Saturday, December 8, 2007

I, the Robot

I, the blogmaster have never read the Isaac Asimov story I, Robot so someone will have to tell me if this is close or what. But if you’re looking for a good spooky tale with a sci-fi twist then you’ve come to the right place. If for some reason you’re looking for a funky fresh rap star turned overrated actor then just keep moving along. Please.

Originally presented in the May 1954 issue of Menace #11





9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not really a big Asimov fan but I'm gonna say the biggest difference is the word the in between the words I and robot because I really don't remember a whole hell of a lot about I, Robot and after seeing even part of the Will Smith movie I'm loathe to revisit it.

Anonymous said...

ahhhhhh, I have an issue of Marvel's What If...
It is the issue title What If The Avengers had Fought Evil During the 1950s?
One of the team members is a robot who looks a lot like the robot in this posted comic.
Take a gander at the What If... Cover Here:
http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/features/images/black/whatif9.jpg

Mr. Karswell said...

>Marvel's What If...

It is indeed the same character. Marvel actually just revived this robot (named M-11) yet again in 2006 with a six issue mini series called AGENTS OF ATLAS, where M-11 was teamed up with other golden age greats Gorilla Man, Jimmy Woo, Marvel Boy, Namora, and Venus. Their mission: to stop the evil menace, The Yellow Claw! It was a pretty decent series though the ending left me a little cold. I still reccomend it. Click here for more info: http://www.agentsofatlas.com/

Incidently, (and for our purposes here at The Horrors of it All) Gorilla Man's origin was from a story of the same name from Men's Adventures #26, an Atlas series which at that point in 1954 had quickly gone from being a comic about men fighting at war, to gruesome stories of flat-out horror: http://comics.org/details.lasso?id=11170

And of course the Venus series eventually mutated from a late 40's corny romance comic into Bill Everett 1950's scary scream-o-rama: http://comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=578

Anonymous said...

Karswell, you know your stuff!
Thank you for the history lesson. Very interesting.
Loved browsing that Venus gallery.

Anonymous said...

This story has nothing to do with Asimov's classic story. The following is copied form Wikipedia:

In science fiction, the Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which almost all positronic robots appearing in his fiction must obey. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround," although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories, the Laws state the following:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the laws are modified sequentially to acknowledge this.

Anonymous said...

AGENTS OF ATLAS WAS GOOD BUT AGREE THE END WAS A LITTLE WEAK. IT'S COOL TO SEE THE ROBOTS ORIGIN HERE THOUGH.

I THINK THE LAST KKRUL IS THE BETTER OF TODAYS ROMITA POSTS

Mr. Karswell said...

>This story has nothing to do with Asimov's classic story

I really didn't say that it did, I was just curious if there were any similarities since as I mentioned I have not read Isaac's story and the title here is an obvious play on it. Thanks for the info!

Anonymous said...

I read this in a reprint years ago and had that issue of WHAT IF?,gotta say that despite great art,and a unique twist that it isn't one of my favorites,even though i've said repeatedly MENACE is my favorite series from Atlas.one origin i'd like to see is Arthur Nagan's from MYSTERY TALES#21.I also must say,i like Will Smith,but he should stick to comedy & Capra-y movies,and yeah;I ROBOT sucked and so will I AM LEGEND,probably.

Max the drunken severed head said...

This story may have been influenced by the original "I, Robot", which was a popular and frequently reprinted story by "Eando Binder" (Earl and Otto Binder), and first was published in '39. That story was also told from the robot's point of view, as I recall. (Read a late reprint of it in grade school.) There were eventually ten stories featuring this robot, which acquired the name "Adam Link". The second story was made into an OUTER LIMITS episode.

Asimov did not want to name his book I, ROBOT because of the Binder stories but was persuaded by his editor to do so.