Robocop (1990) #23

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Yeah, it’s awful.

Lewis doesn’t appear in the issue. Robocop doesn’t go to Detroit. The entire issue, for him, is set on an Aztec pyramid; something along those lines.

Robocop spends most of the issue talking about what it means to be Robocop.

What I find most amusing about the comic is how everything Furman worked on–this intricate frame job, Lewis’s romantic interest in Robocop, even the development of a more recognizable police force–gets flushed here for a really lame comic book.

Worse, Robocop’s out of helmet for most of the comic so Sullivan’s art on him is weak.

I realize Marvel could have cared less–they didn’t renew the license, I’m guessing–but… wow. It’s an awful comic book. Anyone involved with the writing and editing with any shame should have used a pseudonym.

Even after all these issues, this one’s utter lack of quality surprises me.

Robocop (1990) #22

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Furman can’t wrap up the comic in an issue, which is what Marvel’s Robocop has left so he’s undoubtedly going to leave some things hanging. Or he’s going to force it all into one issue, which is going to be a disaster.

The series is wrapping up to be incredibly silly. When Marvel got rid of Grant, who brought the series into a more realized future, and brought in Furman to eighty-six those futuristic elements… well, I don’t know what artistic possibilities Robocop had, but it at least read well.

Furman more fully utilizes the licensed property elements (more characters from the movies), but not to any successful end. He’s running the series off a cliff out of sheer incompetence (though I think some of these decisions must be editorial, they’re too stupid not to be).

Again, some lovely Sullivan art and some fine human potential. Furman wastes both.

Robocop (1990) #21

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So when the series started Robocop 2 hadn’t been released and the Old Man was still a good guy. Now he’s a bad guy. But still not as bad as he was in Robocop 2. This issue ends with him manipulating Robocop into assassinating a foreign dictator.

Meanwhile, Robocop’s cracking heads (but not enough to really find his wife and kid) and the cops are under assault and Robocop’s abandoned them in general and Lewis in particular. I don’t see Lewis’s crush working out for her here.

Sullivan’s back, inking himself and Robocop looks great. Sullivan spends a lot of time on him, making him look good. He doesn’t spend anywhere near as much time on the regular people, which is a problem.

Furman packs the issue with newscasts and details about the foreign dictator and it’s a bunch of fluff. He’s pretending to have layered this story but didn’t.

Robocop (1990) #20

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Who is Andrew Wildman and why has he ruined my Robocop? Regardless of Sullivan relatively slipping, this guy is a joke. His faces are pure amateur. I suppose his figures are a little better.

This issue is a waste of time, but kind of shouldn’t be. It’s a continuation of the previous one–Robocop’s wife and child have been kidnapped, Lewis wants to tell him “how she feels”–but there’s nothing but recaps of those items. It’s all a bridge, but it’s a bridge with its own events going on.

There’s some group of rich guys plotting murders or something. It’s not really important. What’s important is Robocop turning off the robot parts and trying it human.

Under a better writer, it’d be a fantastic issue, because the things Furman’s talking about are interesting, the things he’s investigating.

He’s just not a writer who can make it work in Robocop.

Robocop (1990) #19

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So we finally get Lewis and Robocop about the suck face and it turns out it’s a stupid brainwashing thing? Or, worse, we don’t even find out if it’s a stupid brainwashing thing. It’s never followed up on, instead Furman has Robocop’s human mind battle his computer mind in a scene straight out of Superman III (with some Empire Strikes Back visuals–Luke in Vader’s helmet–thrown in).

It’s Sullivan inking himself again, which runs hot and cold. The art’s nowhere near as strong as when Kim DeMulder inked him on the first ten or twelve issues. It’s okay, but it’s not great like it was. It doesn’t matter much, since Furman’s a boring writer. He’s mildly competent–he knows to have the police sergeant reflect once the brainwashing is over–but there’s nothing particularly striking about it.

Oh, wait. No, he sucks… I forgot all about the super-villainess.

Robocop: Roulette (1993) #4

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Dark Horse’s Robocop ends here. Finally.

It’s not a bad issue, definitely the best in this series and probably overall (the competition isn’t particularly steep, however). It helps Jeff Butler handles some of the art chores. I don’t know who he is or what else he’s done, but he’s better than Byrd.

There’s some unintentionally funny moments here, especially when they rip off a scene from Robocop 2.

A brief post-mortem on Dark Horse’s Robocop, since there’s nothing else to say about the comic book (it’s bad, but not godawful):

There’s no continuity. Just a general reference to the movies, especially the third one, but nothing to really tie the series together. There are these evil rich white men who control all the bad things (oh, is it just me or is the only real black character in the comic–set in Detroit–a criminal?), but it goes nowhere.

Robocop (1990) #18

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Furman goes episodic here. I mean, TV episodic, maybe the five minutes before the opening titles role. It’s all about cops going crazy and whatever it is driving them crazy also effects Robocop so there’s a cliffhanger with him about to shoot a bunch of people.

Sullivan inks himself here, which is an improvement over the latest issues, but is a mixed bag. Some of his faces don’t look very good (a definite improvement, just not as strong as when the series started), but there’s a lot of great detail. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Robocop look so good, for example.

What’s striking about the issue is the lame and unrealistic characterizations. Cop going psychotic–only Robocop reacts to serve the public, other cops want to defend psycho cop.

Oh, the villain–her name’s Lot’s Wife. Furman deserves a special place in the Comic Writer’s Penitentiary for that one.

Robocop: Roulette (1993) #3

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Byrd’s art is pretty awful, but it’s a surprisingly okay issue. Even taking all the stupidity into account, Arcudi does manage a couple all right moments here, like when Robocop goes back to the scene of his own murder.

There’s also a lot of cop talk, not related to Robocop, and it passes the panels. It’s not exactly filler, just more of Arcudi doing whatever he can to avoid making Robocop the protagonist in his own comic (which isn’t bad, necessarily, the first Robocop spent a lot of time with other characters–except they were interesting, Arcudi’s are not).

Maybe the time between reading the previous issue and this one has something to do with it. They certainly weren’t written “for the trade,” so a delay–just to let the brain cells regrow–is a must.

Still, shame they can’t do anything with Robocop; it’s a waste of a license.

Robocop (1990) #17

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Egads that’s bad.

I was all set to say nice things about the art, but then Candelario’s inks made that one impossible.

It’s a terribly written comic book. Besides having a really stupid plot, it’s just got the most atrocious dialogue imaginable.

As a sequel to Robocop 2, it’s somewhat interesting–and it does flesh out Lewis’s character more than the movies ever did, giving her a gambling addict ex-husband, which seems really weak for her character and not anything one would believe in anything but a licensed comic book. I think whoever oversaw Marvel’s treatment of the characters napped through this script review (at the time, I think Orion was going out of business, so maybe the liaison was busy).

It’s a painfully bad comic book, worse than any of the previous ones in fact. It might be the worst issue overall.

I really miss Alan Grant’s writing.

Robocop: Roulette (1993) #2

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Twenty-four pages of story and nothing really happens. I mean, clearly, things happen. There’s a fight, there’s an argument with the dumb detective, there’s Robocop’s girlfriend–she’s not his girlfriend but whatever (Byrd draws her middle aged, clearly not basing her off the very young Jill Hennessy who played her in the movie), there’s a surprise at the end, there are callbacks to previous Dark Horse titles.

There’s just no content. Robocop is, in the Dark Horse comics, a boring character. He’s outlived his usefulness, dramatically, and it’s just a mess. He doesn’t fight crime anymore, he fights the limited series’s villains, which just makes him a cartoon, cookie cutter superhero.

There’s got to be something I like about it….

I guess the design work on the bad robot is pretty well done. It looks a little like the Robocop 2 in the movie, but it’s still different enough.