"Frank Miller's Roboflop"
3/31/08
by: Protoclown

...CONTINUED

"That's right! Who's your Zod, bitch?? WHO'S YOUR ZOD??"

Robocop goes out on patrol with his new directives and ends up acting a little crazy as a result of them, punishing people a little too harshly for things like using bad language. For some inexplicable reason, even though Love and Seltz have Robocop right where they want him, they decide to frame him with the murder of a police sergeant, who they assassinate while Officer Lewis happens to be visiting him in the hotel he was hiding out in.

"How many times have you stayed a hotel and had this happen? At Quality Inn,
there are no snipers, so you can sleep safe and sound. Guaranteed."

She manages to avoid being shot (though the sniper did say he wanted to "save her for later"), and breaks out of the hotel room shooting at the opposite rooftop. The next issue opens with a car chase between Officer Lewis and the sniper, who is pursuing her doggedly while she is trying to call in Robocop for backup. After they crash their cars and Officer Lewis runs out of her three-bullets-a-day ration, they have a knife fight in the middle of the street, but not before Officer Lewis decides to open up her shirt, exposing her bra for no good reason other than that's apparently what a lot of teenage comic readers want to see.

"Showing how funky and strong is your fight! It doesn't matter who's wrong or right, just beat it!"

Lewis ends up killing the merc with her knife, but another one quickly picks up the chase. She manages to get away and ducks into a Donut Shop, where the mercenary rushes in after her, only to discover that's where pretty much all of Detroit's cops have been hanging out during the strike. Any good comedian knows that one of the most hilarious jokes you can make about cops is pointing out how much they love donuts, am I right guys??? Everyone loves that joke; it's original and fun!

All I know is, those cops have to be getting pretty damn cozy to get their guns all bunched together like that.

The local news is now airing the doctored footage of Robocop killing the police sergeant, and no one suspects that there's anything fishy with the footage despite it being filmed from a very close angle that Robocop obviously would have noticed and probably disposed of (or punched) the camera.

Then we see another one of those bizarre, random scenes that doesn't make any sense. A car thief is breaking into a very nice sports car, only to see Robocop walking by right after he's gotten into it. He ducks down into his seat, hoping that he hasn't been noticed, and much to his relief, Robocop walks by, apparently oblivious to his presence. Immediately after Robocop passes the car, the seatbelt buckles him in and an electronic voice says "You just jimmied the wrong lock, boy". Then the guy gets electrocuted and we see a smoldering corpse left in the seat, while Robocop looks on. We are left to wonder: did Robocop know that the car security system would kill him, so he just didn't bother? Or did Robocop really not notice the guy breaking into the car? In which case, is this scene supposed to show us that Robocop is inept, but that it doesn't matter because someone else will pick up his slack anyway?

For my car security device, I'll just stick with The Club, rather than the Electro Death Seat.

Meanwhile, Omni Consumer Products (OCP) decide to try out the whole Robocop 2 thing again with the unveiling of a new, improved version. This time, they introduce him by having him murder a subway station full of people. One guy even says "Ladies and gentlemen... may I present, Robocop 2!" right before he slaughters everyone.

Robocop 2 even has a red headlight on his "junk". Can you say that? No. No, you can't.

As Robocop 2 is killing everyone around him, the OCP guys start to worry about TV camera crews who might happen to film him slaughtering all these innocent people. Gee, maybe if they didn't want witnesses, they shouldn't have had his introductory act be the murdering of innocents in a crowded public place. After killing all these poor bastards, Robocop 2 smears the blood across his forehead in a ritualistic manner, and Robocop, who just happens to be in the subway station at the same time and witnesses this, realizes that Robocop 2 is that Kong guy who he dealt with before.

"Hrmm... there's something similar about these two images, but what? Oh, I know! Is it that they both have bad teeth?"

Robocop comes forward and says he "looks forward to a meaningful dialog" and says things like "relating" and "caring and sharing" while he shoots at Robocop 2 and the mercenaries, which makes me wonder if he's just being a smartass and his new programming isn't really having any effect at all. He is still able to shoot at the people whose side he's supposed to be on, after all, so apparently his new directive programming kind of sucks. After shooting at the mercenaries, Robocop comes face to face with Robocop 2, and he sees the distorted, insane face of Kong staring back at him through the face mask.

Ever since the brain injury resulting in his death, Kong couldn't resist pressing
his face against and licking any glass that was placed before him.

A long, drawn out fight ensues, with the action so muddled and confusing that it's often hard to tell what the hell is even going on. All I can tell is that after much fighting, Robocop 2 gets hit by a subway train, and the original Robocop falls a good distance and looks like one of his legs was torn off, but apparently that didn't happen, because he's later seen walking away.

"And for my next trick I will make my leg magically reappear!"

Seltz comes by and retrieves Robocop 2, who is somewhat damaged but it's nothing they can't fix. He picks up the remote control for Robocop 2 and hits the "happy" button to make him compliant and easy to transport.

I really think the "Happy" icon should have been a bunch of pills.

A severely damaged Robocop gets up and hobbles off, and then we see more random bits of television, including a bit where controversial talk show host Luke Spindle is shot by an angry viewer after defending Robocop, saying he was framed for murdering the police sergeant. Then we see an ad that's very relevant to the story, where an actor playing the President (or perhaps even the President -- in Miller's world, anything is possible) is selling hemorrhoid medication.

Happy Bun Suppositories has its share of naysayers, true.

Meanwhile, back at OCP, Dr. Love decides that they need to reformat Robocop 2's personality and put a more stable one in its place. They're just about to upload the new personality into him when suddenly an explosion shakes the building, knocking the personality disc to the floor.

"Oh ho, you think you are so clever, don't you, personality disc? Defying physics and gravity by doing your little loop-de-loop!"

We soon see that it's Robocop who has blasted a hole into the building, and he kills everyone in his path until he confronts Dr. Love face to face. Dr. Love comments that he must be in horrible pain, having violated his new directive programming to assault OCP and confront her. He threatens to kill her if she doesn't erase his program and release him from his new directives.

"Snake bite! To the back of the head. Yep. It's a clinger. Oh god!"

After his program gets erased, he collapses in a heap and Dr. Love tries to shoot him in the head, but her gun is out of bullets. Robocop, free at last from his stupid programming stands up and jacks into the OCP mainframe, putting up the schematics for Robocop 2 on the screen. Upon seeing this, he becomes enraged and smashes everything. Dr. Love shouts for him to stop, because that's the "only copy". Gee, you'd think that with something so important she would have at least made a backup, huh? She tries to stop him and Robocop slaps the shit out of her, knocking her back into the control panel where she catches on fire.

When you arrest as many pimps as Robocop has, you pick up a thing or two.

Seriously, she catches on fucking fire from being slammed into the control panel. And unlike the cop woman whose clothing simply burns off, leaving her flesh completely unscathed, this chick actually gets horribly burned and ends up scarred from it. Robocop tells her to "have a nice day" as he walks away, sealing her up in the burning room.

"Baby, you're my sunshine."

Dr. Love finds the personality disc for Robocop 2 and uploads it into his body just before the room explodes in a ball of fire. The new Robocop 2 bursts from the room and stands before Robocop, revealing itself to contain the personality of Dr. Love.

"Can you ignore the fact that I look retarded and just be intimidated, please?"

Robocop senses that he is outmatched and crashes through the window, landing on the street below where lots of Rehabilitation Concepts mercenaries are waiting for him. A short fight takes place before Robocop hops into a car and speeds off. Robocop 2 leaps from the window and gives chase, and employs her Go-Go-Gadget arms to reach out and grab the vehicle.

"Next time, Robocop! Next tiiiiiiime!"

Robocop uses the muddled, confusing artwork to his advantage, and gets away... somehow, surviving to fight again another day. We then cut back to the police station, where the cops have been galvanized back into active duty by the attack on Officer Lewis. They're gearing up to get back on the streets when they open the locker of a rookie that everyone notices is missing, and his corpse falls out of the locker, along with a grenade.

Hey, gang! Here's a fun practical joke you can play on your friends!

The grenade goes off, and as the survivors are taking stock of their situation, a voice starts talking over the loudspeaker, comparing the cops to the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. Since the original script was written in the late 80s and the comic adaptation was only written recently, I don't know if this bit was added before or after Frank Miller's 300 was written, but it should be obvious by now that Frank Miller has a raging erection for Spartans. A hard, throbbing, oiled-up and totally buff erection. On steroids.

Cop 1: "THIS IS SPARTA!"
Cop 2: "Uh, Frank? This is the police station."
Cop 1: "Oh, you're right. Sorry about that."

The cops inside realize they are completely surrounded by Rehabilitation Concepts as more of Officer Lewis's clothes fall off.

"You men hold tight while I just run through these flames real quick! I've got a few tattered bits of clothing left I need to deal with!"

Just as all hope seems lost, Robocop shows up to save the day. Officer Lewis puts some bubble gum in her mouth and blows a nice big bubble while Robocop tells her the position of all the mercenaries. The popping gum bubble is apparently the signal to attack, because as soon as it pops, Robocop and Lewis jump up and kill all those motherfuckers dead bang.

This is September on my 2008 "Babes & Bots" calendar.

All of them, except for Seltz, that is. They're about to blow him away when a helicopter shows up and starts firing at them. Robocop, not to be deterred, fires at the tail propeller and blows it off, sending the helicopter crashing to the ground below. Seltz however has used this distraction to take the service elevator to the top of the building being constructed nearby. Robocop grabs onto a cable hanging from the elevator and punches his way through the floor, when suddenly who should show up on the ground below but ROBOCOP 2! She tells Robocop that he never told her how good it felt to have so much power, and launches a rocket up into the elevator, blowing Seltz to bits but Robocop manages to get away. I think he jumps, but again, the artwork is difficult to interpret.

Hey, gang! Here's a fun practical joke you can play on your friends!

And thus we come to our final issue, which is pretty much one long, drawn out battle scene that's very difficult to understand, but I think they hit and/or shoot and/or hug each other a lot. Robocop 2 uses her Go-Go-Gadget arms again to pull herself up to the top of the building where she goes after Robocop... WITH A VENGEANCE! She starts shooting at Robocop, who targets her special grenade-launching hand and scores a direct hit, causing it to explode and blow off her whole arm. Notice a trend, here?

Okay, this whole arm blowing off thing? I was bored with it, like, six times ago.

She spouts off a combination of nonsense that consists of her own catchphrases along with some of Kong's, seemingly indicating that their personalities have somehow merged, despite Kong's supposedly being erased. She says something about "sharing and caring" and "relating", when Robocop says "Relate to this" and shoots her in the other arm, causing green shit that looks like snot to fly out and explode, damaging her severely. I have no idea what the green shit is, or why it blows up. I think it makes contact with some sparks and that's what blows it up, but it's really impossible to say looking at the art.

"Hey, is this blood, or oil, or -- oh hell, should I be concerned or not?"

She's not down for the count yet, however, for as she falls off the girder she's standing on, she reaches out a clawed hand and hangs on for dear life! Then, she zaps Robocop with some electricity, causing him to fall off the girder he's on. He reaches out a non-clawed hand and hangs on for dear life! My god, the parallels are amazing! It's like Miller is trying to say they're both the same because they're both robots or something! They both climb back up and "wrastle" around some more like robots will do, when Robocop says "now we both die" and tackles her off the girders. They both fall to the ground below while a still even more scantily-clad Lewis looks on in shock while preparing a rocket for firing.

"Sorry I'm late, I was just ripping off some more of my clothing!"

Both Robocops are lying in a pile of rubble, but just then Robocop 2 stands up, and this is where the really tense "final attack" music would be playing in the movie. But Officer Lewis is on the ball and blows away Robocop 2 without a second thought!

Some people hug to show affection. Others launch rockets.

Murphy is so overjoyed by this that he kisses Officer Lewis in what has to be one of the most awkward kisses of all time.

"Mmmph! Is... is your tongue spinning!??"

He tells Lewis goodbye, and she asks him where he's going. He turns back and says "that's up to me now, isn't it?" before walking off into the proverbial sunset. We then see a clip of the Luke Spindle show, where our host, now connected to life support machines, announces that some "faggots" out there are trying to say that Robocop is dead, but he knows that Robo is out there and he's "kicking OCP's butt"!

In our final scene we see that Robocop is staying with a bunch of homeless people, including the little girl he saved way back at the beginning. He overhears something on the police radio about how militant demolition squads have opened fire on some squatters. The little girl hears him stirring and wakes up, asking him what's the matter. "Trouble", he says, hopping into his battered police car and driving off into the same proverbial sunset he walked into before.

"Daddycop gotta go earn some bread. Supper better be on the table when
I get back, or you're under house arrest! Well, you know, if we had a house."

And there you have it, Robocop 2 the way it was meant to be! Having spent quite a lot of time with these comics over the past several days researching and writing this article, I can honestly say that it makes me want to watch the movie version of Robocop 2 again just so I can get the bad taste out of my mouth. Or prove to myself that the movie couldn't be worse than this. I remember disliking it, but could it really be this bad? Maybe not, but something tells me it can come pretty close.

Found any weird, bizarre, stupid or funny comics that
should appear in a future "Tales From the Longbox" column?
Email Protoclown and let him know!