RoboCop #1
Written by Rob Williams
Art by Fabiano Neves
Colors and Letters by Diogo Nascimento and Simon Bowland
Basically, Dynamite Entertainment has rolled up a non-Frank Miller-penned straight-up RoboCop comic that plays directly after the events of the first RoboCop film. So is it a retcon or prequel or a reboot? I have no idea. Especially since I personally enjoyed both RoboCop and RoboCop 2 (Kane is just too awesome as the drug-addled RoboCop 2 kill-machine).
But this — this comic could be fantastic; it just needs to evolve a little first.
Now let me explain, it has a lot of things going for it:
1) It’s based on the universe of the films, so it’s got all nods to the “I’d Buy That for a Dollar” Guy and the Miller-style Newsbreaks.
2) The writing is just totally in-tune with what you’d want in a RoboCop movie; right off the bat, you get both a fast-paced criminal pursuit and your standard OCP shenanigans.
3) When I say OCP shenanigans, I mean an army of (properly functioning) ED-209s controlled by the ruthless, hot librarian, newly minted replacement of Dick ‘Fell 70 Stories onto a Hail of Bullets’ Jones.
4) And of course the newly “jailbroken” Officer Alex ‘RoboCop’ Murphy pushing himself to the limit catching punks and saving civilians.
But it also has a couple of strikes against it. Namely, the artwork isn’t gelling too well — yet. While the covers are really well done, the interiors need some more attention. The pencils are good, but I feel the inks are overtaken by the overly dark and saturated colors.
As I’ve mentioned above, people who loved the initial film will most likely dig the book. It picks up where RoboCop left off, but that leaves fans of the second and, dare I say, third films in the dark not knowing whether this is going down before those two or replacing that continuity entirely, which is another issue.
Overall, I feel this is a good beginning for Dynamite’s take on Old Detroit’s Walking-Talking-Shooting avatar of justice, but RoboCop could use a bit of polish in the color department.
I give this first issue 3 out of 5 Feisty Corporate Babes.
Filed Under: Dynamite Entertainment • Reviews
I was intrigued by this, then picked it up and saw the art and veered away. From what I saw, the characters looked too posed. There didn’t seem to be any flow or motion.
Like I said art does need some polish, but for me the writing is really solid. But your statement about being steered away by the art is what made me bring it up the in the first place, new readers are gonna get turned off I’m hoping this was a rush job to get the book out before the remake hits theaters and not what to expect next month.
I JUST watched a little bit of Robocop 2 on TV. The original Robocop is one of my favorite movies of all time. I’ve had a difficult time reading the Frank Miller book, so I might check this out. Especially if they cross over with The Boy! “Billy Butcher….Dead or Alive, you’re coming with me.”
Robocop versus The Boys… now that would be the shit. Seriously.