Robot

For extra fun, imagine this character's name as pronounced by Zoidberg. "ROBE-it." With his father, Omni-Man, incapacitated, Mark Grayson, aka teenage superhero Invincible, must join forces with the Teen Team to stop an invasion by the extra-dimensional Flaxan army. Led by the hyper-intelligent Robot, the team consists of Dupli-Kate, Rex Splode, and Atom Eve, whom Mark recognizes as his classmate Samantha Wilkins. Yes, this character's name is really just "Robot." Invincible, as a series, enjoys playing around with comic tropes - like, any book could have a Batman stand-in, but how many would think to make their ersatz Gotham City be mystically stuck in a perpetual nighttime, rather than just having the stories be set at that time of day? It's that kind of "let's take this one step further" thinking that makes the series so fun, even with a character like Robot. Robot is Invincible's version of Vision, the fully mechanized teammate. Or maybe, since he first appeared with the Teen Team, it's more of a Red Tornado/Young Justice thing. Either way, you know the deal: someone builds a mechanical android, it decides it wants to do good and be a hero. Robot is slightly intimidating, with a face designed to appear almost skeletal. It's almost like someone wanted it to be slightly off-putting! Like the other characters, Robot's animation model is taken straight from the comics, with its smooth, simple design, so this toy could honestly stand for either the printed or animated version of Robot. He has a rounded shell covering the chest and pelvis, and segmented areas on the abdomen, neck, and limbs. There are several rivets sculpted along the side of his ribcage, but generally we don't get a ton of details cluttering up the design. After all, doesn't technology get smoother the better it's made? One feature this figure does have is a removable panel in the center of the chest. It's not something that serves as a major element in the cartoon, but you can pop it off here and see some of the tech detailing inside Robot's body. Is that a power source? An access port? A weapon? We're not sure, but it does add some color variety to an otherwise monochromatic figure. Okay, that's not fair. Robot isn't really monochromatic, but he is close. Other than his eyes, which are green, and the gaps between his upper and lower jaw, which are black, he's almost entirely orange. In the comics, that's literally orange, but the cartoon darkens that up slightly so it's more of a rusty color. Don't leave your robots out in the rain, kids. The smooth parts of the body are the lighter shade, while the banded parts are closer to brown. The cartoon doesn't have as much contrast between the two shades as the toy does (and is a little bit redder), but this combo works nicely for the toy. Robot moves as well as the other DST Invinicble figures, He has swivel/hinge ankles, hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, a balljointed chest, swivel/hinge wrists, swivel forearms, hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell head. Unlike some mechanical characters, everything that's designed to look like a joint on the toy functions as a joint. It's not that his elbows really are bare, unadorned hinges, but neither did they ask Chris Dahlberg to sculpt something that looked like a hinge but was solid plastic. The only exception is the knee, which is only a single hinge on the toy, but is clearly sculpted with a notch for a scond point of movement (aka, an upper edge of the kneecap). And though, yes, it looks like his jaw should also be able to move, both the comic and the cartoon have been pretty consistent in showing it as immobile, so that's fine here. Robot's accessories are not as impressive as others we've seen in this line. Other than the articulated stand (which is already better than what Omni-Man got), all he has are hands. Open hands, closed hands, punching hands, holding hands, 10 hands of various minorly different poses. It's not the best choice ever, but Robot doesn't use a lot of devices on the show, and while you may be able to think of one thing he might have come with, that particular extra would probably have been too spoilery. Or too gross. This is a simple figure, but very nice. It really captures the character as seen on Amazon's cartoon, which is more than we could say for ol' Anime-Face, there. Plus, since Robot was never one of the Minimates, this is the first figure in the line to be getting their first figure. Neat! -- 03/09/23

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