Four robots are searching for a way to get out of their current predicament. They’re all going to die if they can’t get it straightened out. Their journey to liberation takes them to the most totally evil planet in the galaxy. It’s not going to be easy for the four robots as The Kill Lock enters its second issue. Writer/Artist Livio Ramondelli mixes pulpy sci-fi action with a brilliant sense of humor in another extremely fun excursion into space fantasy. The four diverse characters are all drawn together in a sharp way that might be predictably bringing them together. Still, it’s doing so with so much sharp energy that it scarcely matters that it’s all heading in an obvious direction. 

There are four of them. Death, for one, means death for all, and they’re not exactly programmed with a great deal of care for their personal safety. Case in point: they have come to Rachis to try to find a way out of the Kill Lock, which binds them. Their search for The Cure finds them in need of a ship that will take them elsewhere. They know they need to steal a ship to leave the planet. One among them is too altruistic to let do so without provocation. It shouldn’t be hard to find some deserving scum to steal a ship from. The only question is: who is deserving enough to get their craft taken away from them by a group of four robots marked for death? 

Ramondi juggles dueling dangers between the four linked robots. Each one of them has a different challenge to a basic sense of survival that makes for an interesting dynamic between them. Perhaps the cleverest bit about Ramondi’s story is that there really IS no central antagonist. The danger for all four characters is very real, though. They are their own worst enemy, whether that danger be addiction, innocence, carelessness, or twisted altruism. Ramondi keeps basic survival as the fundamental victory condition for the heroes and has every one of them throwing marginally psychotic obstacles in their path towards achieving it. It’s a very smart adventure. That echoes the human race’s own lack of adaptability on the precipice of total disaster and worldwide genocide.

Ramondi’s art continues to find a variety of interesting ways to develop characterization in robots that have very, very inhuman, and inexpressive faces. The drama and comedy work by angle, momentum, and juxtaposition with each other. It’s very delicately nuanced stuff. The action flows fluidly from page to page. The sense of danger and peril is maintained throughout, with the occasional explosion of action bursting out. 

Yeah...it’s apparent that this whole thing will probably end with some sort of thing like: “The real kill lock was the friends we made along the way,” type of thing, but it’s entertaining to see a group of characters who couldn’t be more different gradually coming together. The beauty in Kill Lock is not where it’s going, but how much fun Ramondelli manages to pound into the journey there. 

Grade: A