Magnus, Robot Fighter by Fred Van Lente & Roberto Castro

Back in 1963 there was this Gold Key comic called Magnus, Robot Fighter 4000 A.D. (There was also a Valiant version that picked up where the Gold Key story left off. It debuted in 1991. I could also mention that there was a Darkhorse mini-series of 4 issues also published in 2009 but yeah... I didn't read it.) So that's my brief history lesson. I think I might have left out a few incarnations actually but those are the major ones.  Now it's 2014 and we've got another version of this story this time published through Dynamite. Writer Fred Van Lente best known for his work with the Conan series and artist Roberto Castro have teamed up to breathe new life into this title.

Yup, picking up this one. For the record, I hate it when comic books have nonsensical numbering. Starting a comic book series with the number zero makes me a little crabby. I've got to say, I picked this up and flipped through it in the store. Then I saw that amazing pink picture (the one at the bottom of this article). 

This story is supposed to center largely around robot fighter Leeja, or so has been my understanding. Although she's on the cover, she doesn't really seem to enter into it all that much. We mostly get a look at the life of robot in this world. The story is more of a stage set-up, which I guess means calling it issue zero makes sense....

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I still don't like calling it issue zero. Sigh. The artwork really impressed me however. Maybe I'm a sucker for the coloring. What do you think?