Part Man, Part Machine, All Comic Panels: A RoboCop Comics Retrospective (Part 2)

Hello, my friends.  2017 has come to a close, but there’s still some time to finish up celebrating the anniversary of a beloved sci-fi series.  As such, I welcome you to the second part of my special event known as…

Last time, we looked at RoboCop’s earliest comic book ventures.  We started off with Marvel’s run where they adapted the first two films while also sending Alex into fantasical comic book adventures.  Afterwards, we looked at Dark Horse’s tenure where they adapted the third film while also serving as its own continuation of the film series.  For more information about that era, check out the first part of my retrospective.  For now, let’s continue our venture!

Less than a decade after Dark Horse’s run with the property came to a close, the RoboCop comics license would get picked up by Avatar Press, based out of Rantoul, Illinois.  In terms of what major project the company had in store for the franchise, it involved something that dates back to the series’ second theatrical outing.

In an essay for the preview issue given out on Free Comic Book Day 2003, series writer Steven Grant (who also wrote the comic adaptation of RoboCop 3) expressed much enthusiasm when he looked over Frank Miller’s original screenplay for RoboCop 2.  When Avatar Press decided to adapt it into a comic book, they told Grant “We want everything in the screenplay in there, so tell us how many issues you need.”.  His essay can be reached in the link, so here’s how the seeds for this series came about.  Following the huge success of the hit 1988 Batman comic “The Dark Knight Returns”, Jon Davison (who produced the first two films) contacted Miller on writing the screenplay for the sequel.  Even though Frank constantly showed up during production to learn about the film-writing process (even garnering a cameo as Cain’s drug chemist named “Frank”), his original script was deemed “unfilmable” by Orion Pictures’ studio executives and was ultimately rewritten into the underwhelming feature that debuted in 1990.  After Avatar Press got the comics license and told Miller that they were interested in adapting his original script, he was unable to write or draw on the project due to a conflicting schedule (though he would draw the main covers).

Written by Grant and drawn by Juan Jose Ryp, this series began on August 2003 before embarking on an erratic release schedule that became far too familiar with those who know about Frank Miller’s infamous “All-Star Batman & Robin”.  Issues 2-4 would see a monthly release from October to December 2003 before its fifth entry came out on February 2004.  Issue #6 wouldn’t come out until July and the seventh part didn’t see the light of day until October.  For issue #8, it wasn’t released until June 2005 while the ninth and final issue ended up coming out on January 2006.  Even with the inconsistent release schedule (taking two years and five months to get the entire series adaptation out), let’s dive in and get an idea of what Frank Miller originally had in store for RoboCop 2.

We open on a talk show called The Luke Spindle Show where we learn that crime has become rampant throughout Old Detroit, due to the fact that the police strike that loomed over the first film is in full effect.  Not only that, but a commercial break reveals a plot element that would ultimately get used in RoboCop 3 where the destitute metropolis is going to be torn down and be rebuilt as Delta City, starting with innocent-looking eviction notices to the citizens living there.

However (just like the third film), a desolate apartment building is getting torn down while a family that received a eviction notice is still inside.  A young girl named Christine Stretzletski is saved by her dad, but his head gets viciously hit by the crumbling rubble and dies.  She does get out in time, but ends up getting kidnapped by a deranged couple as they proceed to drive off.

Fortunately despite the constant stream of crime pouring in and his police car being in less-than-stellar shape, RoboCop spots them and gives chase.  He manages to weave his way around traffic in order to intercept the felons by ramming them off the road.

Afterwards, he grabs the male thug out of the car and throws him to the wall before taking out the female thug in precisely gory fashion where he fires a shot that goes right through the barrel of her gun and even through her body.  RoboCop then learns from the still-conscious male thug about the rundown Chrysler Factory over in nearby Hamtramck before tossing the felon into a nearby garbage pile and helps young Christine out of the car.

Over at said facility, an illegal human trafficking ring is underway as the felons operate a black-market adoption business with several kidnapped children being held in cages.  Just then, one of the thugs sees an approaching police car as they prepare their weapons in response.  Outside, RoboCop preps for battle by replacing his left robotic hand with an attachable chain gun (instead of the machine gun/flamethrower/rocket launcher attachment from the third film).

From there, he makes his way inside and guns down every last thug.  All that remains is the operation’s leader who holds a handgun to the imprisoned kids.  Fortunately, Issue 1 ends with RoboCop subduing the felon by making a precise shot that permanently relieves the thug of his right hand.

Issue 2 opens on a newscast where a psychiatrist named Dr. Margaret Love is at a public burning for various RoboCop memorabilia as she voices her disliking towards him since she believes that he’s a bad role model for children.  She’s then on a talk show where she tells the skimpy hostess named Lilac of her intention to help bring “OCP’s commitment to the social & psychological welfare” to the forefront with better communication since she’s also aware of RoboCop’s impact on the youth.

Meanwhile, a youthful prostitute starts getting hassled by a sleazy man who chases after her with a knife.  Fortunately, RoboCop arrives and shoots the perp in the knee while driving by.  As he sees the young hooker, he gets quick flashbacks of his wife and son.  While the images play in his head, Alex manages to get back to the police station.

By the time he reaches his fellow partner Anne Lewis (who managed to subdue and handcuff a felon), his internal systems run out of power and he collapses to the ground.  As an ambulance gets summoned, we learn from a conversation between Lewis and Sgt. Warren Reed that RoboCop has been on duty for over three-straight days.  Just then, another concept from the third film shows up as a “Rehabilitation Concepts” squad arrives at the station.

Later at OCP, RoboCop is attached to a maintenance table as he gets some repairs while Dr. Love and a fellow businessman named “Mr. Fleck” (who would end up in the third film as Jeff Fleck) oversee the process.  Later (and after a change of wardrobe, apparently), Margaret looks over RoboCop while he’s in his recharge station.  After most of the team heads out for a coffee break, she has a remaining staff member strap Murphy down to his chair.

From there, Dr. Love reprimands him for one of his recent actions.  It turns out that OCP bought a local brewery in order to have it demolished and RoboCop was sent in to clear the workers out.  Fortunately, Alex’ human side still prevailed as he ultimately refused to comply with company orders.  As punishment for delaying OCP’s demolition timetable, she has the worker shock him before freeing him from his straps.

Later, she talks with her boss as she voices her displeasure over RoboCop’s limited programming, but he states that their prized crime-fighting cyborg is all that they have in maintaining a positive connection with the citizens of Old Detroit.  They then meet up with Fleck who lets them know about a project that’s in the works.  Using the remains of a deceased street cop named Masterson, Issue 2 ends with a tape being run showing what the vital organs are being used for: a more advanced crime-fighting robot named RoboCop 2.

In a quick montage that’s familiar to anyone who’s seen the second film, Issue 3 begins with a few attempts at showing various versions of RoboCop 2 ending in fatalistic failure.  Margaret states that these setbacks are being caused by a few reasons: A. Insufficient conditioning systems, B. None of the previously-used subjects were suitable enough and C. Unlike Murphy who’s regained his human sense of determining right from wrong, their proper subject needs to be “value-neutral”.  As such, she tells her superior to give her a day since she’s found the perfect “candidate” and that things are starting to come together.

Out on the streets of Old Detroit, a group of men have broken into a gun store in order to take some firearms, due to most of the police still being on strike.  However, they’re not knowledgeable on how to use them, especially since one of them accidentally injures his own hand on a handgun.  Anne arrives and easily stops their misguided attempt when one of the Rehabilitators arrives by hitting her with his car, causing her some harm as a result.  Afterwards, the deranged official gets out and proceeds to kill the attempted robbers with his gun & knife.

Lewis orders him to surrender, but the brute uses an incendiary grenade to make his escape.  She gets mostly covered in the flames as her uniform suffers massive damage  Seeing the perp starting to drive off, she fires her gun towards him.  However, the flaming residue reaches the bullets within the store as the building ultimately explodes, taking Anne’s police car as well, even though she survives the firey onslaught.

A short time later, the thug (who’s name is Kong) is finally getting chased by RoboCop as he’s ordered by his leader named Seltz (who’s under the guiding command of Dr. Love) to lure Murphy towards the demolition site.  Shortly after arriving, RoboCop sees the Rehabilitators box his car in before heading inside to search for the deranged subject.  With an innocent family trapped within the building, the Rehabs arrive to take care of the unfortunate folks.  From there, RoboCop fires his Auto-9 at them and punches one of the agents with enough force to send him flying back to their cars and smash into one of the windshields.

Kong emerges from his vehicle and mourns over the loss of his comrade named Stillson.  He’s then informed by a fellow Rehab of what’s going down before using his abnormal strength to climb the building.  After taking care of the Rehabilitators, RoboCop makes his way upstairs to discover Kong mutilating an unfortunate elderly woman.  They then proceed to fight each other before Kong tries to use a grenade.  Fortunately, Murphy’s precise aim comes into play as he shoots it out of the air.  Kong tries to use another one, but Alex fires at it as it blows up and mutilates the fiend’s hand.

Observing the scene from afar, one of the Rehabs fires a rocket launcher which hits RoboCop and destroys his right arm.  With the building starting to collapse and despite his weakened state, he rushes over to save an unfortunate man.  From there, Issue 3 ends on a random OCP commercial where a man takes his own life due to not using the company to help secure his business account.

Following a two-page segment from Media Break, Issue 4 begins with Murphy dreaming of moments of his past life, specifically his romance with his wife Ellen.  It’s then revealed that he’s been brought back to OCP, but in need of serious repairs.  Just then, she actually shows up (while pregnant) as a a tearful reunion occurs between her and Alex.  He learns that their son Jimmy is doing good while she’s stunned to see that he’s still alive.  Afterwards, Ellen is escorted out.  From there, Margaret tells Murphy that he’s only a machine while as assistant shocks him with a cattle-prod.

Afterwards, they get to work on reprogramming him to their will.  After RoboCop is back on his feet and discovers that his signature handgun was taken from him, it turns out that he’s been given one too many directives (just like the second film) programmed into him.  Not only that, Margaret tells him that she’s left her own personal touch in his “discipline systems”, so that his human nervous system will harm him.

Later, RoboCop and a company representative named Mr. Fallow drive out to a group of kids that the news crews will oversee.  However, he finds some children playing next to a running fire hydrant.  Just like the second film, he seals the leak with his robotic grip before scolding a cursing kid that proceeds to spray-paint him.  RoboCop then enters a toy store where a guy holds a employed Santa at gunpoint due to him being sold a defective doll.  He easily shoves the bum over in defeat, but gets scolded by the store Santa for wreaking his store since he’s also the manager.  Because he used profanity in his outburst, Murphy ends up throwing him through the window.  Afterwards, Mr. Fallow calls Margaret and lets her in on what happened.

She then contacts Seltz and informs him that OCP is ready to deploy its newest model.  However, RoboCop must be taken out of the picture.  With some horrible act needed to blame Murphy, he calls up his sniper named Gillette who’s hiding out and prepare to kill Sgt. Warren Reed.  Just then, he holds up when Officer Lewis drives up.  She heads inside and finds out that he’s trying to leave town.  After Warren explains about the Rehab’s brute named Kong (described as an “Amphetamine Freak”), Anne suggests that they turn to Commissioner Yindel (a nod to a character from “The Dark Knights Returns”, clever) for help.  However, he disagrees since he thinks that both of them would get killed if they tried.

Suddenly, a shot fires through the window as Reed is tragically slained via headshot.  After taking a shot in the shoulder, Lewis jumps towards the fire escape while firing back in the general opposing direction.  After landing on the ground via a garbage pile and despite taking a shot to her heel, Issue 4 ends with her getting in her car and driving off.

Issue 5 opens with Anne trying to contact her partner RoboCop, but Central Dispatch is unable to comply.  Just then, Gillette catches up and manages to shoot out one of her tires, causing her to lose control and land on her car’s side.  Afterwards, Lewis climbs out of the wreckage and draws her gun (while her police shirt un-bottons itself, apparently) and engages in a shootout with the thug.  However, the most damage that both sides receive is a wound to Gillette’s shoulder and a cut to Anne’s face.

They then proceed to engage each other in a knife fight, with Lewis planting the killing stab on the perp.  As she takes his gun and ammo, she’s then confronted by a Rehab Helicopter.  Anne manages to hop into Gilette’s car as it withstands the opposing gunfire while she drives off.  The enemy helicopter pilot is ordered to pull back since another Rehabilitator named Swenson arrives to give chase.  Following a quick and bloody commercial for a Johnny Rehab action figure, Lewis reaches the donut shop and gets inside.  Thanks to the building being filled with striking cops, they subdue Swenson before Anne tells them that the Rehabilitators have killed Reed, prompting a group of cops to follow her lead to engage the opposing group.

Following a quick Media Break where RoboCop gets framed for Warren’s murder, Murphy walks past a car-jacker who’s broken into an automobile before its self-defense system traps the perp and shocks him to death (reused in the second film as a Magna-Volt commercial in the opening scene).  Over at a train station, a male patron who’s waiting for his timely departure is unable to find a spot to smoke a cigarette.  Shortly after reaching the boarding platforms, he decides to light one up.  Just then, RoboCop shows up and (just like the second film) shoots around him in order to scare him out of his action while saying the exact phrase as well.

Suddenly, a giant mechanization bursts in as Fleck follows suit to announce what this robot is: RoboCop 2.  It then proceeds to gun down an elder guard before incinerating an Elvis impersonator.  As Murphy observes from afar, he notices that the robotic behemoth plunges its hand into the deceased guard’s body and strokes its blood across its face.  Realizing that Kong has been used for the RoboCop 2 process and with civilians still trapped in the ruckus, Issue 5 ends with RoboCop (despite being saddled with loads of needless directives) engaging the Rehabilitators and their star robot.

Issue 6 opens with Murphy taking out a few of the Rehabs in a shootout before engaging Kong-As-RoboCop 2.  They proceed to fight each other as Kong uses his robotic enhancements to damage Alex’ helmet before trying to electrocute him.  Murphy counters by jamming his Terminal Strip into the fiend’s face before Kong drops a bomb on him.

RoboCop then lures his foe towards a side railing, but gets cornered as Kong uses his flamethrower on him.  During the skirmish, Murphy loses his Auto-9 down the chasm and gets stuck on the crumbling railing.  Fortunately, he gets his leg free since RoboCop 2 was lured onto the tracks where it proceeds to get run over by a train.

After reaching the station, the passengers pour out while Fleck and company look for their cyborg.  During the chaos, Fleck loses the remote control within the crowd while RoboCop 2 reemerges to continue its slaughtering.  Fortunately, one of the Rehabs recovers the remote and gets Kong under control.  Unbeknownst to them, a battered RoboCop manages to get up and escape.

We then cut to a broadcast of The Luke Spindle Show where he tells his audience that he doesn’t believe that RoboCop has become a cold-hearted killer, believing that OCP is truly behind it all.  It’s then revealed to be a segment on Media Break since he was shot by an assassin who snuck a plastic handgun past security and into the studio.  Fortunately, he survived.  Following two commercials and a report on tactical nuclear weapons detonated in Greenland, we quickly cut back to RoboCop who continues his underground escape.

Over at the hospital, Margaret and her head associate learn that Murphy escaped and that they can’t track him due to the sewer’s metal pipes interfering with the signal.  They then head over to the private operation room where Kong is getting an updated program while having his memories and personality reformatted.  However, Issue 6 ends with them noticing RoboCop 2 twitching its hand as Margaret wonders how that’s possible and orders a technician to check it out.

Issue 7 opens with the scans coming out clean as Dr. Love gives the order to commence with the uploading sequence.  Just as she’s about to insert a disc into a CD-Rom drive, the building gets rocked by a sudden attack.  It turns out that RoboCop punched his way into the storage basement and took out an OCP security guard before taking his machine gun.  After taking out a few guards along the way and acquiring another machine gun as well, he makes his way up to the operating room and orders everyone but Margaret out.

Despite his weariness, Murphy tells her to delete the unnecessary program inside him.  After overseeing her complete the process, he passes out.  Seeing her opportunity, Margaret takes one of the machine guns and tries to kill Alex.  Fortunately, he was wise since he took out the bullets before entering as he gets up and demonstrates just “how human” he really is.  He does so by inserting his Terminal Strip and shows off the vital organs that are still a part of him.  After coming across the specs for Kong and how he was used in the RoboCop 2 process, Murphy then rips the console apart with his strip and destroys it.

After picking her disc up, Margaret berates him since he’s destroying the only copy that’s available.  However, Alex smacks her into the console which explodes and badly singes her.  RoboCop then proceeds to exit and uses the other machine gun to trap her inside the room before taking a dead guard’s handgun and leaves.  With time running out, she hooks up RoboCop 2, inserts the disc into the still-functioning computer and works like mad.  A short time later, the room explodes as Margaret’s burned and deceased corpse flies out.

Afterwards, RoboCop 2 emerges from the flaming room as it’s revealed that Margaret has successfully uploaded her consciousness into the robotic body, supplanting Kong in the process.  She then uses her automated arm-mounted machine gun and shoots Murphy out of the hospital.  After landing on the streets, he’s found by the Rehabs as they open fire on him.  Unfortunately for them, RoboCop takes them out with his handgun before getting into one of their cars in order to drive off.

However, Margaret isn’t willing to let him escape as she uses her robotic arm to latch onto the vehicle and tries to attack.  Fortunately, Alex manages to shoot the passenger door off and manages to lose her.  Even when Seltz orders another group of Rehabs to stop him at the Metro North police station, Murphy manages to elude them with gunfire and drives off.  As such, Issue 7 ends with Seltz and company noticing something from afar.

Issue 8 begins with Lewis arriving with a small group of cops at the Metro North Police Station’s locker room.  After discovering that one of the lockers has a bloodied smear, they open it up and are horrified to discover a fellow officer named Estavez who’s been killed and stuffed in there.  Not only that, but a grenade was planted on him as they manage to take cover.  However, Mendelsohn didn’t notice in time as he gets mutilated in the explosion.

Afterwards, they hear someone over a loud speaker taunting them with mentions of the Battle of Thermopylae (an eventual nod to “300”) and the “Night of the Long Knives” (a Nazi purge in 1934 that allowed Hitler to assume control of Germany via political executions).  During this, Lewis loses even more officers via a barrage of gunfire and a booby-trapped phone.  Becoming incredibly freaked out, a young cop named Whitakker ends up running outside.  The Rehabs see this and decided to toy with him as they proceed to wound him with crossbows.

Just when things look really dire, RoboCop returns and rams into the opposing cars.  With him drawing the enemy fire, Anne and company are able to reach Whitakker in order to treat his serious leg wound.  With their partnership reunited, Robocop and Lewis proceed to gun down several Rehabs.  One of the wounded agents accidentally drives into an ED-209 and gets shot up by it.

With the remaining agent named Seltz escaping into the construction site, our remaining heroes are suddenly approached by incoming enemy gunfire.  It turns out that a Rehabilitators helicopter is coming in and it’s brought RoboCop 2 as well.  Alex proceeds to take aim and shoots the rear propeller as the chopper crashes into the building.

Seltz manages to avoid the wreckage and hops into a construction elevator with RoboCop managing to hitch a ride by holding onto a rear cable.  While RoboCop 2 emerges from the downed copter, Seltz tries to fire back at Murphy.  However, he punches through the floor and fiercely grabs his leg.  As Margaret catches up, she prepares to launch a projectile from her arm.  Thanks to his previous battle, RoboCop manages to dodge in time as Issue 8 ends with her unintentionally blowing up Seltz with a rocket projectile.

Issue 9 opens with RoboCop 2 using its retractable arm to save itself from falling to its death before activating its magnetized limbs to climb up after Murphy.  As Margaret prepares to launch another bomb, RoboCop manages to use his precise aiming to shoot at the prepped explosive and cause her right arm to blow up.  However, she still manages to climb up and attack with its flamethrower.

Fortunately, Murphy’s precise aiming system discovers a hidden fuel line and allows him to shoot at it.  As the liquid squirts out, it reaches her exposed and sparking wires as it causes a huge explosion.  Despite its weakened state, Margaret still manages to shock RoboCop through the metal beam he’s standing on.  Although Alex managed to prevent himself from falling, she still manages to use her retractable arm to knock the handgun out of his hand.

They then proceed to tussle for a bit before Murphy shoves RoboCop 2 and himself down towards the ground.  Just as they land, Anne is acquiring a rocket launcher before heading back over.  Back at impact central, RoboCop is slowly rising to his feet.  However, RoboCop 2 (despite being a mangled mess) manages to get up and begins to charge at him.  Just then, Murphy is told to duck as he proceeds to comply.  It turns out that Lewis has arrived as she delivers the killshot with her rocket launcher and sends Margaret to a fatalistic end.

Just as they meet up, RoboCop thanks Lewis by picking her up and kiss her.  Afterwards, he starts to head out.  When Anne asks where he’s heading towards, Murphy exclaims that’ll be his decision before taking his leave.  Sometime later, Luke Spindle is back on the set of his talk show (despite still being in recovery) as he explains that the police strike has ended and that the Rehabs are in trouble.  He also exclaims that he doesn’t believe that RoboCop is dead despite the reports.  Over in a desolate part of Old Detroit, it turns out that Alex has his own recharge station inside of the buildings.  After a receiver picks up the numerous crimes, the series ends with RoboCop getting up, hopping into his police car and driving off to fulfill his duty.

During the two-year, five-month period that Frank Miller’s original RoboCop 2 script was getting adapted into comic book form, Avatar Press managed to release a pair of one-shot stories during its scattershot releases.  First up, we have “RoboCop: Killing Machine”.  Released in August 2004, this tale was written by Steven Grant and drawn by Anderson Ricardo as it ended up selling 7,323 copies during its initial release.  As such, let’s dive in and see how this stand-alone tale holds up.

We open with RoboCop lifting a car out of a busy intersection as he and Lewis are taking care of a traffic jam.  Afterwards, Murphy heads over to an electric box and inserts his Terminal Strip to diagnose the cause, discovering that the traffic system was compromised by an external source.  As such, he proceeds to fix it.  Over at a mansion, a hacker named “Georgie” is mad that his mischief was easily terminated.  As his sibling named Elizabeth watches him from afar, he decides to get back at RoboCop by remotely hacking into him.

Fortunately, Murphy’s personal firewall stops the punk’s attempt before banning him with ease.  No matter how hard he tries, Georgie’s attempts to compromise our hero is constantly shot down.  Just then, he comes across a suspended machine listed under “Project: Urban Pacifier” and decides to hack that.  It turns out that Georgie has taken control of a spider-like armament called a City-Buster.  As such, he commands it to rise up out of the city depths to begin his hunt.

Just as RoboCop and Anne are about to call it a well-fought day, they’re suddenly attacked by the City-Buster.  Murphy and Georgie proceed to tussle for a while before Alex starts to climb up a building.  Our antagonistic hacker sends the City-Buster after him before locking a powerful projectile at our hero.  Fortunately, RoboCop survives the blast as he dives down towards the opposing machine and plunges his Terminal Strip through the opposing machine, thus destroying it in the process.

Back at the mansion, Elizabeth lets her sibling know that she’s leaving with Shelly to go shop for food.  However, Georgie doesn’t respond as his body limply falls over.  As such, the tale ends with the revelation that his consciousness is trapped in a microchip that a homeless woman now uses as an earring and he has no way to log off.

Closing out Avatar’s run with the comic license, we have another one-shot that writer Steven Grant also worked on: “RoboCop: Wild Child”.  Published in February 2005, this tale was drawn by Carlos Ferreira and ended up selling 5,667 copies upon its release.  As such, let’s head inside and see how this era comes to an end.

We open on a Tuesday with a group of youthful joyriders storming into Old Detroit.  RoboCop is chasing after them, but is forced into evasive maneuvers when one of the young ladies named Heaven starts throwing grenades (which she stole from a munitions dump) at him.  As they cross the bridge, the woman (who hints at Old Detroit being “her” town) manages to blow up a key piece of the structure, causing Murphy to escape from his vehicle in order to avoid plunging into the water.  Long after the mischief makers have escaped, Lewis arrives as they head back to base.  Later, Alex connects a device to himself so that Anne can look at what her partner saw.  After seeing what the young group looks like, she then groans since she recognizes one of them.

Meanwhile, the young gang breaks into a construction yard in order to hide out.  From there, we learn a bit about their lady leader.  Heaven tells her gangmates that she used to play in dangerous places around here with her sister and she wasn’t seen too highly by her mom.  After she and her fellow members shoot at the approaching guard dogs, they begin to plan on taking care of RoboCop.  We then cut to two days later as Heaven and company take over a restaurant called Breakfast Fiesta.  She then orders the waitress to get some pancakes for her and her cohorts while allowing the hostages to call the police.  Later, RoboCop arrives as the captives are getting released.  He then confronts the gang, but they unleash their surprise: a modified construction bulldozer with speed enhancements.  Fortunately, Murphy’s cyborg strength allows him to stop the rampaging machine and shake the driver out.  However, Heaven holds a remaining hostage at gunpoint as she tells Alex to surrender or else.  As such, it allows her gang members to come in with a cement truck and trap him in cement.  Anne then arrives to stop her as it’s revealed that not only are they sisters, but that Heaven’s actual first name is Lucy.

Lewis proceeds to take out the cement truck operator with a well-placed shot before beating the snot out of her delinquent sister, disarming her in the process.  After RoboCop frees his feet from the cement, Anne tells Lucy to take her friends and leave Old Detroit forever.  Afterwards, the issue ends with RoboCop and Lewis discussing her family issues as they take care of a remaining gang member who tried to attack them with a grenade.

During this time, there were also plans for other series from the publisher: “Simple Machines” and “War Party”.  I couldn’t find any information on the former, other than it was planned for 2004 but never came to be.  As far as the latter goes, all I could find was a description on Avatar’s website.  According to its 2005 solicitation pages, it would have been a three-issue tale set in the same continuity as Frank Miller’s original vision of RoboCop 2.  Murphy would have fought a band of violent revolutionaries who’re looking to turn Old Detroit into an independent nation.  Alex would have also dealt with a munitions maker that would have introduced new weapons in the conflict.  Also, the Bastion Corporation would have been at the antagonistic center of the chaos.  For whatever reason, this series also never came to be.

As far as my thoughts on how Avatar Press handled its RoboCop comics license, I’ll naturally start with their biggest project that encompassed the entirety of their run: Frank Miller’s RoboCop.  I found the tale to be slow out of the gate, especially since the first issue has Murphy taking out a pair of separate crimes against children moments that don’t really play into anything within the grand scheme of the story.  Yes, Luke Spindle is established in there as well, but he doesn’t effect the tale too much.  With Dr. Margaret Love, she essentially becomes Dr. Juliette Faxx as the ruthless high-end female associate of OCP for the film and seeing how her character ends up as RoboCop 2, this is also where the drug dealer Cain gets spawned from.  It’s also amazing that the Rehabs originally had a bigger role here before being relegated for RoboCop 3 and that it was one of their men that originally became RoboCop 2.  In fact, the original design does make whoever’s programmed into it feel like a monstrous and muscular titan of destruction with additional weapons to boot.  It even lets others clearly know who’s piloting it with its distinct multi-screen facial display unlike the film version where it was a primitive CGI face on a retractable screen and only has a slab to represent its face.  There’s also some differences when it comes to weaponry.  The original version came with a retractable arm (the right one, at least), retractable claws, gattling gun, a shocking touch and a flamethrower while the movie version had floodlights, a plasma torch, a chain gun, a tractable left arm that serves as a battering ram and a shoulder assault cannon.  Finally, there’s a mention near the end of the tale of a certain Japanese corporation seeking a bid on the Detroit Police Department.  Like the Rehabs, that would only come to pass in the third movie since the Kanemitsu Corporation would acquire OCP in that flick.  Other than that, the present story kicks into gear as it progresses and actually becomes a fun romp as it picks up steam.  However, what somewhat hampers it is the artwork.  When Juan Jose Ryp’s unique style works, it presents the story in a coherent light.  However, his overly-detailed touch can result in imagery that can range from messy to cluttered.  The latter definitely kicks in when Murphy fights RoboCop 2 during the final battle at the construction sight.  Combining the darkness with the battle damage, I couldn’t make it out when it was still.  In the end, the nine-issue tale was nice it terms of seeing what Frank Miller originally wanted to do with the first sequel.  In the end, the story is OK while the action is decently handled and the main characters are still worth following.  As far as the two one-shots go, they can serve as mini-adventures that takes place at any point before or after RoboCop 2.  Killing Machine serves as a constant reminder that for all of OCP’s intimidating control over Old Detroit, RoboCop seems to be their only successful machine.  Even then, he’s always been a human being kept alive by his robotic enhancements.  Whether it’s ED-209 (as Nikko proved in RoboCop 3) or a seemingly defunct City-Buster, the company is more interested in making money and running the city themselves than spending some of their cash on some high-end software protection for their products.  There’s hardly any development for Georgie other than the fact that he’s a hacker who inherited a nice mansion.  His ultimate punishment does come off as a bit harsh, mainly because we don’t know why he’s an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed youth who only sees hacking various things as his only reason for living.  Despite that, Anderson Ricardo’s artwork is a breath of fresh air after the overly-detailed and chaotic style of Juan Jose Ryp.  His style is much more pleasant on the eyes, allowing the colors to shine and letting the action flow much better.  With Wild Child, it’s another bit of fresh air for a different reason.  For the first time since Issue #17 of Marvel Comics’ run, another piece of Anne’s side of the universe gets revealed.  While it isn’t further development for her own characterization, it is towards her own family.  While she grew up and became a cop with her strong moral values and kind-heartedness, her younger sister Lucy personally chose to stop developing as a mature woman and formed her own street gang in order to have their own reckless fun at the cost of good will.  While not having too much in terms of character development, Heaven gets more backstory than Georgie ever did in the previous issue.  Like the failed hacker, she does try to get revenge on RoboCop for interfering with her brand of dangerous entertainment.  By the end, I love how it mixes things up and Anne is allowed to step in and save the day, kicking the utter crap out of her delinquent sibling in crowd-cheering fashion.  Out of the two one-shots, I prefer Wild Child over Killing Machine, but I definitely recommend you read both after the nine-issue yarn, of course.

As Eyzmaster brings up in his review of the adaptation of Frank Miller’s original RoboCop 2 script, it shares a common trait with several of Avatar Press’ comics.  Mainly, it can be a tad exploitative.  Lewis suffers the most here when she’s in battle against the Rehabs, since her uniform gets blown to shreds fairly easily and we’re forced to see her undergarments (a sports bra and a thong) beneath her tattered outfit.  A huge example of this (to me, at least) is when Sgt. Reed just got assassinated and she gets chased by the assassin named Gillette.  After he makes her crash her police car, the top part of her uniform seems to unbutton itself as she’s getting out to defend herself.  From there, the reader is forced to see her sports bra for the rest of the series.  During Issue #8, her pants gets shredded by enemy gunfire almost to the point where she’s only a few feet away from being forced to fight in her underwear.  Even in Wild Child, Heaven goes around for the entirety of the issue with her pants riding low so that the thong she’s wearing is almost entirely shown to the world.  While neither Lewis sister is ever overly-sexualized for the sake of it (thankfully), this is a problem that permeates throughout the company’s library of comics.  Either way, Avatar’s run is still worth reading despite the minor issues.

Afterwards, the comic license would go into temporary hibernation until 2009 when it was announced that the Mt. Laurel, New Jersey-based company known as Dynamite Entertainment (known for working on various licensed properties like Zorro, Army of Darkness, The Shadow and Red Sonja) had acquired it.  For this take on the famed sci-fi series, they decided to take a different route in their execution.

Originally published from January-March 2010 for the first three issues, followed by May for #4 and then July & August for the last two issues, this series was written by Rob Williams.  Fabiano Neves serves as our main artist for the four issues while Unai De Zarate carries that torch for the last two issues.  Diogo Nascimonto would serve as series colorist for the first two issues, Giovanna Guimarães takes over those duties for issues 3 & 4, while Oscar Manuel Martin carries that torch for 5 & 6.  As mentioned in each issue, this series takes place after the first film and essentially ignores the theatrical sequels.  So how does our cyborg hero fare down this alternate timeline?  Let’s find out with a storm that brews up a “Revolution”.

We open on Media Break where newscasters Casey Wong and Jess Perkins cover various stories on the world before coming across a story on OCP’s successful multi-dollar military contract.  We also learn that the company has a new Chief Executive in Edwina Odenkirk who says that this deal will greatly help the organization.  Sometime afterwards, she gives a glass of water to an elderly man who’s connected to various medical tubes and believes that he’s talking to someone named Dick.

Out on the streets of Old Detroit, RoboCop and Anne are chasing after a group of Neo-Nazis who’ve stolen an armored car from the police and even have a few officers as their hostages.  Murphy manages to take one of the thugs out with a headshot before he tells Lewis to get him close enough for him to leap onto the fleeing vehicle.  He manages to leap over in time for both parties to swerve around a mother and her two sons who were crossing the street.  After taking out another thug, RoboCop tells Anne to cut them off when they’re suddenly approached by a group of new ED-209s who open fire on the vehicle and slaughters everyone inside.

Later at the Metro West precinct, Lewis informs Sgt. Warren Reed about the incident.  Suddenly, both of them and RoboCop are approached by Edwina and her squad as they scold the officers for doing a poor job (at least in her eyes) of keeping the streets safe.  Because she’s the new Chief Executive (and because OCP has privatized the police department), she tells everyone expect RoboCop that they’ve been fired.  Not only that, but they’ve been replaced with the redesigned and “glitch-free” ED-209b’s.

Later, Media Break covers this event as Edwina informs the public that this is meant to snuff out crime and make the streets safe.  The newscast then mentions about a former wrestler and Detroit Councilman named Mason “Manslaughter” Vogler who voices his disapproval towards the city’s leaders handling on how they ran the local economy and says that if basic services aren’t allowed to be offered to the public, then he’ll threaten “to take them by force”.  Back at the police station, Edwina tells RoboCop that he’s not allowed to walk-out with the rest of his officers since he’s mostly OCP property.  As such, he’s forced to work alongside the ED-209b’s or else he’ll become nothing but scrap.  Afterwards, a technician named Wagner offers to help Murphy access his old memories.  RoboCop complies as he takes his place in his recharge station before a wave of past memories flood his mind.

Meanwhile, Mason unleashes his wrath as he fires a bazooka towards a supermarket in order for his people to get some nourishment.  From there, Issue 1 ends back at OCP as the elderly man sees smoke rising up from the faraway incident as he claims to recall a certain memory.

Issue 2 opens on Media Break reporting on the new ED-209b becoming a hit with the school kids before another one saves a man from a burning building.  Back in reality, several armed delivery convoys are transporting food when they’re taken aback by a hidden trap hole on the road.

It turns out that it was a surprise ambush by Mason and his rebels as they look to rob the transport for the valuable nourishment.  However, they’re caught off-guard when they discover an ED-209b aboard as it proceeds to gun them down. It then targets a female rebeller before RoboCop had to step in and order it to stop since she surrendered.  As such, it complies while Mason manages to escape as the news broadcast believes that he was killed.  During a press conference with OCP, Edwina states that they’re searching the bloodied corpse to be sure as she reinforces that this act displays her company’s “zero tolerance” towards Old Detroit’s lawlessness.

Over at a bar, Reed, Lewis and several of the laid-off cops watch the broadcast with disdain.  Just then, RoboCop arrives and gets berated by his former colleagues for siding with OCP (albeit against his own will).  Fortunately, Warren praises Murphy for helping the streets remain safe.  RoboCop tries to talk to Anne, but she’s unwilling to as he takes his leave.  As he gets in his car, he’s approached by a guy named Jerome H. Moss.  He tells Alex that he’s a reporter for The Old Detroit Beacon, the only newspaper service in town that’s not owned by OCP.  Moss then tries to explain the convenience of OCP creating an army of ED-209s under they’re control, yet Murphy is the only RoboCop the company made and yet they keep him around while the rest of the police department was laid off.  Unfortunately, Alex ends up driving away.

During a Media Break broadcast, someone has broken in and proceeds to execute both Wong & Perkins.  It’s then revealed to be Mason as he announces his intention to reveal “the truth in the place of lies”.  Following a quick scene where RoboCop is being called to action by Edwina while inter-cutting with the elderly man from before, we then have the company-owned police on the scene with their army of ED-209b’s as they look to relieve Mason and his rebels of their control over the Media Break building.

RoboCop arrives via helicopter as he gets briefed on the situation and is going to be inserted into the building while given cover-fire.  Unfortunately, the rebellion came prepared as they close out Issue 2 by firing a stinger missile, which strikes the chopper’s tail and causes RoboCop to fall out towards the facility.

Following a quick newscast showing a mutilated reporter in a war zone, Issue 3 opens with Murphy falling into the building and viciously lands on a thug as he crashes through several floors.  Afterwards, the crippled helicopter crashes into the building and explodes, taking out another minion.

As the building’s sprinkler system comes on, Mason riles up his rebels for their crusade.  Just then, RoboCop shows up with one of the perps under his captured eye as he orders them to surrender.  However, a shoot-out erupts with the captured thug getting riddled with bullets.  After the rogue rebels are gunned down, Mason attacks with a rocket launcher.  Murphy manages to dodge the blast before withstanding Vogler’s gunfire.  After disarming the felon, RoboCop subdues him in a bout of fisticuffs.

As Mason is being escorted into custody, Jerome tries to ask Edwina about allegations of OCP cutting off communication between Old Detroit and the rest of the country as part of a coup involving their war robots.  She tells RoboCop that she’ll take care of Mason and orders him to head back to base before telling her officials to escort Moss away.  As Jerome rants, Alex approaches and tells him to leave before subtly telling him about an unlocked OCP security car that he can use in order to follow the police van.

Later, Moss tails them as he discovers that Edwina has let Mason out and even lets him go.  Not only that, but she gives him an access card that’s filled with confiscated weaponry.  He then kisses her before heading out as Mason takes pictures of the incident.  An ED-209 notices him, but Edwina sees him in official uniform and assumes that he’s a official before heading out.

We then intercut between RoboCop in his recharge station with the elderly man while Mason and company breaks into the warehouse to steal the illegal weapons before Issue 3 ends with the thugs getting confronted by a more advanced version of ED-209.

Issue 4 opens with Murphy being surprisingly greeted by Dick Jones, the felon whom Alex took out during the first film’s climax.  Just then, he’s suddenly approached by a familiar face: “Old Man”.  During the reveal of Dick as a past image, he tells Murphy that he was disappointed in Jones’ “greed and ambition” before transitioning the surrounding area in a field.  He then shifts Alex into his original body before ending the scene with a proposition that both sides want: “To Be Human”.

We then shift to the streets of Old Detroit where a group of highly-advanced ED-309’s wages war on Mason and his resistance. A Media Break helicopter is covering the carnage while Edwina informs the public about OCP’s newest war machines that were “successfully battle-tested alongside out heroic troops”.  However, things start to get out of hand when an ED-309 accidentally blasts the news copter out of the sky.  As an overseeing technician informs her that the ED-309 didn’t like the helicopter according to their data, Edwina then tells her team to get more Media Break choppers out to cover the local war zone before declining a phone call from the U.S. President.

Meanwhile, Moss arrives back at the Old Detroit Beacon only to discover that OCP has arrived and shut it down.  Armed with incriminating evidence, he heads over to the bar in order to inform the ex-cops.  Back in the digital world, Old Man explains to Murphy that the RoboCop process allowed Alex to retain his human memories and that could possibly help him out.  Because he’s a decrepit figure attached to a life-support system, Old Man announces his intention to swap his mind into RoboCop’s body.  In return, Murphy’s mind would get placed in Old Man’s withered figure.  He explains to Alex that this would allow our hero to feel the humanly traits that he no longer has as RoboCop.  Old Man also says that he has a team of scientists trying to work on a reverse-aging process for his elderly form and that he’ll reclaim his original body once a method is found.

Back on the streets, Mason goes in with a pair of Cobra Assault Cannons and starts to take out the ED-309’s.  Though the event is initially embarrassing to her and the company (since every news station in America is watching), Edwina gets an ED-309 to finally gun down Vogler before ordering her technician to continue showing OCP’s authoritative grasp on Old Detroit.

Back with RoboCop, he initially agrees to go through with the procedure.  Before the technicians can commence with the Memory Transference, Anne arrives with a shotgun and gets them to stop.  Unfortunately, she’s fatally shot by a corrupt cop as she uses her dying breath to tell Alex to remember who he is.  While Warren and the ex-cops arrive with Moss to bring rightful justice to the streets, Lewis tells Murphy that he’s not just human, but a cop as well.

Back on the streets, the ED-309s begin to open fire on Reed and company when they suddenly shut down as Edwina demands to know how that’s even possible.  Back in the digital world, Alex tells Old Man that he’s been plugged into OCP directly, thus he’s been able to deactivate every single ED on the streets.  He also declines the mind-transferring offer as Issue 4 (as well as the four-part “Revolution” arc) ends with RoboCop back on his feet and carrying Lewis’ body.

Issue 5 (“Ballistic Trauma”) picks up after the previous issue with Murphy withstanding a shootout as he reaches his police car in order to get Anne some much-needed medical attention for her gunshot wound (which somehow moved from her right side to her left).  He makes it to a rundown hospital where he proceeds to gun down the present punks before reaching a central room in order to find a doctor.  However, he’s then confronted by Dick Jones as he narrates that this is a side-effect from being in OCP’s mainframe.  Jones is then replaced by Clarence as RoboCop convinces himself that it’s only an hallucination.

After discovering a bloodied and battered punk, he threatens the perp with his Terminal Strip as he demands to know where the doctors are.  The delinquent explains that they’ve left a long time ago, but one female doctor stayed behind to help the patients.  However, she got kidnapped.  RoboCop proceeds to stab the felon in the shoulder before telling him that he’ll be brought along to find the missing medicine woman.

Later, they drive through the rundown streets as Alex learns about a warehouse down at the docks when Murphy’s illusions kick in again with him imaging that he’s running over a toxified Emil.  This causes him to bump into an ED-209 as they drive by.  Suddenly, the towering machine swiftly chases after them as Lewis tells Murphy to drive into a narrow alley in order to evade it.  However, the ED-209 fires a missile which strikes the police car and kills the punk.

Fortunately, RoboCop managed to get Anne out in time as they find a summoned group of ED-209’s blocking the other end of the alley.  Fortunately, Murphy helps her escape as he punches through a nearby wall in order to make their way towards the docks.  As he passes by a group of homeless people, RoboCop imagines two of them as his deceased creator Bob Morton and the villainous Boddicker before reaching the target warehouse.  After using his Thermograph to detect 17 armed felons inside, he places Lewis down and promises to return.

After sharing a quick kiss, Morton pops up one last time to tell his creation to gun them down.  RoboCop proceeds to shoot the perps before reaching the doctor and asking for her help.  Unfortunately, Issue 5 ends with her telling Alex that Anne died from her gunshot wounds hours ago.

As Issue 6 (“Profit Warrior”) opens on an ED-309 gunning down a kid on the streets of Old Detroit, we then shift to Edwina during her exercise session.  When she’s approached by an assistant about the need to prep for a briefing on an upcoming press conference, she declines since she says that no matter what the effect the U.S. President’s statement has, it’s about showing “who’s in charge”.  Just then, another assistant comes in and gravely informs her that an ED-309 has gone missing.  When Edwina asks how it’s even possible, he states that it may be the result of it being damaged from the fight against Vogler.  Not only that, but it’ll cost OCP at least a hundred-million dollars and it’s an advanced killing machine that’s now wandering through the streets unhinged.  As such, she orders another assistant to track it down and bring it back to headquarters.

However, the rogue ED-309 strikes again as it attacks a third-person-speaking fisherman named Mitchell and blows him to bits.  As the dust settles, it looks across the water before heading on its way.  Back at OCP, the young assistant suddenly realizes where it could possibly be heading.  Because it’s a war robot and is used by the U.S. military, it thinks it’s at war with a foreign country.  Unfortunately, it’s heading for the closest country to them, which is Canada.

As such, OCP hires Reed and a few other officers to stop the mammoth monstrosity from reaching the border.  Warren tells them to aim for its knees as they proceed to engage it.  He orders for a second pass at it, but still no damage.  As such, the ED-309 fires a pair of missiles which strikes the truck.

A dazed Reed sees his fellow comrades pinned within the wreckage as it proceeds to head over to try and stomp the defenseless officers.  Fortunately, RoboCop arrives in time and silently provides protection.  For some reason, the ED-309 doesn’t open fire on him.

Back at OCP, Edwina and company detect that it’s swiftly heading for Canada.  One of the assistants offers to send four functioning ED-309’s after it, but Edwina isn’t entirely on board with the idea since she still wants the company to earn some sort of profit from this.  Realizing that one of them alone would practically conquer Canada by itself, she orders an assistant to contact the Canadian Prime Minister for her.  Meanwhile, RoboCop, Reed and another officer drive as fast as they can to catch up with Murphy only mentioning that Anne is “fine”.  When they reach the Air National Guard Base, they find the facility in complete disarray before being forced to move on.

Meanwhile, the rogue ED-309 begins to cross the bridge over at Port Huron towards Canada.  By the time our heroes arrive, Edwina’s surprise gets sprung.  It turns out that she managed to sell OCP’s still-functioning ED-309’s to the Canadian government and were air-lifted to the border.  As RoboCop, Warren and the officer watch from afar, the series (but not the overall story) ends with the rogue ED-309 gunned down while Edwina talks with her assistants on how this incident has netted a billion dollars for OCP.

Before we continue with this narrative, let us take a momentary break in order to discuss another series that the company put out.  Published in 2011 (specifically once in July, twice in September and then once in November), “Terminator/RoboCop: Kill Human” once again sees our two familiar mechanized combatants duel it out over the course of four issues.  Rob Williams stays on as the series’ writer, while P.J. Holden handles both penciling and inking duties.  As such, let’s see how Round 2 gets handled.

We open in the post-apocalyptic future as a Terminator kills a human named Taylor.  Overseeing this incident from afar, a pair of resistance fighters named Lauren Amendola and DeSean are forced to flee.  They eventually reach a storage facility as Lauren attempts to hack open the secure door while DeSean keeps watch with his handgun.  By the time she disables the lock, the Terminators have caught up and killed him as she tearfully gets inside.

She finds out that the building has stored several objects (mainly machines) over the years.  After discovering an inactive ED-209, she soon discovers the Auto-9 pistol on display next to its wielder: RoboCop.  Lauren manages to unlock both display cases, but gets caught by a Terminator as it grabs her by the throat.  Fortunately, RoboCop comes to life, wields his signature handgun and guns down the opposing robot.

Suddenly, they’re approached by more Terminators as Murphy protects her from opposing gunfire.  As Lauren leads him deeper into the facility, Alex is confused as to how long he’s been idle for such a long time.  After coming across a dead end, she accesses a nearby console in order to find a way out.  As RoboCop learns that there’s no more human beings left, he accesses the console with his Terminal Strip.

Just as the Terminators arrive, they get gunned down by an ED-209 that he manages to access via the museum’s computer system.  He also explains that she’s the last human on the whole planet according to Skynet, but Lauren doesn’t buy it as she preps to go find any remaining survivor.  As RoboCop continues to access the console, he comes across his schematics before he starts begging with something.  Even worse, Issue 1 ends with him controlled into killing Lauren with a headshot before he’s confronted by an army of Terminators and the ED-209.

Issue 2 opens in “The Past” where an associate of Mr. Dowling is beating up a man named Newton for managing to acquire $30,000 from said authority figure.  Just as the thug takes out his gun to kill him, a time-displacement bubble appears within him and violently rips him to shreds.  RoboCop emerges from it (somehow with his cyborg body in tact, since only living tissue could time-travel safely in the Terminator-verse) with a trigger in his hand as he sets out “to stop something terrible”.

Later, police officers arrive outside of CyberDyne Systems with Murphy showing up shortly afterwards.  It’s then revealed that Alex had traveled back to 1995 Los Angeles during the events of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” as the reprogrammed Terminator emerges to use the M-134 Minigun and the M-79 Grenade Launcher to blow up the police cars without killing any of the police officers. As the cops recover, RoboCop narrates how similar this scene is with the time period he came from, unaware that the T-1000 has arrived on the scene.

We then cut to a flashback when Murphy was still in the war-torn future.  He accesses the Skynet Mainframe and tells it to search for any surviving human.  However, it tells him that there’s none left on the whole planet.  When he says that there’s still one left in himself, Skynet presents itself to him as a digital woman and simply exclaims: “Negative”.  From there, Alex tells her to download Earth’s history into himself, starting with the late 20th Century.  What he sees are various pieces of imagery from the first two Terminator films.

With a group of Terminators threatening to break in, he tells Skynet to show him how their time-travel method works so that he can escape.  As the time-displacement machine gets activated, Murphy asks why he’s getting help from the same robotic enemy.  Skynet explains that he’s not a threat since he’s a computerized system.

Back in ’95 L.A., the reprogrammed Terminator wounds opposing officers in order to reach the S.W.A.T. van and help the Connors escape.  However, RoboCop confronts him as they proceed to tussle.  During the scuffle, the heroic T-800 disarms Murphy of his trigger.  By the time Alex recovers it, he gets blasted by the opposing grenade launcher.

He manages to withstand the blast before firing a dart that strikes the reprogrammed Terminator and deactivates him.  Just then, Sarah and John Connor approach him and demand to know what he did.  As such, Issue 2 ends with RoboCop explaining that he used a Skynet-built computer virus to shut the heroic T-800 down and wipe his CPU.  After introducing himself, he explains that he’s trying to eradicate all traces of Skynet and show them a different future.

Following a brief dream scene where a boating venture turns perilous, Issue 3 opens on a familiar scene from T2 where Sarah and John Connor escape via a commandeered S.W.A.T. van while the T-1000 rides his police motorcycle through the building and smashes through a window as he steals a police helicopter in order to chase after them.  In the van however, RoboCop is behind the wheel, Sarah is holding a handgun at him while demanding that he pulls over and John is distraught that his robotic father figure was permanently deactivated.  Murphy explains that he saw how the events of T2 originally played out, but it didn’t eradicate Skynet for good, which is why he’s here to help them.

With the T-1000 bearing down on them in the helicopter, RoboCop decides not to head to the steel mill (like the movie did) and instead drives across several lanes of traffic towards a fenced-in area.  He then says that it’s important for them to hang onto the original Terminator’s arm and microchip, but John’s safety isn’t a priority.  A rightfully-angry Sarah responds by firing a single shot at Murphy’s helmet before kicking him out of the van.  The T-1000 then catches up and shoots one of the tires, causing the vehicle to fall over.

With certain doom looming over the Connors, the T-1000 is suddenly approached by an overwhelming armada of ED-209’s, who proceed to gun down the helicopter.  As Sarah and John try to process what just happened, they’re suddenly approached by a young man named Dick Jones.  RoboCop comes in and explains that because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to defeat the T-1000 by himself, he actually traveled back to 1990 and got in contact with Jones at their current location.  Dick explains that he was an up-and-coming business grad who was approached by Murphy and had the ED-209 schematics downloaded into his computer, which helped Jones become a billionaire in three years.  In return, he was told to bring a massive ED-209 armada to this exact location on a specified date and time.  Our heroes then notice the T-1000 struggling to survive with the flaming wreckage.  Dick tells Sarah and John that it can only be destroyed if it’s weakened in a contained area.  After informing the Connors that this was planned over the past several years, he tells them to come with him.

After RoboCop gives them his sign of confidence, the Connors agree to go with Jones.  As the T-1000 continues to roast in the flames, Issue 3 ends with our heroes gathered on an OCP carrier in the middle of the ocean.

Issue 4 opens in the Pacific Ocean with RoboCop narrating about the OCP’s UAVs that keeps a constant fly-by patrol.  He explains that Skynet took temporary control over him in the future in order to kill Lauren, who was the last human on Earth.  As such, Murphy created OCP in order to properly fight Skynet.  As he approaches a specified room, Dick explains that the door is thick enough to prevent anything from escaping and that it can only be opened from the outside.  RoboCop narrates that unlike the ruthless version from the original film, this version of Jones has become a trusting ally with a bright future ahead.  They head inside as the deactivated T-800 hangs from the ceiling.  Dick explains that the adjacent tank is filled with a substance called Agua Regia Acid, which will destroy any and all metal.

As the original arm and microchip gets destroyed by the substance, John chastises Murphy for wanting to eradicate a reprogrammed Terminator that was only protecting him.  Because the young lad tries to stop him, RoboCop slaps him away with Sarah drawing her gun in response while the OCP officials are forced to draw their own weapons.  Just then, the situation is tempered when as assistant informs them that they’ve lost contact with the Nevada Mountains Containment Site.  With Dick fearing that it would happen, RoboCop tells Sarah and John that the T-1000 escaped and is trying to find the young lad.  Later, Alex talks with Sarah up on the deck and explains that he came up with this convoy since “robots don’t really like water”.  Plus, having miles of ocean water gives them breathing room.  After appreciating his mission to bring down Skynet, Sarah thanks him for protecting John.  Just as Murphy states that he doesn’t deserve her gratitude, a nearby carrier fires at an approaching airliner.  It turns out that it was flown by the T-1000 as he jumps out before the plane crashes into the massive craft.

The resulting impact creates a powerful wave that overturns the main ship.  Because Sarah’s son is several layers below and it would take too long for her to safely climb down, RoboCop plunges into the ship.  Meanwhile, the T-1000 starts to slice and stab the OCP officials before confronting Dick.  Fortunately, RoboCop arrives in a mech suit and intervenes.  However, the T-1000 works his way into the cockpit and knocks him out of the driver’s seat.

Before he starts to take control, he’s suddenly hit by a pair of shotgun blasts.  It turns out that the heroic T-800 has returned, thanks to Dick’s help.  Unfortunately, Jones notices that the Aqua Regina Acid has starting pouring into the filling water.  While the two Terminators fight it out against each other, Sarah finally arrives and tells Murphy to save her son.  Instead, he locks both Terminators, John and Dick in the room.  As such, the T-1000 manages to decapitate John.

While Jones begs to be let out, Sarah berates Alex for his decision and thinks that he’s lost his humanity.  Afterwards, Dick gets killed by the T-1000 before leaving Murphy with an ominous stare prior to its demise.  From there, the series ends with RoboCop narrating that Sarah has most likely climbed out of the sinking ship in time as Murphy completes his heroic sacrifice and goes down with the fallen carrier.

Now, it’s time to get back to our original story as the company closes out its run with the property with a four-part tale known as “RoboCop: Road Trip”.  Published from December 2011 to March 2012, this was also written by Rob Williams while Unai De Zarate resumes his artistic duties from the prior two issues.  How will Murphy and company ultimately tear down Ms. Odenkirk’s iron grasp on the Motor City?  Let’s dive in and find out.

Following a quick flashback where a young Alex is on a fishing trip and learns about “enjoying the time”, we begin with RoboCop engaging a small gang of thugs just outside of a radio station.  However, he has personal company as the mental images of Clarence Boddicker and a mutated Emil accompany him.  Suddenly, his crime-fighting venture gets interrupted as a golden version of himself approaches and begins to fight him, allowing the thugs to escape.  As Murphy is forced to take cover from opposing gunfire, Lewis mentally arrives and lets him know that the opposing RoboCop is actually someone he’s recently talked to.

Over at OCP, there’s a station where Old Man is remotely controlling his golden enforcer while Edwina comments to an assistance about him operating his own experimental RoboCop body as a trial.  Back with our hero, the enemy gunfire causes a car that he was using for cover to blow up.  Fortunately, he withstands the explosion and punches him in the face with enough force to damage it.  The golden adversary tries to pin him down, but Murphy manages to insert his Terminal Strip into the radio equipment and shut it down by overflowing it with musical frequencies.

Later, he meets up with Sgt. Reed & their fellow cops at a church and informs him that he tried to use the radio equipment to broadcast OCP’s totalitarian rule over Old Detroit by shutting down phones, TV and the internet.  However, all frequencies have been jammed.  Following a quick mention from Media Break where an ED-208 has officially joined the NFL’s Detroit Lions (which OCP also owns), we head back to our heroes as Warren comments on Murphy casually mentioning Lewis.  After she appears to Alex and convinces him to let Reed know what happened to her, RoboCop takes off his helmet and lets Warren know that she lost her life trying to protect him.  With no more major secrets to tell, Sgt. Reed informs Murphy that they’ll leave Old Detroit in order to get in touch with the U.S. Military and get help.  From there, the scene ends with the reveal that several deceased figures have occupied themselves within Alex’ head: Anne Lewis, Clarence Boddicker, Emil Antonowsky, Bob Morton and Dick Jones.

Over at OCP, Edwina is working on a computer console.  It’s then revealed as to why she’s only wearing a bra and panties, since she recently slept with an assistant.  She tells him that during a past check-up, Wagner placed a tracking device on him, which is how Old Man’s remote-controlled cyborg was able to find Murphy.  When asked why she doesn’t send every single ED after him, she explains that she doesn’t want Old Man to acquire RoboCop’s body in order to extend his life span and continue running the company.  She also doesn’t want Alex caught yet, so that OCP’s sales window can stay open.  Eventually, she’ll fulfill Old Man’s request before Issue 1 ends with her revealing what “cool OCP toys” she’s about to unleash.

Following a quick flashback where a youthful Alex is lost in the forest before his dad rescues him just as a RoboBear pops out, Issue 2 begins on Media Break where Prof. Donald R. Wimpey discusses his expertise on “Evil People” and proceeds to shine a bad light on RoboCop, essentially telling the citizens of Old Detroit to be weary of him.  Meanwhile, our heroes drive through the city’s outer reaches as they discover several corpses hanging from the street lights.  With the truck consisting of RoboCop, Warren, Jerome and a small group of officers, they stay away from the highways due to OCP’s robotic armada standing guard on those routes.

Just then, a trio of elderly ladies (all of whom are freshly informed by the newscast) drive up and attempt to shoot our hero.  After one of the cops gets hit by enemy gunfire, Murphy shoots one of the ladies’ tires, thus allowing him and his allies to escape.

Meanwhile at OCP, Edwina is overseeing the robotic hounds’ operations.  Wagner then comes in and scolds them since their safety protocols hasn’t been installed.  However, she sends him away and doesn’t care if Old Man knows since she opposes him.  Just then, she’s informed that RoboCop’s tracking beacon has been picked up “on the freeway”.  As such, the robotic hounds are unleashed as they slay the elderly ladies along the way.

Back with our heroes, Murphy is approached by an imaginary Bob Morton who assures him that he shouldn’t worry too much since he’s a nearly-indestructible figure.  After Morton admits that RoboCop’s existence came about due to his need for a better office position, Alex berates him since he’s still a human being who’s “lost so much”.  Warren comes in and wonders who he’s talking to, but Murphy assures him that it’s nothing as they take their leave.

Our heroes eventually arrive at a base in order to take an airplane to Cleveland, in which Jerome will operate.  Just then, Murphy notices a certain robotic bear in the distance.  As such, he tells his fellow colleagues to take off immediately.  As they start down the runway, the robotic hounds pop up and chase after them.  RoboCop manages to shoot one of the mechanized beasts, but another one manages to leap onto the aircraft.

By the time Alex manages to start firing at it, the robotic terror managed to damage it enough just as it starts to fly over Lake Erie.  At that moment, Morton appears and says that RoboCop’s design is nearly indestructible, but he never expected this kind of situation.  As the plane crashes into the water, Issue 2 ends with Murphy flying out of the craft and starts to sink into the lake’s depths.

Following a quick scene of RoboCop tumbling further into Lake Erie, Issue 3 opens in “The Past” as it turns out that the youthful Alex was attacked by the RoboBear.  As his dad inspects his injury, he’s shocked to find out that his son has metal bits within his arm.  We then jump back to the present where Warren, Jerome and the cops are struggling for their lives aboard the wreaked airplane as the robo beast kills one of the officers and dives into the water.

Back at OCP, Edwina and company are observing this via their robotic hound.  When she asks her assistants if it’s able to operate underwater, they silently look at each other in uncertainty before she yells for one person in particular: Underling.  Meanwhile, Wagner is furious about her mishandling of his inventions and decides to expose her actions to Old Man.  He downloads the files containing her “dirty dealings” onto a USB Drive before he’s suddenly confronted by a trio of ED-209’s.  Fortunately, he utters his backdoor command “Harryhausen” and gets them to disengage before yelling about having complete control over his creations.  Just then, his assistant Underling (the guy whom Edwina recently allowed to sleep with) comes in and chokes him to death and says that he’s now in command of “the enormous killer robots”.

Back at Lake Erie, the robotic hound reaches the aquatic bottom only to discover RoboCop’s helmet.  It’s then approached by Clarence, mutated Emil, Dick and Anne as Murphy uses them to distract it in order to access the mechanical beast with his Terminal Strip.  He’s able to bring up the RoboBear in order for it to strike the robotic hound down before using it to get back to the surface.

After rejoining Warren and company, they’re suddenly approached by a pair of military-looking helicopters.  Back at OCP, Old Man is approached by what he assumes was RoboCop returning to accept his offer.  However, Issue 3 ends with the reveal that it’s his golden cyborg being controlled by Underling as he proceeds to kill him.

Issue 4 opens with our heroes in the company of the soldiers as they fly towards Cleveland with the deactivated robotic hound in tow.  During the flight, Jerome is the only one who jokingly talks (or even talks at all), even when he notices that they’re starting to head away from the central part of town.

Back at OCP in Old Detroit, Edwina discovers that Underling has killed both Wagner and Old Man as he confesses his love to her, capped off with the golden cyborg handing her a few flowers.  She rolls her eyes at what she’s accidentally caused before heading out to call a meeting with the company shareholders.

Back with our heroes, they arrive at a base as they wonder whom these soldiers work for since they don’t see any affiliation with the U.S. Military anywhere.  As Moss demands to know who they work for, he gets hit by one of the trooper’s rifles.  RoboCop responds by drawing his Auto-9 at the guard, causing the rest of the soldiers to draw their rifles and order him to stand down.  Suddenly, their youthful leader arrives to disarm the situation.  The man named Jeremiah White says that no one around here thinks that RoboCop is villainous and that he wishes to help bring a permanent end to OCP’s control over Old Detroit.  As he leads our heroes through the base, Clarence pops up in RoboCop’s consciousness and tells him to have some suspicion towards Jeremiah, especially since he has an interest in Murphy and the villainous robotic hound.

Miles away at OCP, Edwina holds her shareholder’s meeting and informs them that Old Man has passed away.  One of the shareholders says that they’re dissatisfied with her performance as the company’s chief executive and tells her that she’s fired.  However, she refuses to relinquish her title since she’s given legal contracts to the shareholders that gives her sole access to the company shares.  Plus, she’s prepared with a small group of ED-209’s to force them to go through with it.  After they sign their contracts, she then orders all of them to jump out the window to their deaths.  When one of the shareholders calls her out on her actions, an ED-209 proceeds to gun him down.  With no other choice, the entire group end up jumping out of the building to their grim demise.

Back at White’s base, he tells our heroes that he believes in “the principles of business” and is disgusted with how OCP has twisted those noble foundations.  Jerome explains that he had pictures that exposed Edwina talking with Vogler in criminal activities, but his camera was lost in the plane crash.  He’s then relieved to hear that Jeremiah believes him and that he wishes to tear OCP down via “a mecha-inspired military coup”.  Just then, a fellow ally informs them that a pair of robotic hounds have broken in and are bearing down on the main building.  Despite that, Jeremiah tells our heroes not to worry.  He reveals a small squadron of mech suits called White Robots that proceeds to gun down the opposing bogies.  He then has a small speech about corporations having to buy up U.S. cities in order to run them and take advantage of “a government that had lost control”.  He states that he’s going to free Old Detroit from OCP’s tyrannical grasp in order to make the city “strong and safe, once more” as the series ends with White exclaiming that he’ll help free the Motor City and that RoboCop is the vital piece of that puzzle.

Overall, Dynamite Entertainment’s run with the property leaves something to be desired.  Between the original six-issue series and Road Trip, Edwina feels like a villain with possible potential that’s never completely-realized.  Throughout the ten issues that we see her, she runs a decent variety of corporate villainy.  In some way, she’s more tyrannical that Dick Jones.  Her greatest feats of corporate rulings range from firing every human in the police department to taking absolute control over OCP before killing anyone who still has some form of positional power in the company.  Her minor dealing with Mason Vogler does somewhat mirror Dr. Juliette Faxx in the second film when she has Cain killed off in order for his vital organs to get used for the development of RoboCop 2.  He does engage RoboCop once in the story, but it ultimately leads to a false arrest before he’s busted out by Edwina before getting gunned down by her ED-309.  In fact, this is one of her false moments of heroism in order to keep her and OCP in a good light with the citizens of Old Detroit.  The other one being selling a small group of ED-309’s to Canada in order for the country to defend itself from a defective ED-309 and help cover up the company’s technical blunder.  Overall, she uses her ruthless business mind to manipulate factors to her favor, even when outside factors causes some of her initial decisions to backfire in some way.  She does get plenty of work to display her less-than-noble actions, but we’re ultimately denied the chance to see what she’s like at her most powerful since this is an incomplete story and she’s ultimately similar to Lot’s Wife from Marvel’s tenure with the property in that she has unfulfilled ambitions due to her tale being left unfinished.  It would have been nice to she how Edwina balances her god-like corporate position with her loyal, yet lovelorn and loopy assistant in Underling while RoboCop and company prepare to liberate Old Detroit from her iron-fisted rule.  As far as our titular hero himself, he does face a minor crisis of human faith when Old Man offers to take him cyborg body and allow him to access his withered body and experience the human senses that he lost when he became RoboCop.  Through this experience, it develops an interesting concept for our hero to deal with after accessing OCP’s mainframe in order to deny Old Man’s wishes.  Key figures from his past (good and bad) that are deceased serving as his guiding voices.  Maybe this new trait came about when his memories combined with the company’s computer system, thus his sanity takes a minor hit for it to work.  Still, it’s a concept that had the potential to be used in a clever way, had Dynamite Entertainment been allowed to complete this tale.  Other than that, it’s nice to see Sgt. Warren Reed get the most presence he’s ever had thus far.  He actually gets to travel around with Alex and help him in his venture, so that’s a plus.  While it is sad that Lewis must ultimately get gunned down and Old Man develops some villainous traits after the first film (thus having two sequel traits that we can’t shake), the overall tale was engaging for me since I wanted to see how things played out (even though there’s ultimately no resolution here).  The artwork never differed too much between the styles of Fabiano Neves and Unai De Zarate.  Neves had a strong foundation of pleasant colors and detail to let me know what’s going on while De Zarate’s is a little bit rougher, but never gets too un-detailed since it still has a solid presentation.  As far as RoboCop’s second bout against the Terminator goes, it was a surprise to ultimately see Murphy interact with the events of T2.  At first, it seems like the series would focus on RoboCop teaming up with Lauren Amendola and possibly see her develop as a character in an original story.  It would have been nice to see her backstory and how see could have served with the grand scheme of the Terminator-verse, but those plans are literally shot down when Skynet takes control of Murphy long enough to execute her.  From there, he travels back in time to reshape history in order to prevent humanity’s extinction.  A peculiar aspect that comes out of this is a more good-natured and pure-hearted Dick Jones.  He gets mentored by RoboCop due to experiences from his inaugural venture and is set up on a better path with his technical genius before the events of the mini-series cuts that promising dream short.  Part of me would wishes that an Elseworlds/”What If?”-esque story was around to see how this version of Dick Jones would’ve fared at OCP and how his influence would have served Old Detroit.  However, this tale seems to undermine Sarah and John Connor as well as their reprogrammed Terminator.  While RoboCop is essential to this tale, his actions interrupts the regularly-scheduled T2 story that was going on.  After all, the T-800 was learning about the importance of human life, John was maturing as a person and Sarah was discovering that humanity can learn how to appreciate the value of life since their Terminator was changing for the better.  Instead, we essentially get the original T2 ending but on a more grim note.  Instead of molten steel, it’s a powerful acid that destroys the original Terminator’s arm and microchip and (most likely) the T-800 along with the T-1000, but not before it kills John and Dick.  Not to mention, RoboCop goes down with them.  Also, I’m not sure how this ultimately wipes out Skynet.  According to what I found out about Skynet in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine”, CyberDyne was acquired by the U.S. Military and they assigned its development to the Cyber Research Team.  After all, they had backup files from an offsite storage system to work with.  Even though the journey the reader goes through during the tale is pulse-pounding and it’s complimented by P.J. Holden’s rock-solid artwork, the end result isn’t entirely satisfying and makes me appreciate Frank Miller & Walt Simonson’s original mechanized clash.  As a whole, the Dynamite Entertainment era has a few neat ideas to bring to the franchise, but ultimately leaves its stories unresolved and without its fullest potential realized.

For the last stop of our retrospective, we head into the arms of the L.A.-based “Boom! Studios”.  After Dynamite Entertainment’s run with the property concluded, this featured company would ultimately acquire the license.  Like the preceding comics organization, “Boom! Studios” would release three separate series.

First up, we have the eight-part tale known as “RoboCop: Last Stand”.  Published from August 2013 to March 2014, this was based on Frank Miller’s original screenplay for RoboCop 3.  Just like with RoboCop 2, the script was altered by director Fred Dekker into the film that we have now.  For the first seven issues, Miller is credited with the story while Steven Grant gets a credit for the “sequential adaptation”.  For the final issue, Ed Brisson gets the lone writing credit.  Throughout every single chapter, Korkut Öztekin is named with handling the art duties for this tale.  So, what did Miller’s original vision for the third film look like?  Let’s head inside and find out.

We open with a newscast (possibly Media Break) on a church murder supposedly committed by RoboCop.  We then cut to an alley where a pair of OCP officers hassle a prostitute before handcuffing and taking her into their armored car.  Suddenly, they’re attacked by Murphy himself as the corrupt officials are taken care of, allowing the hooker to escape.

The next day, a young woman is driving around looking for our hero.  She’s then approached by a gang called the Scavengers who look to rough her up.  Fortunately for her, she managed to put on some earplugs before activating an orb that emits a piercing sonic screech, immobilizing the punks and allowing her to escape.

We then cut to RoboCop heading into the basement of an abandoned building where he has set up a recharge station.  As he hooks himself up, he thinks back to Anne’s murder when she was shot by an assailant in a police car.  With her dying breath, Lewis tells Murphy to “get them for me”.

Over in the run-down district of Cadillac Heights, a villainous guy in a trenchcoat is overseeing the demolition of several derelict buildings in order for Liberty Towers to ultimately be built there.  Unfortunately, several innocent civilians are already living in there as the devious man leads a group of OCP officers inside to force them out.  However, a large black woman (whom we learn in Issue 4 is actually Bertha) decides to stand up and fight back while the officials try to arrest her.

Just then, RoboCop emerges through the floor and forces the opposing officials out.  However, the tyrannical guy sends an ED-209 after him.  He manages to withstand the gunfire before ripping off one of its automated cannons and fires a missile to destroy the wrecking crane.  Alex then notices that Old Man and his assistant Donald Johnson are watching the incident from a nearby limo before heading out.

He manages to elude an OCP helicopter before making it back to his hideout, only to discover that the young woman has found him by scanning his power source.  After introducing herself as Marie LaCasse, she says that she wants to ask about him.  As such, Issue 1 ends with her imploring about RoboCop’s quest against the company that created him.

Issue 2 opens with Marie relieving Murphy of his helmet as she asks him why he hates OCP.  He says that he was denied of his death by being brought back as a cyborg.  She then discovers a picture of him with Lewis as he says that she was a close friend who got killed by the opposing company.  He tells Marie to go in order to avoid dying by OCP’s hands, but she says that she’s still staying.  Following a quick newscast where RoboCop is framed for slaughtering fourteen people at a playground, we then cut to the Attitude Adjustment Clinic where Marie has sneaked into the parking garage while an ED-209 walks in.  At the same time, the familiar man named Mr. Holzgang takes an elevator down to an intense treatment wing where he, Old Man and Donald meet up with Dr. Faxx as she demonstrates a series of harmful practices that uses RoboCop as a harmful form of treatment.  Incidentally, one of the captured patients happens to be Bertha.

Just then, Faxx is contacted by an assistant named Mr. Schneck who informs her that someone has broken into the facility.  It turns out to be RoboCop who uses his Terminal Strip to access a nearby console and activates the sprinkler system.  As Faxx leads a group of assistants armed with guns after him, Marie sends a reprogrammed ED-209 into the building.  Faxx and her men ultimately approach RoboCop as both side engage each other in a shootout.  Murphy easily guns down a few of the opposing assistants (slightly grazing her cheek in the process) as the ED-209 arrives to finish the job off.

Marie reaches Bertha to help her escape while RoboCop take his leave.  As Faxx and Holzgang watch, Old Man tells Donald to contact their Japanese business partner over at the Kanemitsu Corporation.  From there, their business head summons their robotic assassin named Otomo.

Meanwhile, RoboCop, Marie and Bertha escape through the sewers with the ED-209 as LaCasse tells Murphy that she’ll run a software check on him when they get back.  Later, Alex is back in his recharge station as Bertha states that he’s been an appreciative official to the nearby neighborhood.  As she makes repairs on RoboCop, Marie states that despite the fact that OCP is in decline, she’s not interested about the fight to save a local ghetto.  She cares about the safety of Murphy himself, since she’s spent several years studying him.  After Alex is finished recharging, the scene ends with LaCasse stating that she’s here in order to give him some much-needed companionship before she doses off.  Afterwards, Issue 2 ends with Otomo arriving at OCP to fulfill his duties.

Issue 3 opens at OCP where Faxx learns from Donald that she’s been laid off.  Despite every attempt she tries to woo things in her favor, he doesn’t budge an inch.  After he takes his leave, she’s met by another recently-fired employee named Bissette who offers to help her get into the main board room.  Meanwhile, Johnson arrives as Old Man chats with Holzgang about the company’s timetable towards privatizing Old Detroit’s government.  It turns out that the district of Cadillac Heights stands in their way and they’ll lose billions of dollars if they don’t accomplish their goal within four days.  As such, they send Otomo to go take care of RoboCop.

Just then, Bissette arrives with Faxx and demands to be let in or else he’ll detonate his suicide bomber’s vest.  As such, Otomo comes out and stops him in time.  Faxx uses this situation to her advantage as she offers to help him out by endangering civilians, especially kids.  Afterwards, he leaps across rooftops before sneaking into one of Cadillac Heights’ buildings and plants a bomb before escaping in time to let it blow up.

The firefighters arrive, but are ordered by Holzgang to only contain the blaze and not fight it.  He tells them that no one who lives there “saw it fit to sign on for fire insurance”.  When the female firefighter named Varley argues with him, Holzgang proceeds to fire her on the spot.  Just as her fellow firefighter argues him, RoboCop arrives to help the rightful officials deal with the blaze.  Bertha also shows up to tell him that her mother lives in the building up on the third floor.

Murphy ultimately makes his way up to the elderly lady and manages to get her out when he’s suddenly approached by an OCP attack helicopter with Otomo in the co-pilot’s seat.  However, he rectifies that by shoving the main pilot out and takes control.  RoboCop manages to grab onto the chopper’s undercarriage legs and tries to bring it down by also holding onto a chimney.  However, Otomo uses the helicopter’s power to rip Murphy off of the roof.

Alex punches into the vehicle’s bottom as he manages to disable the chopper which causes it to crash into a building and explode.  RoboCop survives the carnage as he soon discovers a young girl who tells him that they must escape, especially since her parents are deceased due to OCP.  They proceed to run for it while OCP officials and a recovered Otomo chase after them.

They arrive at a mechanic’s shop called Eisner Engines where the friendly mechanics had his police car worked on.  With OCP officers right outside ready to conduct a building-by-building search, Issue 3 ends with RoboCop and the girl hopping into the car & speeding off as a vehicular chase ensues.

Issue 4 opens with Bertha & the Cadillac Heights citizens using nails and full garbage bags to derail the OCP officials’ pursuit in order to help RoboCop escape.  Just then, he sees that Otomo has caught up and starts firing his gun at him.  With the young girl hiding safe below, Murphy proceeds to ram into his adversary.  As our heroes drive off, Otomo easily recovers as he snaps his robotic jaw back in place.

Unfortunately for RoboCop and the girl, they sideswipe a big rig before being shot at by an enemy helicopter as they ultimately crash into a desolate building before the wrecked car falls through the weakened floor.  Fortunately, it leads into the sewers as they use it to escape.

Over at OCP, Faxx learns from Old Man that she’s been fired again as he also orders Otomo to head back to the Kanemitsu Corporation.  However, a mini-corporate takeover ensues as Otomo takes out his handgun, equips it with a silencer and proceeds to execute both Johnson & Holzgang.  He then gives the gun to Faxx who proceeds to shoot Old Man down.

Back in the sewers, RoboCop starts to run low on power with even his right hand falling off.  He collapses as the girl fears for his safety.  Fortunately, the reprogrammed ED-209 arrives to help him out.  Up on the surface at a bar & grill, Bertha (who runs the restaurant) tells a fellow comrade that RoboCop hasn’t been seen for several hours since helping him out.  Just then, OCP officials come in for drinks, but are denied service.  They then start to cause trouble, but Bertha & the patrons aim their guns at them and order them to leave.

As the corrupt cops start to head out, RoboCop pops up from the sewer to withstand their departing car.  Bertha and her comrade begin to carry Murphy towards some necessary repairs, allowing the young girl to come with them.  After arriving back at Eisner Engines, Marie works as hard as she can to repair RoboCop.  She tells the mechanics to acquire sealant, electrical tape and a generator that replaces his badly-damaged heart in order to fix him.  Intercut with this is a mechanic working on the chest plate while Otomo takes his anger out on a RoboCop dummy.  Ultimately, Issue 4 ends with Alex fully-repaired.

Issue 5 opens with Otomo destroying his RoboCop punching dummy before we cut over to the abandoned warehouse as we learn that Murphy now has new software (stolen from OCP) installed into him.  Suddenly, he detects something afoot about the young girl.  His hunch proves to be right as she turned out to be a robot as it apparently helped OCP expose out heroes’ location.  As such, the squadron of company helicopters attack the building as Otomo detects our protagonists inside.

Marie gathers her belongings as RoboCop tells her to stay put and promises to return for her.  Just then, Otomo leaps down while the reprogrammed ED-209 gets destroyed by the helicopters.  Back in the building, Otomo bursts in and tries to attack Marie.  Fortunately, RoboCop arrives and uses his Terminal Strip to slice its head.

Unfortunately, the victory is tragically cut short as Marie is shot in the head by another Otomo.  Enraged by her gruesome death, Murphy proceeds to fight the robotic fiend and manages to nearly punch its head off.  However, it manages to rip out Alex’ new heart and destroy it before its cranium is finally separated from its body.  RoboCop tries to get Marie’s box, but he ends up collapsing onto the ground.

Over at OCP, Faxx makes her way into Otomo’s chamber before heading into the adjacent vault containing several versions of him.  Just then, she’s confronted by Kanemitsu’s genuine article as she voices her appreciation of their partnership.  Apparently, Otomo agrees with her since they have off-panel sex at her place before dawn breaks and she’s contacting her mom about it.

Outside, the OCP officials take advantage of their newfound situation with a drive-by shooting of Bertha’s Bar & Grill.  As they’re dishing out their vicious justice (especially onto Eisner Engines), a news report states that RoboCop is dead.  As the construction crew lifts Murphy’s body up, they also find Marie’s dead corpse with her small box.  Later, it’s brought into OCP labs in order for security to run it through some analysis just as Faxx arrives.  As the process begins, Issue 5 ends with her about to begin a devious operation on RoboCop.

Issue 6 opens with Faxx overseeing Murphy’s dismantling when her assistants suddenly discover something replicating within every corner of the company database.  It turns out that Marie’s consciousness was within those discs as she takes control and starts putting Alex back together.  Faxx reaches a fire ax and tries to intervene, but the compromised robotic arms easily stop her as she and her assistants are ordered to get out.

Within his mind, Murphy sees Marie as she tells him that he’ll never be alone.  She also says that she’s built a new body for him from her detailed memory.  With his rebuilt figure complete, RoboCop gets equipped with a jet pack shaped like angel wings and equipped with a shoulder-mounted mini-gun as he proceeds to take off.

Back inside, Marie starts to build her own cyborg body when her efforts are suddenly threatened by Faxx who orders Schenck to shut down the entire database.  Over in Cadillac Heights, Bertha has given up the fight as she packs up and prepares to leave due to an evacuation order imposed on the neighborhood.  As Otomo arrives with a squadron of OCP helicopters, their radar suddenly picks up an incoming bogie, forcing them to take evasive manuvers.  RoboCop flies in and manages to use his jet pack’s targeting missiles to destroy the choppers before engaging Otomo.

Back at OCP, Marie’s attempt to reenter the living appears to have been cut short due to Schenck having shut down the company database.  When he says that this must be reported due to having lost years-worth of files as a result, Faxx covers her tracks by executing him.  Afterwards, Issue 6 ends with RoboCop removing his jetpack in order to resume his fight with Otomo.

Issue 7 opens with Alex transforming his right hand into an arm cannon as he fires at one of the helicopters.  He manages to blow up one of the co-pilot’s heads with his shot, which forces the entire squadron to retreat.  Afterwards, Otomo reappears as they proceed to fight each other.  During the scuffle, Murphy’s right hand transforms into a claw and allows him to rip the flesh from Otomo’s face.

Back at OCP, Faxx gets back to the main hub where she’s suddenly grabbed by Marie.  Having had her consciousness reach her incomplete cyborg body before the servers went down, she has the machinery imprison Faxx before it gives the maniacal employee her gruesome demise.  Meanwhile, the robotic rumble continues as Otomo evades the arm cannon’s shots, but RoboCop is ultimately able to pin him down.  However, Murphy is suddenly approached by two more Otomos as they help their comrade and proceed to triple-team our hero.

Just then, Marie provides a long-distance assist as she shuts down every single Otomo within OCP’s chamber and severs the link for the three remaining ones as RoboCop shoots them towards a permanent end with his arm cannon.  Even when one of them tries to punch and rip out Murphy’s heart, it turns out that Marie relocated it during repairs as the fallen foe gets his head blown off, collapses to the ground and creates a massive explosion.

Bertha and the citizens were close enough to watch the blast as Murphy emerges from the rubble with ease.  With Bertha exclaiming that OCP’s final effort has fallen, Issue 7 ends with Alex noticing from a distance that Marie has completed the exterior skin job to her cyborg body.

Issue 8 opens on our familiar city in complete disarray as the Scavengers, led by Christopher Colter Monaghan a.k.a. “Cash”, arrive at the defunct OCP building.  As they head inside, the scarfaced leader sees what his men have discovered: a secret stash of various guns, including a Cobra Assault Cannon and a chain-gun.  After stealing the entire hidden supply, the Scavengers kick off their destructive mischief by destroying the Spirit of Detroit statue.  From there, they proceed to blast several objects and people before Slush caps the event off by spray-painting a message onto the monument’s remains: “Scavengers Run Detroit”.

Over at an abandoned building complex, RoboCop’s recharge station has been set up there as Bertha arrives to inform him that the Scavengers have struck again.  Despite being warned that it’s too dangerous, especially since Marie hasn’t finished a project that would help him out, Alex doesn’t budge on his decision and heads out in his beat-up police car.  As Bertha exclaims that she wishes to help RoboCop is some way, Marie tells her about a technical undertaking she’s been doing involving something that she discovered in OCP’s basement and has worked on as a pet project before revealing it to her ally.

Meanwhile, Murphy arrives at the remains of the Spirit of Detroit monument as he sees the Scavengers’ handiwork before heading out to hunt them down.  Back with Bertha, she visits an apartment building.  It turns out to be inhabited by Sgt. Warren Reed as she tells him that a lone remnant of Old Detroit’s police force is still living withing the desolate city walls and needs to be assisted.

Back with RoboCop, he finally catches up to the Scavengers and tries to arrest their leader, but Cash states that it isn’t going to happen and that our hero is essentially a product from “the old system”.  As such, the Scavengers open fire on him.  Alex tries to fight back, but is unable to.

Suddenly, one of the punks gets taken out by a gruesome headshot.  It’s then discovered that not only has Bertha managed to get Warren and the honorable officers by her side, but it also turns out that Marie is remote-controlling her project into battle as well, which turns out to be RoboCop 2.  With a huge and noble group united, they proceed to fight the Scavengers in a massive shootout.

As the vicious gang starts to fall, Murphy manages to reach Cash and wounds him, but Christopher fires his Cobra Assault Cannon and manages to blast off his right arm.  With Alex leaking oil and badly wounded, Cash prepares to finish him off for good.  Just then, he’s taken out via a headshot by Bertha as she, Warren and RoboCop 2 arrive to help him out.

Later, a makeshift civilian-run police department is created with cells to hold the remaining Scavengers.  Bertha says that Old Detroit’s justice system will get rebuilt with new judges and lawyers.  Not only that, but there will also be more accountability and greater responsibility by its people in order to rebuild the city towards a better tomorrow.  As such, the series ends with a young girl correcting the Scavengers’ message of hate and edits with her spray can so that the monument states: “People Run Detroit”.

Next up, we reach a small batch of comics based on a 21st Century reinvention of the character.  Released in theaters on February 12, 2014, this film was directed by José Padilha and was written not only by Joshua Zetumer and Nick Schenk, but RoboCop’s creators themselves: Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner.  In 2028, the Detroit-based OmniCorp is the leading manufacturer of robot technology, especially with their drones being used by the U.S. Military.  Now, they have an opportunity to bring their technological prowess stateside and it presents itself in the form of an honorable cop & loving husband named Alex Murphy who’s seriously injured following a car bomb.  As such, he gets rebuilt to be a crime-fighting cyborg, but OmniCorp is unaware that Murphy’s human side still lives in his mechanical body.  Made on a $100 million budget, the film only grossed over $58 million in the United States and over $242 million in total on a global scale.  Mainly receiving mixed to below-average reviews, it received praise for its cast, themes and satire, but was criticized for its lack of biting humor and its ho-hum action.  Unlike the original trilogy however, this film didn’t get a comic book adaptation.  Instead, it received four one-shots that’s set within the movie’s universe and all were released in the same month as the film.  As such, let’s dive in and see how these mini-adventures play out.

Our first tale known as “RoboCop: Hominem Ex Machina” (Writer: Michael Moreci, Penciler: Jason Copland) opens with our hero swinging into a building in order to bust up a drug operation, easily defeating the perps as he stuns them with his gun.  We then cut to sometime later as his partner named Jack Lewis is on stakeout while communicating to Dyson on how crime has been on the decline due to RoboCop’s actions.  Just then, he sees Murphy ride up to a small group of interconnected houses and attempts to arrest a guy named Kenny Walters for murder.  The man tries to claim that it was only in self-defense, but Alex just stuns him instead.  Suddenly, Kenny’s daughter comes in to comfort her father and proceeds to tearfully yells at RoboCop to go away.  At that moment, his head get racked with pain as a past memory involving his son David flashes in his head before he collapses to the ground.

Later, he’s recovering back at OmniCorp’s lab as Dr. Dennett Norton and his assistant Jae Kim run a diagnosis in order to find out what’s wrong with Alex.  However, his hardware and core processor are running smoothly.  Jack comes in and suggests that maybe Murphy’s human side is somehow “revolting” because it’s forever trapped in a cyborg body.  However, Dennett dismisses the idea due to a lack of a way to test that theory as RoboCop watches a newscast on the rising crime rate within the city over the past day.

Later, Lewis joins a cop at a gun shop where the owner was arrested after shooting a hysterical customer in “self-defense” due to the patron wanting a gun in fear of “hell coming to Detroit”.  Before they look over the security tape, they spot a pair of thugs robbing a business from across the street.  However, Jack soon discovers that this is part of a larger outbreak of lawlessness.  Back at OmniCorp labs, Alex continues to watch a newscast about the large-scale looting and rioting.  Norton and Kim discover that Murphy’s mind is causing mass hypothalamus readings, thus giving him intense emotional reactions.  Thus, they proceed to artificially raise his levels in order to help him recover while Murphy hears from a youth on the newscast who disses him for interfering within their neighborhood.

As his visor closes and he drifts off to sleep, he dreams of his wife Clara trying to convince him to stop fighting crime and come with her to bed.  Back in the lab, Dennett and Jae are unable to get a response from their experiment when they’re suddenly contacted by Jack who informs them that things have just gotten worse enough that RoboCop is needed.  As Norton checks out the newscast, he soon learns of a horrifying turn as a militant group has taken a school bus full of children hostage.  The leader announces the reasoning for this action is because of his cousin rotting away in prison because of RoboCop.  He tells the snipers not to try and fire at them or else the kids will be executed.  He also demands for our hero to be surrendered to them or else they’ll kill a kid for every hour that the demand goes unfulfilled.  From there, Murphy’s mind gets filled with images of his family and of recent events.

Back at the crime scene, Jack gets an uplifting call as he tells the thugs that RoboCop is on his way.  Alex arrives and easily manages to stun every last cohort before reaching a standoff with the leader.  Fortunately, Lewis has our hero’s back as he takes out the final perp as the issue ends with Murphy confirming his health as he rides off to continue his duty.

We then open “RoboCop: To Live & Die In Detroit” (Writer: Joe Harris, Penciler: Piotr Kowalski) on the Ambassador Bridge where the busy traffic has become a massive pileup due to a frightened girl suddenly standing in the middle of the street.  With regular police forces unable to reach her due to traffic backup, RoboCop is able to arrive in time and save her from a semi-tractor trailer.  After noticing an emblem on her wrist, he hands her over to cop (whom seem to be eager in taking her off his hands) before noticing a flaming van roaring down the bridge out of control.  Murphy manages to reach the vehicle in order to drive it off the overpass and into the water.  Fortunately, he manages to leap out in time and climb back onto the bridge.

Later, Alex returns to his recharge station at the OmniCorp lab before connecting to the municipal system as he searches through the police database.  As he drifts off to rest, Dennett and Jae notice a set of numbers that he’s trying to look up: 381.  That night just outside of Detroit, it turns out to be a familiar car number from before as the cops initially pull a van over but accept payment.  Fortunately, RoboCop arrives and stuns the driver.

It turns out that the guy already has three outstanding warrants against him and his van not only has false plates, but it’s registered to a dummy corporation.  The cop tries to regain control over the situation, but Murphy says that the girl he rescued earlier didn’t have any record from any of the local hospitals and that she wasn’t brought to the police station.  Just then, he hears a knock on the van doors as he proceeds to open it up.  It turns out to be a human trafficking operation with all of the captured kids having the same emblem on their wrists.  With the realization that these crooked cops are part of the illegal affair, Alex demands to know who’s behind this scheme.

Later, he arrives at the main building that’s run by the mastermind himself: Jonas Krail.  RoboCop walks in and tells the guards to surrender, but they only open fire on him.  Murphy takes cover before taking them out with his gun before demanding to know where he can find their master.  Later, Alex takes an elevator up to the penthouse in order to arrest Jonas, especially since Krail’s empire and his false philanthropy was built on child trafficking. Just then, RoboCop’s Thermograph detects a small group of bodyguards coming up the elevator as he tells the girl a simple command: “Cover Your Eyes”.

He proceeds to protect the young child while gunning down the opposing thugs.  With his plans falling apart, Jonas tries to berate our hero by saying that his business has helped the city.  However, he gets shot and killed by the young girl via a handgun from one of his fallen guards.  Norton and Kim contact RoboCop amount his sudden heart rate, but Murphy tells them not to be concerned as the issue ends with him preparing to bring the child to jail.

We kick off “RoboCop: Memento Mori” (Writer: Frank J. Barbiere, Penciler: João Vieira) with Dr. Dennett Norton as he and a team of surgeons prepare to operate on Murphy’s brain.  Within his mind, a dream begins to unfold as Alex wakes up to a distorted clock on his cell phone before heading down to see melted versions of his wife Clara and his son David.  He’s suddenly confronted by a familiar crime boss whose car bomb is responsible for Murphy becoming RoboCop: Antoine Vallon.  He grabs Clara and disappears with her into a mysterious void as Alex ultimately follows after him.

After a brief chase through an alley, he suddenly comes across his partner Jack Lewis who’s in the middle of a shootout.  Murphy realizes that he was in this gunfight a few years ago before he attempts to help.  After noticing that his weapon turns out to be a joke gun as the automatons dismantle Jack as if he was a toy.  Murphy tries to fight back, but they overwhelm his as they pull his head off.  In the real world, the surgeons see this as “his mind fighting back”.  Dennett tells them that he’ll inject some dopamine in order to calm our hero down.

Back in his dream, Alex finds himself back in his home but discovers Vallon waiting there as well.  Murphy tries to attack, but Antoine easily kicks him down before walking off into a brightly-lit doorway.  As Alex chases after him, flashes of his past life comes on display before Vallon is stopped by a sudden brick wall.  Alex catches up and demands to know what he’s done to him, but Antoine says that he’s actually here to help him out.

They suddenly appear in a hospital when Vallon dashes off.  Murphy runs after and catches up, but is shocked to discover his alter-ego RoboCop has caught up to Antoine and executes him.  As Alex gets chased by his cyborg self, he wonders why he can’t remember his name before he goes down after getting shot in the shoulder.  Afterwards, he would get executed as things went black.  In the real world, the operation was a success as major circuitry was installed and new firmware is entirely booted.  Afterwards, the issue ends with Alex waking up from his dream.

We now move on to “RoboCop: Beta” (Writer: Ed Brisson, Penciler: Emilio Laiso) as we open on a moment of tragedy as a young soldier named Joshua Duncan was fatally shot in the head, with his fellow soldiers informing their superior that he was killed by enemy gunfire during an ambush.  Later, he wakes up in an OmniCorp lab in the presence of Dr. Dennett Norton.  However, he freaks out when discovers that he’s in a cyborg body as Norton orders to have him shut down.  When Joshua wakes up again, he’s been sedated as Dennett eases him into his situation.  He tells Duncan that he was saved from the fatal head wound, but most of his memories were lost as a result.

As Norton heads out to let Joshua rest, he’s suddenly approached by OminiCorp CEO Raymond Sellars who claims that he doesn’t like what he’s seen from their subject so far.  Dennet exclaims that things are a bit rough for now and while Sellars states that he respects his chief scientist’s due diligence, they need to display a high-end product to give to the public as a protector.  That night, Duncan dreams about a raid where three non-descriptive soldiers storm into an innocent family’s home and execute them just because they honestly don’t know where “the weapons” are.  He wakes up as two overlooking technicians notice his dream, but decide not to wipe it.

We then cut to three months later where General Manning refuses to let OmniCorp run a field test on their new project on the foreign battleground.  Raymond states that the U.S. military is fighting a war while using the company’s own technology as he threatens to relieve them of their ED-209’s and EM-208’s.  Just then, a soldier informs the general that they have nearby soldiers under attack.  As such, Manning reluctantly allows Sellars to have his new cyborg help out as we cut to the war zone in Abyaneh, Iran as Duncan heads in and successfully execute the opposing militants.  Afterwards, his fellow soldiers gather around him to give their praise.  However, he notices three familiar faces that are shocked to see him again.  After General Manning gives him his own positive comment, Joshua uses his visor to scan those particular soldiers.

Later that night, Manning chastises Norton when he realizes that the cyborg is one of his former soldiers.  Dennett tries to exclaim that it could help the troops prove that “death isn’t as final”, but the general is appalled by what’s been done before exclaiming that he’s moving out with his troops during the early morning and that OmniCorp’s robo-project is not allowed to be with them as he takes his leave.  Just then, Jae informs Dennett of some “irregular readings” coming from Joshua.  As his dream crosses with the familiar soldiers from before, Duncan escapes from his station and heads over to beat up the certain comrades.  It turns out that they were involved in the fatal raid as Duncan berates them for killing the innocent family.  However, the soldiers fight and say Joshua himself slayed the bystanders.  In the raid, they were only supposed to get information without killing.  However, Duncan became homicidal in the heat of the moment.

Realizing the horror of what he’s done, he hysterically runs out and engages the ED-209’s, who proceed to gun him down.  We then cut to two days later as Raymond is furious at the wasted project.  Norton explains that Duncan didn’t have any previous record of his crime, since it was covered up by the military.  It turns out that Joshua and his team were told to invade a house that was supposedly holding dangerous weapons, but the intel was wrong.  Fortunate that word of this experiment didn’t reach the masses and unfortunate that the resulting cover-up is going to cost the copy millions of dollars, the issue ends with him ordering Dennett to erase any trace of this experiment.

There was also a fifth entry in this particular set called “RoboCop: Gauntlet” (Writer: Michael Moreci, Penciler: Emilio Laiso & Korkut Öztekin). Unlike the other four comics which were physical copies, this one was acquired via a download code that came with buying the 2014 film on Blu-Ray at Target, originally released on June 3 of said year.  In this tale, RoboCop must stop an African warlord and his cybernetically-armored soldiers from stealing the technology that created our hero in the first place.  Unfortunately and try as I might, I couldn’t find any digital copy of any kind anywhere other than the cover and a few preview pages for this retrospective.  It wasn’t even included in the trade collection called “RoboCop: The Human Element”, since it only contained the other four one-shot stories.  If I do acquire a way to read and review this elusive comic, I’ll do a follow-up and give this comic a proper once-over.

Our final series brings us to the 12-month period of July 2014 to June 2015 as writer Joshua Williamson brings us back to the original series (Dennis Culver joins him as a co-writer for the final four installments) with Carlos Magno handling art duties for the first eight parts while Alejandro Aragon assumes his penciling job for issues 9 & 10 before Amancay Nahuelpan takes over for the last two books.  Like the main series from Dynamite Entertainment, this seems to follow up from the first film and ignores the sequels.  How does Murphy and company wrap up their long-and-winding comic book tenure?  Let’s dive in and want it all “Dead or Alive”.

We open on the streets of Old Detroit where a previously-arrested man named John Killian is looking to cause some more chaos within the city, but his friend (whom we learn next issue is named Wyatt) tells him that things have changed while he was in jail and it’s all because of RoboCop.  We then cut to a shootout as Murphy and his fellow officers are in a heavy firefight with some thugs holding up in a rundown apartment building.  Anne arrives with a fellow cop as he asks what’s going on.  She quickly explains that this was the result of SWAT attempting an undercover sting, but it got really ugly.  Fortunately, RoboCop’s armor lets him withstand the bullet barrage as he makes his way inside.

Upstairs, the thugs continue their shootout as the captured undercover cop says that they’re going down real soon.  However, the gang leader named Cyrus doesn’t buy it, especially since he just took some cocaine and has a massive supply of guns.  Meanwhile, Alex continues to make his way through the complex as he uses his Thermograph to detect both the felons and the good agent.  As he makes his way upstairs, he’s met by Cyrus who tries to attack him with a grenade.  Fortunately, RoboCop withstands the blast and viciously defeats the lead punk with a fierce facial punch before gunning down the remaining thugs.

As Murphy escorts the officer out, John and Wyatt watch from afar as they notice our hero’s signature gun spin.  He then informs Killian by about RoboCop’s creation via Clarence Boddicker and company shooting him dead before being rebuilt by OCP.  Afterwards, John says that our hero will serve as his key to being “the party” as he and his cohort head out to plan.

We then cut to three months later at the Metro West station where Lewis is met upon by Officer Mason.  He discovers that she’s looking to become a detective and that only their sergeant knows about it.  She also tells him that things are going to be OK between her and Murphy, even though he’ll forever remain as a crime-fighting cop.  As RoboCop works on the firing range, Anne drops by to let him know of a two-eleven (robbery) in progress.  As such, they take off to intervene.

However, the actual robbery isn’t what they expected as a man tells them that the SWAT has confiscated his guns.  Lewis asks them what’s going as an officer explains that a “Get The Guns” initiative has been placed in effect by both OCP and the mayor where any and all guns that aren’t registered by both the company and the city will be taken,  Later, RoboCop and Anne arrive back at Metro West to complain about the new initiative to Sgt. Warren Reed.  He informs our heroes that they’ve been placed in charge of running the operation with OCP arriving soon to give Alex some new upgrades.  Just then, Old Man arrives with Mayor Gibson as he explains that this new law came about because of the recent shootout.  Lewis tries to explain that the citizens will never approve of this sort of action taken against them, but Gibson counters by saying that a “concerned citizens council” was formed as Issue 1 ends with our heroes meeting the “citizen liaison” as none other that Killian himself.

Issue 2 opens with John talking about the powerful thrill one gets when using a gun.  We then discover that he’s riling up a mob who’re furious that their firearms are getting confiscated.  RoboCop and Anne are present to prevent things from getting out of hand as she states that the citizens are becoming more and more resentful over the new law.

From there, we flashback to the day before where Lewis manages to pin down one felon while RoboCop heads after a fleeing perp.  He ultimately catches up to the thug and orders him to surrender as the flashback ends with the reveal that the criminal was using a toy gun.  Back in the present, Anne explains that guns have become so scarce that the criminals are using those fake firearms.  Just then, a bystander named Walter Hutch approaches the officers and says that the citizens need their guns.  He then explains to Killian that he operates a small liquor store and that the new law has prevented him from protecting his business from robbers.  Afterwards, John subtly taunts RoboCop as he asks the crowd who would be there to help Walter in the event of another robbery.  Fortunately, Murphy doesn’t respond to him and states that they’ve acquired every unlicensed firearm.  As they head out, Lewis tells Killian that she’ll be watching him.  Afterwards, he tells Wyatt that things are going swimmingly for them.

Over in Southern Michigan, a trio of bikers arrive at the Crow’s Bar and begin to hassle the female bartender for more than just drinks.  Just then, a patron named Nash tells them to stop hassling her.  However, they just turn their attention to him as the leader taunts him before pulling out his revolver at him.  Suddenly, Nash grabs the punk by his crotch and throws him out the window before viciously killing the other two bikers.  He then heads outside and tells the defeated perp to closely watch his motorcycles.  With a simple whistling summon, Nash’s fellow henchmen proceed to run over the bikes with their monster truck before he joins them and prepares to head out towards Old Detroit.

While Anne is taking her detective’s exam back at Metro West, RoboCop is out chasing some criminals with unlicensed firearms in their possession.  Later, he arrives back at the station with one of the perps as a fellow officer named Cecil asks Lewis about her detective’s exam.  With the cat unintentionally out of the bag, she tells Murphy that she didn’t tell him about it because she didn’t want him to believe that she was leaving.  Alex tells her that he doesn’t care and that he’ll get a new partner before taking his leave as Anne is left standing alone.

That night at Hutch’s Liquor Store, Walter closes his business for the evening before being reminded of his empty space under the counter for his guns.  Just then, Nash and company enter the store with the knowledge that the owner has nothing to help him protect his store.  As such, they start to cause some mischief as Walter tries to make a run for it.  However, Nash captures him as they’re suddenly approached by John who informs Hutch that not every gun was taken.  After executing Walter, Issue 2 ends with the revelation that Killian and Nash are on the same side as they head out to prep their devious plans for Old Detroit.

Issue 3 opens twenty-five years ago at a familiar steel mill as John and Nash have stored an enormous amount of powerful firearms that they plan on selling to interested buyers outside of Old Detroit.  However, their devious dreams come crashing down with the police bursting in to arrest them.  Back in the present, a Media Break broadcast by newscasters Casey Wong and Jess Perkins report on the rough transition that the gun check initiative has on the city.  However, Killian has been the key for connecting the new law with the people and has even been given the nickname “Son of the Gun”.

From there, RoboCop, Lewis, Mason and a female detective named Jansen investigate Hutch’s murder.  Anne believes that Walter’s death was meant to drive home a dreadful statement about the gun law, but Jansen isn’t willing to agree with her since she hasn’t become a detective yet and proceeds to send the cops on their way.  Despite being sent away, RoboCop agrees with Anne that John is involved with this act.  Meanwhile, Killian and Nash meet up at the old steel mill after their henchmen have gathered their old cache of firearms.  When John asks how he got out of jail, Nash explains that he killed several guards during a “slaughter in Battle Creek” and disappeared afterwards, allowing him to fake his own death.  After learning that he could have gotten out via parole, Killian says that it wasn’t needed since he stayed patient and served his sentence in preparation for his return to familiar operations.  It turns out that he used the massive tunnels below the city to traverse around in order to avoid detection as John explains that half of their supply will get sent to either buyers from other cities or rebels in war-torn countries, while the other half stays within the city.  From there, Killian heads out to keep his public image while Nash handles the underground operations.

Over at Metro West, RoboCop uses his Terminal Strip to access the police database in order to get John’s files in order to find some piece of incriminating evidence against him.  Unfortunately, Murphy explains that Killian’s files were erased.  Fortunately, Lewis thinks of a back-up plan, revealed to be the file room.  Because it hasn’t been organized in years, Anne believes that no one would take the time to find the physical file in order to destroy it as easily as the digital file.  As such, they get to work.  Out on the streets, Mason is on patrol with another officer as he considers asking Lewis out on a date.  Suddenly, they’re contacted by Detective Jansen about a situation brewing at Hutch’s Liquor Store.  It turns out that there’s a police barricade in front of the business as the crowd has been worked up by John’s inspirational words.  Suddenly, there’s a massive explosion followed by a bystander’s molotov cocktail thrown at a police car as a riot breaks out.

Meanwhile, RoboCop and Lewis arrive at the steel mill to thoroughly investigate the facility.  The looming uncertainty of Anne becoming a detective and being forced to split up their partnership still hangs over them as they head inside and discover the massive tunnel system that the felons are using for their operation.  Lewis then discovers that the guns that they’re selling have all been previously confiscated from the police department.  As such, RoboCop tells Anne to contact their fellow officials about what they discovered while he heads into the subterranean passageways to explore and examine.  Suddenly, he gets rammed by a familiar monster truck and ends up dazed after slamming into a pillar.  After Lewis rushes to his side, Issue 3 ends with Nash and his company preparing to rip Murphy apart.

Issue 4 opens in the middle of a massive riot as the police do their best to shield themselves from the angry crowd.  Meanwhile, Nash’s men have chained up RoboCop to their monster truck and drag him around the facility, while Nash himself pins Anne to a pillar and demands to know how she and her partner found their facility.  However, Lewis responds by spitting in his face.  He responds by telling his henchmen to prep her for the same monster truck treatment, but they soon discover that our main hero has escaped.

Suddenly, Murphy rips the roof open as Nash attempts to head over and help his men out.  Unfortunately for him, Anne manages to take his handgun and permanently take him out with a headshot while his henchmen meet their maker as well as Alex violently slams their heads together.  Shortly afterwards, they get an emergency call from their fellow officers at the riot, but RoboCop says that they need to find out where the various trucks went with the guns.  Fortunately, Lewis believes that it’s heading for the fracas and sees the monster truck as their ride towards it.

Back at the downtown riot, Killian starts to get concerned about Nash’s absence.  When Wyatt tells him that their comrade isn’t responding, John hops onto a police car with a megaphone and announces to the crowd that they must demand for their guns back.  Suddenly, our heroes arrive in their monster truck and attempt to calm the massive congregation.  After she tells them that Killian is only using the crowd to create chaos, Anne takes the megaphone and informs the masses that the current gun initiative is being changed to allow them to have their guns back.  John is shocked that his plans have been beaten, but it was his job to help the citizens with their firearm problem.  As the crowd disperse and the officers are able to regain control, Mason learns from her that there wasn’t any changes to the initiative and that she’s going to be in huge trouble with the high-end corporate men.

The next day at Metro West, RoboCop and Lewis wait outside for the official meeting to end.  As they wait, she tells Alex why she took the detective’s exam, in that it was never about ditching her longtime partner.  Murphy then says that he understands and that before he became a crime-fighting cyborg, he had aspirations to become a detective and then a sergeant.  Having already come to terms that it’ll never happen for him, he doesn’t want to see her aspirations go to waste.  Afterwards, Old Man emerges with the rest of the council and proceeds to scold her for her actions, yet she counters him by mentioning that Old Detroit is in need of stricter gun laws.  She then tells Killian that she’s aware of his actions as he smugly walks away.  Suddenly, she’s approached by Mayor Gibson who congratulates her before heading on his way.

Anne is then called into Warren’s office as she gets presented with her detective’s badge.  However, Reed tells her that she flopped her test.  He explains that the public admire her for her action and it’s helped her gain immunity from getting fired, but the higher-ups promoted her in order to get her out of their way.  From there, Warren assigns her to work on all of their unsolved murder cases.  She’s still bummed that John still needs to pay for the guns that were stolen from lock-up, but Reed says that it’s not her problem anymore.

Later, Killian meets up with Wyatt and learns that their entire shipment was confiscated by our heroes.  However, the thuggish drivers aren’t going to spill the beans on the operation’s juicier details.  John orders for their captured comrades to be killed within their jail cells as he exclaims that he doesn’t feel too bad about Nash’s death.  As they reach their base’s basement, it turns out that their plans now involve several ED-209s that they stole from the OCP labs as they look to one day finish off RoboCop.  Over at Metro West, Murphy, Lewis and Mason are approached by the company technicians as Alex prepares to head out to receive his repairs.  However, Issue 4 ends with a major hiccup.  Because of some newly-implanted compromises, RoboCop will now be permanently relieved of his Auto-9 handgun.

Issue 5 opens with a bank robbery in progress as Wyatt and his henchmen perform this operation while wear makeshift RoboCop outfits.  As a guard tries to stand up to the thugs, Wyatt summons their newest weapon to help them out.  As such, their ED-209 bursts in and starts to execute the civilians before blowing open the vault door.  As the perps head inside to line their pockets with excessive cash, they find out that a woman tried to hide in the safe.  She tries to run away as the ED-209 is ordered to shoot her down.  Fortunately, RoboCop arrives and protects her from the gunfire.  With his Auto-9 taken away from him, he now wields a nightstick as he takes on the ED-209 while Wyatt and company make their escape.  Ultimately, Murphy manages to defeat his robotic adversary before the cops eventually arrive to deal with the aftermath.

Detective Jansen is also on the scene as she tells Alex about rumors of the existence of an “underground OCP”.  Just then, he’s approached by a large group of reporters as one of them asks him how it feels being “neutered” by OCP, especially since Lewis just got promoted.  RoboCop gets infuriated and destroys one of their camera as Jansen warns him that this sort of attitude will get him in trouble.  Over at OCP, Anne is struggling with her new position since she can’t find a key connection that would bring Killian to justice.  As she approaches Sgt. Reed to complain, she finds Mason in Warren’s office getting a buzzcut from Cecil.  It turns out that Mason is going to go undercover and find out what their suspect has in store.  Lewis is worried that John will find out, but Mason assures her that they won’t while Reed stands firm on his decision, especially since she’s already left a memorable impression on Killian.

Afterwards, she heads downstairs to see RoboCop in his recharge station.  It turns out that Murphy still doesn’t have a new partner as Anne voices her disapproval on how Alex has been treated, but Dr. Tyler (or Taylor, the series starts with the former but ultimately ends with the latter for some reason) forces her to leave as RoboCop assures Lewis that he’s in good hands.  With no one willing to assist her to investigate Killian, she decides to look into it on her own.  As such, she heads over to the OCP Supermax Corrections Facility as a guard escorts her to the meeting room.  She learns that the three men that helped John in escorting the stolen guns still haven’t spoken a word, but the officials assures her that they’ll eventually crack.  However, a group of thugs have been released from their solitary confinement and proceed to kill Killian’s former cohorts so that they permanently stay quiet on John’s operations.

Back in Old Detroit, RoboCop makes his way to another bank robbery being committed by Wyatt and company.  However, they reveal their newest weapon to him: an upgraded ED-209 called the ED-2000X as Murphy prepares for a brutal confrontation.  Meanwhile, Old Man is watching a Media Break broadcast talking about “a new menace” with “access to OCP hardware”.  Just then, he met upon by Killian as he expresses his anger towards him in that John used his company position only for his own means.  However, John then reminds him of a detail from their past.  It turns out that Killian was hired by Old Man himself during OCP’s early days to help bring some crucial finances to the company by making illegal gun sales to foreign countries.  As such, Issue 5 ends with John promising to keep that detail under wraps if it means helping him turn Old Detroit into “a warzone”.

After a quick flashback to a year ago where a pair of technicians discuss about RoboCop’s original legs not allowing much in terms of mobility, Issue 6 opens with Alex under heavy fire from the ED-2000X while one of the thugs records the incident on a video camera.  Afterwards, Alex gets tased by the ED-2000X before it prepares to finish him off.  However, Wyatt orders it to decease its actions and save Murphy’s execution for another time before the thugs and their robotic ally take their leave.

Meanwhile, Anne returns to Hutch’s Liquor Store as she ponders about any possible detail that she originally overlooked.  Suddenly, she’s approached by Detective Jansen who realizes her determination to solve this case.  As such, she invites Lewis over to her house for dinner in order for them to talk about Anne’s detective career.  Meanwhile, Mason goes undercover under the guise of Dillon as a thug introduces him to Killian in order to be accepted within their ranks.  As Mason sees the massive operations going on within their hideout, Wyatt returns and informs John that the ED-2000X was a success.  With Killian looking forward to selling the newest ED’s “to the highest bidder”, Mason-as-Dillion interrupts him by wondering how he would get paid for the operation.  John explains that they’ll provide certain people with their own mobile piece of artillery.  When asked about how he acquired the necessary contracts for this kind of outfit, he proceeds to disclose a key piece of his backstory.  Back when OCP was a small company, he sold and transported the advanced tech and guns to buyers in foreign countries who were limited due to international laws.  It was due to that act that Killian was initially sent to jail.  Now, he plans on turning Old Detroit into his own test sight for his weaponized tech.

Back with Anne, she arrives at Jansen’s house as she meets her two daughters named Shay & Abby and her husband Devin.  As dinner gets prepared, Jansen talks to Lewis about her young detective career and her future within Old Detroit.  She tells Anne that things are getting worse within the city and someone wants her daughters to attend colleges that are miles away from here.  She also explains that Killian has too many connections for the investigation to continue and that it must be dropped at once.  However, Lewis refuses to do so since John’s still a criminal to her and that he must be brought to justice somehow.  After a brief argument, they’re ultimately called to dinner.

Back in Metro West’s basement, RoboCop is in his recharge station as he voices his complaint about his Auto-9 being taken from him, thus making his job harder than it already is.  Dr. Tyler says that this particular action was a ruling from OCP before telling Murphy that she found nothing worth doing massive repairs on him.  Alex then discusses the ED-2000X with her and states that someone within the company has to know where it came from, but she says that she hasn’t heard anything about it since the EDs were originally discontinued once the RoboCop program was established.  In terms of some good news, she reveals brand new legs that will allow him to be more agile and let him run.  Back with Mason, he excuses himself to go “take a leak”.  However, he starts taking pictures of the weapons before Killian & Wyatt discover him and break his cover.  With them being fully aware of his true identity and objective, Issue 6 ends with John preparing to electrify Mason for his actions.

Issue 7 opens on an ambush as Wyatt, his henchman and the ED-2000X attack an OCP van that’s trying to sneak machine parts into Old Detroit.  After riddling the vehicle with numerous bullets, a thug opens up the back doors to acquire the parts.  However, he ends up on the fatal end of a surprise attack as RoboCop emerges and delivers a furious kick that decapitates the felon’s head.  Thanks to his new legs, he’s able to evade the ED-2000X’s gunfire as Detective Jansen arrives with a few cops to subdue and capture Wyatt.  After Murphy takes the ED-2000X out with a powerful uppercut, he tells Jansen and company that the mechanical adversary isn’t a new model, but given new armaments.  Afterwards, Wyatt is escorted off to jail.

At the hospital, Reed emerges to tell Anne and a fellow officer that Mason was killed.  After Lewis gets into the morgue and sees what happened to her fellow cop, she tells Warren that this should be able to convict Killian.  Reed and the cop inform her that RoboCop has caught Wyatt and are trying to interrogate him.  However, Anne thinks that it’s a waste of time since John’s men usually never crack before saying that she’ll search for the key informational piece on her own.  Back at Metro West, Wyatt refuses to tell Jansen and company on how he acquired a massive amount of OCP equipment & weapons.  With Warren, Old Man and Mayor Gibson frustrated that their captured felon is resisting all means of cracking under pressure, RoboCop decides to step in and give it a try.  All he does is walk up to Wyatt and bring out his Terminal Strip as a threat.  This is enough to make the perp cave as he tells Murphy that the hideout is at an eastside warehouse which contains everything they stole as Reed tells Det. Jansen to prep the officers for a raid.

Back at the hideout, Killian is furious that Wyatt had to unnecessarily try “a quick smash & grab” and ended up getting captured.  Knowing that his right-hand man doesn’t have a strong will, he tells his henchmen that the cops are probably on their way.  With an assistant telling him that all weapons are able to be packed up in time for their escape, John decides to prep a confession for the press and orders his men to prep a trap for the approaching officials.  Meanwhile, Lewis gets to OCP and asks for permission to search through their files.  However, a representative refuses her request, especially since she doesn’t have a search warrant.  As she leaves the building in defeat, a protesting citizen chants how “they are watching us”.  She learns from him about the street cameras installed throughout the city before heading back to Metro West and asks a reluctant Dr. Tyler to look over some footage.  After accessing the video files towards a particular location, date and time, Anne zooms into the liquor store to acquire the key angle to prove that Killian murdered Walter Hutch, finally getting her key piece of information.

Meanwhile, the cops are prepped for their raid as Old Man meets up with RoboCop and admits his fault in ever partnering up with John to begin with.  From there, he gives Murphy his Auto-9 handgun back as he regrets his arrogance.  Afterwards, Alex, Warren and company arrives at the warehouse, chasing after one of the thugs down towards the main level.  After coming across the armed thugs and their ED Armada, Issue 7 ends with a massive firefight breaking out.

As Issue 8 opens on the massive gunfight, things start to go south when one too many officers start falling by the opposing gunfire.  RoboCop tells Officer Kaplan that he’ll deal with their adversaries while he helps the wounded cops get out.  Using one of the dead thugs as his own meat shield, he manages to work his way towards an ED-2000X and manages to destroy it.  Just then, one of the perps fires a rocket launcher at him and believes that he’s finally taken Murphy down.

Fortunately, Alex emerges from the blaze to confront the thugs. They try to fire back, but it turns out that they’ve run out of bullets.  As such, it falls onto their remaining groups of ED-2000X to try and take our hero down.  Fortunately, RoboCop rips through every last one of them before accepting the surrenders of the remaining henchman.

Meanwhile, Killian has called a press conference as he prepares to tear OCP down for betraying his secretly villainous cause.  Just as he’s about to make his grand reveal, Lewis arrives with a pair of officers and displays his murder of Walter Hutch.  John takes out his handgun and tries to say that he’s being framed, but Anne and company isn’t buying it.  Still refusing to surrender, Killian tries to run for it but he ends up dashing into Murphy’s grasp and gets arrested, all the while Old Man watches the entire coverage from Media Break.

Later, our heroes arrive back at Metro West in order to get RoboCop some much-needed repairs.  However, they’re met by Det. Jansen and Sgt. Reed as she informs them that Dr. Tyler was fired for the illegal usage of OCP surveillance camera footage.  Even worse, a combination of damage that RoboCop suffered, the repairs needed to fix him over the past several months and his upgrades (not to mention Killian’s theft of their technology) ultimately drained the departmental budget.  As such, Murphy isn’t able to get any new repairs anytime soon.  Meanwhile, John is being escorted to prison.  Just then, Killian starts to flip out and flail around.  The cops pull over to get him under control, but he manages to knock one of them over and grab his gun before shooting the other official as Issue 8 ends with him executing the first officer in order to make his escape.

Issue 9 opens with RoboCop and Kaplan investigating a semi-rundown apartment building.  Murphy kicks down a particular door, only to be engulfed in an electrified trap.  Before Kaplan can even attempt to free Murphy, he’s forced to take cover from enemy gunfire.  He then notices that another felon possesses a rocket launcher as he manages to shoot the circuit and free Alex in time before the powerful shot comes his way.  After destroying the opposing gun, RoboCop reaches the perps who turn out to be a villainous woman with her two delinquent sons.

Meanwhile, Lewis and Jansen are hoping to acquire a certain document from the records department when they suddenly get called by dispatch about the recent situation, causing them to take their leave.  As the criminal family gets arrested, the crowd cheers for Killian.  Anne arrives with Det. Jansen as she talks to Murphy about this being yet another false lead on trying to recapture their suspect.  Just then, Mayor Gibson arrives to discipline our heroes into capturing John & to stop “arresting women and children”.  At that moment, a bystander throws his soft drink which hits the mayor and drenches him, causing everyone to laugh at him with even a smirk coming from RoboCop.  Afterwards, Lewis tells Alex that they’ll talk later.

We then cut to OCP as Old Man sees this scene via the company’s citywide street cameras.  He feels bad that his original vision of a better Detroit as Delta City has hit some major snags, but still believes that Murphy can still keep his dream alive.  Suddenly, he gets contacted by Killian who gets informed that he intends to tear down everything he cares about.  Old Man says that he regrets ever giving him this level of trust and power as John looks forward to making him “wake up”.  Back at Metro West, RoboCop struggles to plug into his recharge station without anyone around.  Fortunately, Anne was around to help him out.  After charging back up, RoboCop learns that Lewis hasn’t been able to gather much about Killian prior to his original arrest or even about the illegal firearms.  She feels that she could get the key information she needs if she’s able to get alone with John.  She also says that it’s too risky to try the street cameras again before Sgt. Reed summons them to his office.  Warren then tell Alex, Anne, Kaplan and Jansen to not laugh at the mayor again for whatever reason.  He also tells Murphy and Lewis that they must work with their new partners and stick to it.

Later, Anne chats with RoboCop on possibly retracing their steps over at the subterranean tunnel before Jansen arrives to try and convince her partner to get back to working “cold cases” since she doesn’t want to lose her job.  However, Lewis is still headstrong in trying to bring their man to justice.  Just then, Kaplan notices that Killian has hijacked the T.V. airwaves.  In his speech, he states that he was falsely accused by the police and that the cops (and by extension, OCP) have betrayed the people’s trust through their surveillance cameras.  With the citizens swayed to his side, Issue 9 ends with him saying that OCP must be defeated, starting with RoboCop.

Following a commercial that displays the company in a positive light towards Old Detroit, Issue 10 opens with a riot outside of OCP as the police struggle to get the situation under control before RoboCop arrives.  Up in the executive boardroom, Donald says that they because of the growing chaos that’s literally right outside their door, they should quietly retreat towards their office in nearby Cleveland, but Old Man states that it would make their stance look bad if they were to flee and that their building “is a veritable fortress”.

Back outside, Lewis and Jansen arrive on the scene as they tell RoboCop & Officer Kaplan that they weren’t able to properly trace his broadcast signal back to Killian since it only ended up as a dead end.  As such, they’re going to give the records department another try.  With the riot growing more and more hostile, RoboCop climbs on top of a car and tries to convince the crowd that the police isn’t their enemy.  However, he gets hits by a molotov cocktail and gets set on fire.  His flaming figure causing the mob to disperse before Anne comes in with a fire extinguisher and put his flames out.  From there, our heroes split up to go take care of their business.

Over at the mayor’s office, Gibson is under stress because of recent events and believes that this mass hysteria will prevent him from getting re-elected.  Suddenly, John walks in to talk.  Gibson’s bodyguards don’t attack him out of fear as they ultimately take their leave.  Back at the records department, Lewis and Jansen are finally able to search for Killian’s original arrest record.  Intercut with this is John who starts to tell Mayor Gibson about Old Man’s backstory.

Back when Old Detroit wasn’t a crime-ridden cesspool, his own father was a rich socialite by day and a junkie by night.  Even worse, Old Man was born due to a fling that his father had with a woman named Kay Highland and he used to cause some alcohol-laced domestic grief to them.  Ultimately, he killed his father in defense before he and his mother ultimately wound up in middle-class status.  Old Man ultimately came across Killian at an orphanage as the two of them developed a partnership with each other via the weapon’s trade.  Eventually, Old Man envisioned a dream for a better tomorrow as Delta City.  However, their path towards that glimmering future began to crumble as he became consumed by his work and had to hide his horrid past as well.  At the same time, John got in trouble with the law via Old Man’s betrayal and was arrested before spending the next several years plotting his eventual return.  In a quick cut back to the record’s department, Anne finds out that John Killian’s actual name is Killian Highland before Jansen tells her that trouble has brewed over at city hall.  As they head out to help RoboCop, Killian tells Mayor Gibson that everyone in Old Detroit are nothing but tools to the Old Man and his ultimate goal.  After making his intentions of taking OCP’s head honcho down, he tells Gibson to give him the control codes in order to let him live.  He complies and hands them over, but Killian goes against his word and executes him with a headshot.

Over at Metro West, a riot has gathered in front of the station.  Sgt. Reed informs RoboCop and his fellow officers that Gibson was just killed.  Even worse, their remaining cops are either spread out too thin in trying to do their jobs or out protesting with the crowd.  As such, Warren tells everyone to retreat from the station and get to OCP.  However, Murphy says he’ll stay behind since Killian has made him a target for the people’s anger and that he’s willing to sacrifice himself.  After Reed and company take their leave, Officer Kaplan arrives and tells Alex that unlike the rest of his fellow officials, he’s staying put since they’re still partners.  He says that after the mayor’s murder and the formation of several riots to spread their forces to dangerously thin levels, Killian has a lethal end game in store.  As such, Kaplan tells RoboCop that it’s time that he did something to stop this once and for all.  Over at the OCP Supermax Corrections Facility, Killian enters the control codes and frees the deadly prisoners.  He then announces to them that he wants them to help him “loot Detroit and burn down OCP”.  As such, Issue 10 ends with him ready to unleash his tyranny alongside the formerly-imprisoned criminals.

Issue 11 opens with a line of officers holding riot shields and surrounding the entrance to OCP as Warren tells them that they must “hold the line”.  As the convicts reach the building, RoboCop and Kaplan arrive via helicopter as Murphy jumps down to engage the felons.  However, one of the prisoners uses a grenade launcher to shoot the helicopter down.

As Reed sends his officials in to assist, Kaplan lies wounded and calls for Murphy to help him out.  However, Alex is unable to reach him due to the numerous convicts that’re all over him.  Just as a criminal is about to stab Kaplan to death, Lewis and Jansen arrive to save him.  After Warren joins RoboCop’s side in the struggle, Killian arrives with Wyatt and a group of thugs to kill Anne.  However, Jansen dives in front of her in time and takes the hit for her.  Wyatt then tells Killian to go fulfill his ultimate objective as Jansen lies mortally wounded in Lewis’ arms.  Meanwhile, Reed tells Murphy not to be the people’s martyr, but their symbol since they’re starting to warm up to and help out the cops again.  As such, Alex tells Killian to surrender, but the fiend has a criminal named Roy attack him with a grenade launcher.

After getting hit, he quickly reminds himself of the target that his adversary turned him into and what Warren just told him before rising to his feet to help his officers defeat the remaining prisoners.  With the crowd voicing their support for him, Reed tells Alex that Killian has just gotten inside OCP.  As such, Murphy follows suit and heads inside after him.  However, he’s confronted by Wyatt and the last batch of criminals who’re looking to take him down.  RoboCop manages to defeat them with ease before Wyatt springs a trap on him.

Up in the executive board room, Old Man senses his Delta City dreams crumbling away before Killian finally arrives to tell Donald Johnson and the rest of the board to scram.  Both sides get a single strike against each other before the fiend prepares to shoot OCP’s main man.  Fortunately, Issue 11 ends with RoboCop arriving in time having just taken care of Wyatt as the final battle is about to take place.

Issue 12 opens on a Mexican standoff between Old Man, Killian and Murphy.  Old Man tells Alex to take the shot, but Alex refuses to.  He says that too many people have died in this conflict and he wants to take the felon in alive.  Killian is about to take his killshot, but RoboCop manages to shoot his hand, taking out most of his fingers and entire handgun in the process.  Highland proceeds to scold him by stating that he’s the only one who can stop Old Man and remove him from his “above-the-law” status, in addition to saying that Murphy is just a tool that’s be fooled into thinking that he’s making a difference.  However, RoboCop delivers a swift uppercut before proceeding to handcuff Killian.

Old Man says that he’ll personally handle the arrest, but Murphy refuses to comply in order to make sure that the law gets upheld.  As such, Old Man utters a single word: “Prometheus”.  Just like Dick Jones’ Directive 4 from the original film, it turns out that he had his own personal kill switch installed as it shuts RoboCop down and causes him to collapse onto the floor.  Afterwards, Old Man picks up the Auto-9 pistol and explains that unlike Dick Jones who had to install commanding directives, he used “easy loopholes” that were overlooked.  Afterwards, he fires his killshot.  The shots send Killian through the window as he ends up falling to his death.  Old Man then uses his handkerchiefs to wipe his fingerprints from the Auto-9 and places it back into RoboCop’s grasp before planning on having him striped for parts.

Sometime later, a funeral is held for Killian as Anne, Warren, the newly-promoted Detective Kaplan and the recovered Jansen look from afar disgusted at the fact that OCP will once again be able to cover their tracks while their hard work will get largely ignored.  As they take start to head out, Lewis heads into a limo where Old Man is in to discuss some private business.  She tells him that she’s fully-informed about his dark past and only regrets not informing RoboCop in time in order to prevent him from continuing his pursuit and let both Old Man & Killian take each other out.  Because they’re the only ones who know about the devious dealings of yesteryear, Anne makes a deal with him. If he tries to interfere with her in any way, she’ll make his past known to the public.  Also, he must both reactivate and repair RoboCop with any & all possible private directive/fail safe removed.  Not only that, but she’ll be his partner out on the streets and help rebuild their station.

Later, Murphy is fully repaired with Metro West looking pristine.  Afterwards, Reed tells both Detectives Kaplan & Jansen that they’re now partners while Anne (who’s now a Special Detective and an OCP Liaison Officer) is back with RoboCop on street patrol and Dr. Tyler/Taylor has been rehired.  As they walk off, Murphy tells Lewis that he hopes to make a major difference in his permanent position.  Just then, one of their fellow officers tells them that a new street gang called Killian’s Angels is causing mischief.  With Anne back in her police outfit, the series ends with her asking him if he’s ready with him declaring (just like at the end of Marvel’s series and third film) to call him “RoboCop”.

Now, it’s time for me to evaluate how BOOM! Studios’ three different series handles its contribution to the franchise as a whole.  With Last Stand, the energy I felt within the story felt more lively than how it ultimately translated into the third film.  Surprisingly, there’s not too much that was changed for what ultimately became RoboCop 3.  Its main plot was ultimately handled throughout the first seven issues, but the Scavengers were briefly set up in the first issue and I guess the team wanted to pay them off, hence why the final issue gives them the spotlight.  There is an emotional weight to this tale, since RoboCop and company are trying to keep their crime-fighting ventures afloat despite the looming figures of Faxx and her Otomo armada.  As far as the differences between the characters here and what ultimately came up for the second sequel, here’s what I noticed.  RoboCop is mostly carried over from the eight-part series to the screen.  However, there was a moment of utter cursing from him when Marie gets killed by Otomo.  From every version of him that I’ve seen, Alex never seems to be the cursing type.  If this is mainly the result of a sudden outburst and from the shock of losing a close ally, then it’s unaware for anyone who’s only familiar with the films (and maybe the TV shows).  Also, his two extra tools of the trade are different than how the eventual movie displays them.  As far as added hand weaponry goes, there’s his right hand that can transform into its own hand cannon, which obviously replaces the detachable machine gun/flamethrower/anti-tank missile launcher that went on his left arm.  The other difference is his jet pack.  While the film mainly saw him use it to help the Resistance fend off the Rehabs from Cadillac Heights before heading towards and eventually escape from OCP, the one that’s presented here has more of a dynamic design with even some added weaponry to boot.  Obviously, those designs ultimately never came to pass since this was during Orion Pictures’ bankruptcy and were looking for anything to help them financially recover.  Even still, there’s nothing too much out of the ordinary concerning Murphy.  With Marie LaCasse, she was split into two separate characters for the film:  The more obvious one is Dr. Marie Lazarus, due to her technical prowess and respect towards RoboCop.  On a less noticeable note, there’s also a hint of Nikko Halloran and her computer knowledge.  Though she never creates anything as technologically impressive like memory discs that contain her consciousness, her hacking is present between the young girl and lady LaCasse, especially when her discs allow her to take control of OCP’s database and eventually makes her own cyborg body in order to return to the land of the living.  Last up for our present heroes, we have Bertha.  While she’s still the leading lady for the citizens of Cadillac Heights, it’s less of an underground resistance that was depicted in the film.  It’s more of a community effort team that she leads against the OCP-led officials.  Like her movie counterpart, all she can do is keep up the fight for their right to peacefully live within Cadillac Heights.  The difference is that she has a more personal (and quite singular as well) connection to RoboCop and Marie.  Also, this version lives through to the end of the story while the movie version gets killed in a raid on her resistance’s base.  Either way, she’s a tough, no-nonsense yet caring individual who’ll stand up for the surrounding neighborhood.  Now, the villains.  I initially thought that Holzgang is where director Fred Dekker got his inspiration for the villainous Paul McDaggett.  Maybe in some way, that was the case since he tries to be tough when he’s on the streets and firing employees who refuse to cooperate with him.  However, he’s ultimately not the main villain and doesn’t carry the same presence & command that actor John Castle brought to his character.  It’s interesting in finding out that Frank Miller originally wanted to bring back Dr. Juliette Faxx for the third film.  It wouldn’t have been a bad idea at all since she would have stepped out of the villainous shadows of Old Man (especially since the second film’s ending saw him cast the RoboCop 2 blame on her) and become more of a fully-realized antagonist.  Maybe if her backstory was given as well, then it would show the development of her crazed business mind and give insight to her methods.  Either way, it would have been nice to see what became the method to her madness.  Finally, Otomo is better handled here that how he ultimately turned out in the film.  Because there’s several versions of him that get sent after RoboCop, it makes it tougher for our hero to overcome the gigantic task at hand and makes his conquest feel a bit more satisfying.  Like the film, it’s at least one woman named Marie who helps him defeat Otomo (and she also takes out Faxx here, as well).  However, our robotic adversary doesn’t feel as lame as he was in the movie, especially since the present tale here isn’t hampered by a smaller budget.  As far as the comics based on the 2014 film is concerned, it’s a bit of a variety.  “Hominem Ex Machina” demonstrates how much of a role model our hero is to children despite the franchise’s violent content, even though this and RoboCop 3 were PG-13 while the first two films were Rated-R.  Because of his past connection with his son, he has a powerful emotional tie to the safety and protection of kids.  It does feel difficult to pull off in only one issue, since this hampers him for the majority of the comic until the hostage situation comes around.  However, Murphy’s human resilience is maintained and allowed to shine here, whether it’s the original or the reboot.  “To Live & Die In Detroit” continues that child-friendly notion in the form of stopping a local human-trafficking operation run by a business man employing corrupt cops.  A kid just appearing in the middle of a bridge seems like a random incident at first until RoboCop makes a keen observation that kicks off his investigation.  Even though it gets solved fairly quickly (again due to being told over a normal comic book length) and doesn’t even face much in terms of resistance, it’s the only batch from this set that shows off Murphy’s sleuthing side.  As far as the comic’s subtitle is concerned, it definitely fits with the adversary Jonas Krail.  He used to be one of Detroit’s biggest philanthropists before RoboCop came along and unintentionally drove his business into the ground, so he tried selling off his “assets” before leaving for good.  How symbolic for the book’s title that his whole life within the Motor City was his shady business and that it’s that exact occupation that ultimately destroys him in the end.  With “Memento Mori”, it’s basically a dream sequence within a single issue and it gives Antoine Vallon a chance to shine.  Twice within Murphy’s dream, he and someone else (either Jack Lewis or Vallon himself) meets their grim end via some form of robotic figures.  The comic’s subtitle not only fits the situation here, but the franchise as a whole.  After all, Alex was killed by a high-ranking criminal of some kind and should have completely died.  However, an impossible situation happened when a corporation uses him and his mortal remains as part of a project to turn him into a crime-fighting cyborg.  Even though mankind must always be aware of its limitations and mortality, Murphy achieved a certain kind of transcendence in order to acquire his second life while fighting crime and keeping his humanity at the forefront while his devious corporate owners look at him as nothing more than a machine.  Even when Alex is killed off by RoboCop in his own dream, it’s symbolic on him leaving one plane of existence for another.  Capping off this set, “Beta” could basically serve as a prequel companion to the film, since it showcases the process that Raymond Sellars goes through in order to one day perfect his technological prowess on the streets of Detroit.  Joshua Duncan could have been the perfected “Ghost in the Machine” as it were that makes OmniCorp’s cyborg program a possibility much sooner, but a crucial detail from his past ultimately comes back to haunt the deceased soldier and throw a temporary monkey wrench into Sellars’ plans.  This also let’s (mainly) Dr. Dennett Norton and his assistant Jae Kim get a key idea on what to expect when Murphy becomes their true robotic force for good.  From there, that leaves us with the 12-issue series.  As far as our main villain of the piece goes, Killian can be best described as someone with an anti-establishment side.  He starts off mostly harmless enough as a former criminal who’s been placed onto a council that looks to curb Old Detroit’s gun violence in an extreme way.  However, he riles up the citizens over the fact that their firearms have become confiscated due to a lack of OCP-approval.  Once an old ally returns to the picture, he murders a helpless liquor store owner to distract officials from him resurrecting his illegal weapons sale business.  Not only that, but he and his group have stolen several ED-209 units and outfitted them with deadlier weaponry.  Near the halfway point, it’s discovered that his illegal dealings assisted in OCP’s eventual rise of power.  After getting arrested but escaping later, we learn in greater detail about his past with Old Man and his motivation for getting revenge.  He’s a fascinating adversary who’s able to manipulate the masses to oppose their local authority so that he can commit his devious schemes all the while making sure to cover his tracks as best as he can.  Essentially, his decent towards a criminal life began with Old Man before being locked up in jail via a betrayal helped build up his intent of turning the city against the company whose owner he used to ally himself with.  While his level of intimidating leadership doesn’t quite reach the same level that Clarence Boddicker memorably had, he still had enough of a presence to put him in the higher end of RoboCop’s rogues gallery.  As far as Old Man is concerned in my opinion, this should have been the way to show off his villainous edge without compromising his character from the original film.  Because Killian made his company possible, his dream of a better Detroit started off flawed to begin with, especially given his dark childhood.  More than likely, Old Man thought that serving his jail sentence would have given his adopted brother the rehabilitated structure that was needed to help carry out his ultimate plan.  Unfortunately, he underestimated what Killian was doing under his nose.  Similar to the first film, his main character flaw is that he’s oblivious to whatever devious dealings is being carried out by someone he’s given corporate trust to.  It’s a trait he never overcomes, since it’s far too late by the time he finds out.  As such, he means well for the city, but he’s misguided in his approach and naive to crucial details around him.  As far as our heroes go, Anne Lewis has one of the more interesting journeys in this series.  Because of her determined attitude and strong-willed demeanor against poorly-decided authority calls, she gets placed into a detective role and is forced to rethink her crime-fighting methods within her new position under the guidance of Jansen.  It takes her to various lengths in order to tear down Killian’s operations and makes her learn about the limits that come with the job.  By the end, she’s rewarded with a special job position that lets her go on the streets with Murphy again.  Rarely throughout the series’ various comic books has Anne ever gotten anything related to decent character growth and Joshua Williamson mainly nails this for her.  Finally, we have our titular hero.  Even though he states that he’s forever stagnant with his position given how he ended up there, Murphy goes through a good portion of the narrative without his signature handgun as he’s forced to fight Killian’s resilient forces.  However, he proves to be an resilient hero since just like his cyborg body, he learns out to adapt to his situations and works around his limitations.  It’s the core characteristic that makes RoboCop a lasting and inspiring figure throughout his existence.  As such, he puts up with tons of abuse from his foes and the imposing orders from his corporate superiors in order to rise up and overcome the towering task that Killian has placed on Metro West’s finest.  Even though Old Man ultimately gets the last laugh on what happens to the featured adversary, Alex comes back with his eyes still on a better tomorrow for the troubled Motor City, especially with Anne back by his side.  On a closing note, it was surprising to see Kaplan and Mason get some decent time to show off their contribution to the force, given the fact that they were both very minor characters from the original film.  For what they got, they had plenty to do in their supporting roles.

In conclusion, RoboCop is one of the defining examples of a resilient hero.  Despite the constant waves of criminal scum and corporate control surrounding him, he continues to push through with his humanity and fights for what is right, no matter how much support he gets from other noble figures.  He’s kept up his noble status for three decades and will continue to do so throughout time, no matter what kinds of tales he gets placed in.  After all, he represents the good that humanity can bring if they’re able to push through impossible odds.  It’s something that we can all buy, even “for a dollar”.

RoboCop (created by Edward Neumeier & Michael Miner) is owned by Orion Pictures.