the future, so the future selves would know to turn the burnt out Lightning Gun powerpacks into a powerful hyperdimensional bomb. Their little reunion was cut short when the bomb explodes, sending the four Robos back into their respective time periods, and destroying the Shadow From Beyond Time subsequently. Upon the return of the present Robo, he immediately fires Martin and Louis.
B-Stories[]
Once Upon a Time in Mexico[]
- Appears in Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time Issue #1
Action Scientist Bernard is ordered by Jenkins to take care of his rare orchid. Him and Benjamin fail to do so, and now they're screwed and escape to Mexico.
Tesladyne: On the Other Side of Tomorrow[]
- Appears in Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time Issue #2
A journalist named Dalton Nichols visits the island in which Tesladyne is situated to have an interview with Robo. The journalist documents the office-like and military-like characteristics of the complex and Robo's youthful and truly human-like characteristics. In the interview, Robo talks about the future, his intent on science, and the company's move from the Empire State Building to the island off the north-east coast of the United States in the wake of 9/11. The article cuts off before it finishes.
The Getaway[]
- Appears in Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time Issue #4
1963, in the American Southwest, Robo attempts to stop a Dr. Levinson from stealing a US Air Force experimental prototype "flying platform". Ironically, Robo himself is chasing after him with a "rocket sled". Because the prototype was unstable, it exploded, and Levinson manages to escape with Robo's rocket sled as the robot himself jumped away from the explosion.
Cover Art[]
