Review by Woodrow Phoenix

In keeping with the vast expansion of Osamu Tezuka’s original Astro Boy story The Greatest Robot on Earth, Pluto Vol. 4 begins with an extended visit with Atom’s mentor, his beloved Professor Ochanomizu, on his day off. In a sequence giving great insight into the forces driving the master scientist’s work, he can’t resist tinkering with the operating system of an old, abandoned robot dog he comes across and we see how his humanity is expressed by his curiosity and joy for all forms of life. Even though he doesn’t have to, and nobody will benefit from his expertise, he applies the same focus and intelligence to the obsolete robot that he brings to solving the most complex and important problems of AI that affect the entire planet. It’s a lovely scene that operates on two levels as it also makes us aware that his intelligence and inventive capabilities are what make him a key target for the frightening and unstoppable force that is destroying robots and people linked to the 39th Central Asian War.

Naoki Urasawa and co-writer Takashi Nagasaki do a really great job of building on the template for the characters established by Tezuka and turning them into rounded, complex individuals with internal lives that really speak to us, as they struggle with the moral and philosophical problems that we all seek answers to. What makes human beings the peak of creation? How do we find purpose in existence? What can we learn by creating new forms of artificial life? Can a robot be more than its programming? These and many other existential questions underlie the interactions between detective Gesicht, Atom, Uran, Epsilon and all the other robots – and colour the decisions made by Ochanomizu and the other experts in AI who created them.

A cliffhanger ending to Vol. 3 led here, and continuing the pattern, more violent deaths and more horns left on the bodies lead to a pivotal discovery by Gesicht, but will it be in time to prevent the destruction of the remaining superpowered robots and their creators? Urasawa’s expertly expressive drawings bring each scene alive with emotion and dynamism, making Pluto a fully satisfying and absorbing experience on all levels.  Terrible events that bring Vol. 4 to a close raise the stakes even higher as we head to Vol. 5.