STAMP SAFARI

His third outing sends 25th-century ragamuffin Max on a dramatic rescue mission.

Investigating the nature of a small, sticky square that bears the likeness of ancient tennis superstar Neptune Williams forces Max to descend from Skyburb 6 to smoggy but prosperous Bluggsville. There, not only are he and his airborne kind reviled as “shadies,” but his beloved beagle-bot falls into the clutches of archnemesis Capt. Selby and is shipped off to be reprogrammed. There’s nothing for it but to sneak back into the drab vocational institution from which he had escaped two years before and save his prized robo-pooch. With help from friends and a bit of techno-wizardry, he carries the caper off with aplomb. But the mysterious artifact fizzles, as no one really wants it except Max’s ex-roomie Brandon, who just happens to be a Neptune Williams fan and in an anticlimactic exchange casually identifies it as a postage stamp. Neither the narrative nor Atze’s cartoon drawings (in which all the human figures except Brandon, a few background faces, and the long-dead Williams are white) add enough detail to make the setting more than vaguely futuristic, and the prejudice against class rather than race may ring oddly in American ears (the series is an Australian import). Still, independent readers might find the rescue’s chases, escapes, and mild suspense absorbing. Macintosh tacks a disquisition on postage stamps to the end.

A mild futuristic caper.