Category: Robocop comics
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According to the letter pages, Robocop is going through an editorial shift with this issue and the next ones. Way from Grant’s sci-fi based future and into… well, they don’t exactly say. This issue almost seems like a direct sequel to the first movie, only with a giant robot running around with a guy’s brainwaves…
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It’s finally over. I’m sure no one thought, seeing this series, Leon would go on to do anything good. Or draw anything competently. I mean, the art in this issue is the worst so far. It’s absolutely atrocious. I guess Dark Horse was being mindful of Robocop as a children’s property at this time, which…
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In one of the letter pages, the editor said Robocop would never meet up with any Marvel superheroes (I guess the licensing worked differently than that Spider-Man crossover with the Transformers) and this issue kind of shows why it wouldn’t work. The last two issues have been about costumed vigilantes. Some of them are silly,…
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There’s some really awful art this issue. I’m pretty sure the last panel is the silliest panel so far in the series. It’s like a two dimensional … I don’t know what, but something atrocious. The issue really ramps up like it’s going to stop being stupid towards the end–though I do appreciate Arcudi not…
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Thank goodness, DeMulder’s back. Grant’s doing another multi-part story here, with Robocop trying to deal with OCP (his bosses) inspired vigilantism. It’s a little strange, just because it’s in a comic book so you’ve got the protagonist fighting the traditional protagonists of the medium. There are some absurd vigilantes and then some more serious ones–it’s…
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This issue actually raises some interesting ideas. Well, no, it doesn’t. It made me think of some interesting stuff but it’s not in the issue itself, which is unfortunate. Namely, if Robocop does go bad, why doesn’t the police department have a way to turn him off? Secondly, why is Robocop’s sergeant in charge of…
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Wow, I really miss Kim DeMulder. Keith Williams inks this issue and it really doesn’t work. Robocop’s definition is silly, he looks clunky instead of streamlined. Worse are faces. I was lamenting the lack of Robocop’s partner, Lewis, in my response to the previous issue, but she’s here all the time and it never feels…
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What a goofy series. Well, I guess it’s too soon to say the series is goofy, but the first issue is certainly goofy. Maybe it’s John Paul Leon’s artwork. I’ve only seen his more recent work. Prime Suspect looks like Dark Horse hired him to ape Kyle Baker’s most cartoonish style (I’m thinking the Disney…
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So Alan Grant did Westworld with dinosaurs before Michael Crichton? There’s a dinosaur park in this issue, which came out a few months before Crichton’s novel, and, strangely, things go wrong. They go wrong for different reasons, but still… this issue could have been called “Robocop vs. Jurassic Park.” There’s a lot of action here…
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Wow, so good old Frank Miller coming through here with a happy ending and a dumb joke and just an awful comic book. There’s so little story in this issue, you’d think it was coming out today instead of back in the early nineties. Miller’s script reads like fan fiction, if I understand what fan…
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Grant’s resolution to the Robocop at war thing is surprising. First, the big revelation (of why the Arabs aren’t really the bad guys) is good enough I’m not even going to spoil it. Second, he’s got a very mild, conclusion (albeit some lame lines about Murphy being a good cop again). Third, he introduces cybernetic…
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Let’s see if I can recap. The future lady doesn’t kill Robocop because he’s too human so Robocop goes off and kills himself. Wait, wait, I forgot the opening with the Terminators colonizing outer space (another thing Cameron wisely neglected wasting time on–what do the Terminators do once they take over the planet?). Ok, so…
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Robocop goes to war. It’s an interesting idea, Robocop being used as a military weapon–leased out by his owners, instead of policing–but Grant seems more concentrated on the action potentials for this issue. There’s a lot of suggestions the morality of it will come into play next issue, but for now, it’s Robocop versus weird…
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Grant runs a subplot throughout this entire issue–riots caused by poisoned soda pop–just to fill in time and to give a sense of time progressing. It’s a technique way too nice for a Robocop comic, especially one featuring a fight between Robocop, a cyborg gorilla (what did I just read with a cyborg gorilla–B.P.R.D.: 1946)…
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This issue is definitely better. There’s very little of the future warrior woman’s narration and a lot of Robocop versus Terminator action. Miller’s sense of humor even works a little–even if he overwrites–with the ED-209s being, basically, Robocop’s obedient lapdogs. His exposition here is still terrible, laughable really. But he comes up with some really…
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Grant’s approach to this series–Robocop on a case–is nice. I mean, his future isn’t the greatest thing ever (again, I think it’s just rehashed Judge Dredd trappings), but there’s a procedural aspect to it. All of the Robocop thought balloons are a problem, as Grant has completely humanized the character–he’s just a guy turned into…
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I’m not sure what level this one is most amusing on–Frank Miller doing licensed properties? Robocop vs. the Terminator being a sequel to the dismal Robocop 3 movie? The female soldier from the future knowing everything about the past even though she wouldn’t have been born yet? All the goofy expository dialogue or all the…
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What can I possibly say about this comic book? This partial comic book (it only runs twelve or thirteen pages, though Avatar charge three bucks for it). It barely features Robocop and does so in what I assume was going to be the Avatar Robocop continuity, which never got off the ground (the company, OCP,…
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The Comics Code approved this one? Robocop kills people left and right throughout. Hmm. On we go. The issue ends with Robocop and Lewis making kissy faces at each other. Apparently, all Robocop writers (except the guys who wrote the original movie), want to introduce this plot element. I’m not complaining. It’s better handled here…
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Avatar was charging three bucks for twelve pages of story? When’s Marvel going to get on that bandwagon? Amusingly enough, Killing Machine‘s about the best Robocop story I’ve read from them. It’s just a simple adventure of Robocop. It establishes its ground situation, it aggravates the situation, it just works. More, there’s even some actual…
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Alan Grant wrote Judge Dredd, which probably explains some of his Robocop. His Robocop is talkative and makes occasional jokes; neither facet particularly works. But Grant’s Robocop isn’t terrible. It’s a sequel to the movie and, while some of the other film characters do appear, Grant’s taking things in his own direction. He’s got evil…
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Here’s what I can’t figure out–there’s this interspecies kiss between Robocop and Lewis in this one and then Robocop goes rogue, like some kind of vigilante–why the hell do Frank Miller and Steven Grant and the boys at Avatar think someone without nuts–without sex organs of any kind–is going to be getting all passionate on…
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Once again we have the almost naked Officer Lewis bossing everyone around and it’s better than usual. The entire issue would have probably taken about four minutes on film, which is about how long it takes to read. One has to wonder what the Robocop producers thought when they read this script–and how long it…
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So there’s that scene in Unforgiven where Clint Eastwood shoots the unarmed man and comments he should have armed himself, which is something like what happened about twenty-five years earlier in Hombre, but whatever. This issue has Robocop killing a bad guy in a torturous manner. Apparently, Miller thought having government employees torture people was…
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I can’t even tell anymore. Is this issue better than the last or is it the same or is it worse? I mean, there’s a lot of television stuff, a lot of stupid future post-nuclear war stuff–and a big fight scene between Robocop and Robocop 2 I couldn’t follow (Ryp is not given to comprehendible…
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And, almost magically, it goes to crap again. Not total crap–even though Ryp has got Lewis sexualized to the point she’s got less content than a swimsuit model (there’s nothing like realizing mainstream action movie misogyny has absolutely nothing on comic book misogyny, whether in Miller’s late eighties movie script or Grant’s early 2000s comic…
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You know what, this issue isn’t terrible. I mean, it’s bad, but not in comparison to the rest of the series. Robocop is in it, more than usual, and as comic relief instead of the protagonist, but whatever, at least he’s in the comic book. And some of the ideas–presumably Miller’s–are actually somewhat entertaining here.…
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Here’s where the comic sort of jumps off the deep end. I do want to point out how poorly Grant uses the commercial breaks, which are funny, in this issue. He doesn’t do them with any related news program, so there’s just story, commercial, story. He certainly hasn’t set up a comic book where he…
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And here Robocop is even less of a character. Grant (or Miller?) has found a character he wants to follow, a voluptuous female version of Dr. Phil who can guide the story. The supporting cast here is really thin; since Ryp doesn’t exactly do likenesses (at all), the familiar movie cast is identifiable only by…
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There’s technically twenty-two pages of story here, but so much of it is wasted–five pages alone, at the front, go to showing clips of television shows of the future (Grant adds, presumably, the material about TV being safe for all kids, since when Miller wrote his Robocop 2 script it was 1988 or whatever)–it doesn’t…
The Stop Button 