"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...)
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To be fair, I think any support group would be jealous of Hal.

We'll talk more about this later, but in the meantime, from the Doom Patrol blog; Save the Doom Patrol! Sign up today, and pick up the book!
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Having a bit of a lie-down today:

Ah, I was going to do a little longer post, then the day got away from me somewhere. Still, it'll keep, give me a little time to check out another issue or two, and a good excuse for this panel from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #54, "Sanctum" Story and pictures by Mike Mignola, story and words by Dan Raspler.

Come to think of it, the other day I read three or four of the Batman/Judge Dredd crossovers, and every time I do I probably realize again that Mignola did the cover for one. The second one, Vendetta in Gotham. Can't find the first one handy, but I liked those. Dredd and Bats? Not fast friends, but towards the end of Die Laughing they seem a little more tolerant of each other. Batman and Judge Anderson? Seem a little friendlier...well, no scans from those, since they are all prestige format and a pain to cram in the scanner.

Like another book: last week at the Comic Book Shop, I found a used copy of an old favorite: Robocop versus Terminator, written by Frank Miller, with art by Walt Simonson.

There must be some kind of licensing clause in play, keeping the property names front and center, and Miller and Simonson's names off the cover! Yeah, they aren't selling points for this or anything.

I had seen it before there, but someone else got it first! I must've lost the individual issues some time ago, but this is the damn weirdest trade, a "Star System Exclusive": first, there are three cardstock inserts: Robocop, a Terminator, and the human freedom fighter (whose name isn't mentioned until late in the series) that you can cut out and stand up. So, it's weird to flip through, since you'll keep hitting those. And I thought there had been an ED-209 in the fourth issue, that's not included here, which is odd that they would have three and not go the whole nine yards.

Still, it's even stranger that the trade appears to be made out of the individual issues: the covers are on a shinier paper, and some of the ads from the comics are in the trade! So there's ads for video games and Dark Horse comics from 1992, and the back cover isn't full of blurbs or anything, it's an ad for Previews from 1993. Odd, but I'm still glad to have it.
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Oh, yeah, I said I'd have another post today...

(sound of shuffling papers, a coffee cup knocked over, and barking.)

No, I'm a little better prepared than that. Sort of. I did a Show and Tell post over at Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation! It's a tribute to a favorite figure of mine, that I don't think has appeared here yet. It came out better than I had hoped, since Toy Bender's Paul took my first choice, Robocop. Look, I had a photo ready and everything!

Then I started reading old Marvel Robocop comics and got all distracted and here we are. Paul's turned out better, anyway. I do maintain a soft spot for Robo not just because of my love of the character, but because the old-school figure was (probably) the first toy I bought for myself after eight or nine crappy years of "being too old for toys."

Anyway, getting back to thanking Poe: he's a big Hellboy fan, and just finished a huge Show and Tell on figures from the Hellboy comics. (The movies, and the animated style figures, would probably need their own posts!) Since he's a big Hellboy fan, and since I had been looking for an excuse to post this one, here's a Hellboy cameo I had almost forgotten, from Mike Allred's Madman:

From Madman Comics #5, from Dark Horse in 1995. I miss the old Legend imprint, with the Easter Island head logo from Mike Mignola as well. It would probably be a colossal pain, but there really should be a Hellboy Apocrypha collection, with his crossover appearances like this, and Ghost, the Goon, Starman and Batman, Painkiller Jane, Savage Dragon...am I forgetting any? That would be a solid book. Anyway, thanks again to Poe and Paul!

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It's too soon for a Robocop remake, but I'd watch this:

Much as I love Robocop vs. Terminator, tell me the addition of a plucky little robot trash man wouldn't make it better. No? Well, this amused me, for some reason. The image of Wall*E crushing a T-800's metal skull in his compactor would make a great trailer, though...

I'm working on something else right now, but I need to make a note to try and find either new copies or the trade for Robocop vs. Terminator. I've mentioned it before, but still can't find it, so I'm positive I lent it out or something. Recently, there's been talk of remaking, probably rebooting, Robocop, but it feels premature. If they do go through with it, though, my gut feeling is that they absolutely can not have an American direct or write it. Seriously. Frank Miller did all right, but the satire aspect has to come from an outsider's point of view. How to put this? A foreigner can look at American commercials, then underline and exaggerate their worst aspects to mock them and the products they peddle. An American director would magnify and multiply those worst aspects, while still trying to place a product.

If there's a worse idea for a remake, it would be Blade Runner. On some news story at imdb.com somebody I'd never heard of said he wanted the Harrison Ford part. (Idiot! Rutger Hauer's character is the movie!) Bad, bad, bad idea. How could it be made better? You can't make it simpler, because that would destroy the mystique; and making it more complex would just be muddying the waters. It doesn't need more CGI or better production values: the city looks like hell and it should. What's left? More replicants? Deckard's troubled past? Explosions? Leave it be.

Shoot, wasn't I supposed to be working on something? Luckily, tomorrow's post is already done, so check back for a happenstance panel of a book you could and should run out and buy now...but don't blame me if it doesn't turn out...
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Busy.


No, not 'busy, like that panel,' 'busy reading a mismatched pile of comics.' The Comic Book Shop had a new restock of quarter books, and the boy and I hit them hard. Fifteen bucks worth, including a lot of Transformers, new and reprints, for the boy; who's going to have to do all number of horrible chores around the house to pay me back.

The above panel's from Frank Miller's Robocop #8, adapted by Steven Grant and Juan Jose Ryp. As I understand it, this is the ideal version of Frank's script for Robocop 2, but while this might be cool, it would only be filmable with a huge budget and special effects from five years from now. Not sure about the running time either, since this was a nine-issue series.

Juan Jose Ryp also did art for Angel Stomp Future with Warren Ellis, and he's done a lot of Avatar work. He can draw like hell, but the panels sometimes get so crowded and hectic it steps on the narrative flow. That's a minor criticism, since he does convey a frantic sense of action and movement, and it does encourage you to reread the comic to see what you've missed.

In other, sadder news, I may have to accept that my wife may never read comics, since even this did nothing for her:

Yeah, my wife's not going to become a comics reader, unless they get Anna Nicole or Paris Hilton comics in Us or InStyle or something...

Deep breath now: above from Marvel Romance Redux: Restraining Orders are for Other Girls, "Too Smart to Date!" Written by Robert Loring Fleming, based on the original story and art for "The Dream World of Doris Wilson" Art by Jack Kirby and Al Hartley. And I laughed and laughed when I saw this, but couldn't explain it to the wife at all...

Again, a big thanks to the Comic Book Shop, especially since the youngest ran away from me about twenty times, to try to climb stepladders and longboxes. I have no idea what he thought he'd find up there, but he was fighting his little heart out to get to the top. Check their site, as every week they've got a great checklist and newsletter. I'll be busy trying to get more change out of the couch for more books.

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