He handles the broad jokes where Alex handles the subtle stuff but, again, Cameron takes him to some very interesting places. Freddy is Gir with no impulse control, a glorious tornado of energy who simultaneously manages to be bratty and utterly endearing. Those two factors are far more important than the fact he can fly.Įxcept for Freddy, who thinks the fact he can fly is AMAZING. Alex is a robot, but he’s also a teenager and a troubled one at that. Likewise the subtle, gentle romance that’s hinted at here is sweetly written and observed. The moment where he wakes up from a nightmare and his parents hold their sobbing boy as he puts himself back together is a familiar one and hits all the harder for that. Alex is a sensible, sensitive kid starting to worry about who and what he is and what the future holds for him. However, Cameron never looses sight of the fact he’s writing about kids. The questions the reader has become the questions Alex in particular has and Cameron leads you and his characters alike into a darker side of this bright future than the first pages suggest.īy itself that would be fun. It’s a gutsy play and it works, especially as the book kicks into high gear in the second half. The world feels real and lived in, Cameron trusting us to fit in rather than spelling everything out. The aerial Underground is my personal favorite although the New Canary Wharf tower comes a close second, right ahead of the hover buses. They’re bullied, they struggle to fit in and, with their parents, they’re part of a secret government project.Ĭameron’s world building is lovely, simultaneously grounding the book in real adolescent concerns and peppering his wonderfully diverse London with futuristic touches. They study, do homework, bicker and live as normal a life as a pair of robot boys can. The two brothers go to school in London in the future. Alex, the older brother, is studious, funny and sensitive. Brilliantly that’s not even the best moment in this first set of adventures featuring Alex and Freddy.

And one that, gloriously, involves robotic dinosaurs and London based mayhem.Īny comic that features the line ‘Taia! We’re being attacked by the entire evolutionary history of humanity!’ Is on a winner with me. So Neill doing work for The Phoenix, as he frequently does, is a match made in heaven.

The Phoenix is one of the best anthology comics being published today. Neill Cameron is one of the best creatores working today.

Mega robot bros