"The End" Week: RoboCop #23!

The original RoboCop is one of my favorite movies ever. I have a huge affection for RoboCop 2 as well. RoboCop: the Marvel comic, well...From 1992, RoboCop #23, "Beyond the Law! Part 3" Written by Simon Furman, art by Lee Sullivan.

RoboCop balances gruesome violence, gripping action, and brutal satire; in attempting to match those tones the comic was all over the place from the start. The early issues written by Alan Grant read like Judge Dredd-lite, with the technology a bit more sci-fi than seen in the movie, and the satire somewhat more blunt. (To say nothing of the whole affair being Comics Code Approved, as apposed to a hard R rating.) Furman would come on with #12, but he may have run across another problem: coming up with decent villains. Robo can't bring down OCP, since doing so would wreck the status quo for the title; that would be like Luke killing Vader in a Star Wars comic. This month, he faces Aztec-themed lunatic Aza, and returning evil cyborg Flak, now upgraded to the latest version of RoboCop.

Flak makes not one but two fatal errors, though: Murphy had been on the verge of giving up when he was attacked, but then refuses to die and leave his Detroit to the likes of Flak, the "Old Man," and OCP. Second, a cyborg's memory is admissible as evidence, so everything Flak blabbed about framing Robo would've been recorded to exonerate him. Robo has a massive three-page monologue as he takes out Flak; admittedly with some flair, whipping a helicopter, in flight, into him. This one wraps up with all the toys back in their boxes, and was by no means RoboCop's last swing at comics. (Remember, the first RoboCop vs. the Terminator is so great, the 2011 Terminator/Robocop: Kill Human is fishwrap, except for the Simonson covers...)