The Chronicles of Atom: the excluded arcs

[jeffbert]

I know it is a surprise, but it is true. The Chronicles of Atom: the excluded arcs involves segments that the Dark Horse version omits. I admit, I could have known of this a year ago, but, as the Unit 7 reprint of The Chronicles of Atom is very thick & awkward for me to hold open, I had not gotten around to even flipping through it. However, Strange Wings has sent me translated pages from the 1st of (as I recall) 3 omitted arcs.

Tom of Droppy has Atom in a time before his creation, when he meets a young man / teenaged boy named Tom, who has been duped into working for a terrorist organization called Droppy whose purpose, as far as he knows, is to reduce the human population. I could add many more details, but Atom eventually persuades the boy to leave the organization, rather than act as its agent by placing time bombs in populated areas, including Tokyo Tower.

Guess who Tom grows up to be!

[Little Brown Fox]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

no clue. Gods, I'd love to see an English version of the whole thing...

[tailz]

I'm guessing he grows up to be a scientist who builds robots? lol, IDK... Un_n.

This seems very interesting. I know I can be annoying when I ask this but... Is there anyway you can scan some pages and share them with us? If not, then I understand. Thanks.

[jeffbert]

I will start with this one:

08tom_droppy.jpg (61.43 KiB) Viewed 2705 times

Before this page, a henchman had placed a satchel containing a time bomb aboard a subway train. One of the other pages said that Atom had just parted with Scara, so that should help us place this in the proper sequence. Next arc, Atom goes to the nation of Peacock,, where he meets Baro.

So, anyway, that page is #140 & is the 8th page of the arc (including the title page, which is omitted in the UNIT 7 version I have), & there are 35 in all. Skipping way ahead to the Tenma Hakase arc:

tenma_hakase01.jpg (62.55 KiB) Viewed 2700 times

tenma_hakase02.jpg (58.15 KiB) Viewed 2723 times

[Earthshine]

Wow that's an interesting twist! Too bad these arcs were not in the Dark Horse translations. When were these written by the way? If I remember correctly Tezuka worked on Astro Boy heavily in the 50s and 60s but revisited him every so often.

[jeffbert]

The Tom of Droppy arc dates from 06/22/1967 to 08/01/1967. Atom relieves himself in public on 08/02!

The 1st of the Tenma Hakase arc pages above is dated 04/25/1968.

[tailz]

Thanks for sharing the scans Jeffbert!

I'm curious as to why they haven't translated them in english yet.

Also, that first scan of the frame where atom is shooting a suitcase made me laugh.

[Little Brown Fox]

Oh this story! I had thought that you were talking about the other thing...

I don't know about the "relieving himself in public" thing; I thought that robots didn't need to do that... and that doesn't seem like something he'd do, anyhow. Unless he was doing it for a different reason?

[jeffbert]

I just looked at the pages before the Tenma arc, & noted that the ending of "Astro's Energy Runs Out" in v7 of DH is very different than the one in unit seven. In U7 (No, not Johnny Sokko) Atom leaves Surume, goes into a field, perhaps seeking Scara, & shrinks. Scara takes him into her underground home, which in a cross between Bugs Bunny's home & Jerry (or any mouse or insect character's) home. It has a ladder going down into it as does BB's home, & common items used as furniture, such as a matchbox.

Scara weeps over Atom as his power becomes exhausted 04/17/1968. These pages would go between DH7 #93 & 95 (04/04/1968). I must add that my description is an oversimplification, to say the least.

The 2 pages of Tenma go between DH v7 101 & 102.

[Strange Wings]

Here's a little suppplement. I translated some further pages out of the Atom Chronicles, and these ones here are quite funny. Remember the quarrel between the young Dr Ochanomizu and Higeoyaji about the robot question? Here is the elaborate version (featuring Astro with his wig) :